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Pete Barr-Watson: Net Vision/Net Excellence Jury Member

What is the focus of your work at Pixelfury, your own company?

Barr-Watson: The focus of our projects mainly lies in the innovative use of the web as a means of communication. Whether that be for commercial projects or charities trying to fundraise. We utilise Flash for a lot of our work because of the type of creativity it allows us. Growing up in the 80's C64 demo scene has inspired us to tinker and play with our designs, always trying to do something new and amazing. The community surrounding it is also a real incentive for us, it's like nothing before ...

One important aspect in your work are games. You have been working in this direction for EMI Music and FlashOff.

Barr-Watson: We have been developing games for the web since 1998 now. Games are a very good way of reaching people and entertaining them. And, let's face it, everyone likes to be entertained right? Part of the reason for our enthusiasm about web games is - Flash! It allows us to create gaming environments that engage and entertain our audience. My son (8) is games mad, watching him interact with game interfaces is fascinating for me and I've learned a lot just by watching him and his friends play on the PS2 etc. We have moved into producing Flash based games for Mobile devices and iTV set top boxes now as well. More Pixelfury madness is probably coming your way!

You have done TV ads using Flash animation. Why this cross-media approach?

Barr-Watson: Flash is an amazing tool for creating motion graphics. It is an easy environment to work in and has some of the best drawing tools out there. Compared to more traditional models for creating TV graphics and animations, Flash has a very definite advantage: purchase cost is low, anyone can learn it and it covers many different media like TV, web and mobile devices. Using the processes I developed for taking Flash animations to broadcast quality video enables TV companies to produce good looking, well animated tv graphics quickly and cheaply. As time goes on I think you will see more and more companies taking this approach with Flash and you'll see it's output on many different channels of distribution.

Most of the projects you have been developing are very youth-oriented. How do you manage to stay in touch with what's in?

Barr-Watson: Because we're young too! We live and operate from Brighton in the UK. It's a very young town and heavily cultured. That helps a great deal. But also because of what we do. The very nature of our industry is young and still fresh. It's a heavily overused phrase, but this really is a Brave New World. Every day I read about or see someone doing something new and innovative, pushing creativity or technology where we haven't seen it going before. It's not hard to stay in touch with the youth scene when you respect that age group for what they are achieving too - kids aren't kids today in the older sense of the word. They're smarter, more realistic than a lot of adults I've come across in my time.

What is the hottest project for you personally in the moment?

Barr-Watson: The hottest project that Pixelfury is working on at the moment is a new Flash site for EMI Music. It's going to be one of the first sites to be created in the new version of the Flash tool, Flash MX, and takes advantage of the new technology as much as possible. Macromedia are working with us to help promote it and because of that, there are a lot of people watching the project with interest. It's gonna be big! (I hope!)

You have been on the Jury of the category Net Vision / net Excellence last year. What was your personal impression of the entered projects? What did you miss and what hope you to see this year?

Barr-Watson: I thought the standard of entries last year was very high. And I'm looking forward to seeing the entered projects for this year with anticipation. I think the profile of the last year's Golden Nica winners, Praystation and TeamChmann, will attract a lot of creative talent to the Prix Ars Electronica this year. I'm hoping to see some really innovative arts projects that make the most of the technology but go beyond it, making it (the tech) irrelevant. I'm also hoping to see some cutting edge projects that use the technology to reach an audience that might otherwise have missed out on seeing this kind of creative work.




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