It’s the year two-thousand and fifteen, there are adults who don’t remember a world pre-internet. Me? I remember Apple Macs before they were cool. I remember CompuServe and being online before WWW, postage stamp-sized GIFs loading one line of pixels at a time. The internet came of age when your mum started doing her shopping ‘on the web’. And online publishing? Still a brave new frontier to some crusty old suits, but tell that to the folk at Buzzfeed as they count their millions. There’s little new about the ‘net any longer, this is the establishment — this is the Internet Age.
But what of the niche ecosystem to which we belong? Culture and arts; fashion; cutting-edge music and the brands and influencers that exist amongst their overlaps. We Heart has been knocking around in one form or another for seven years or so, other similar online publications have already surpassed the decade marker — but what ties us together? What do publishers; brands; schools; agencies and companies do for each other outside the odd retweet?
The ladies and gentlemen at iF /imperfect FUTURE/ are dreaming of a creative utopia where publications like ours can work together with like-minded individuals; brands; institutions. Formulating a series of initiatives over the next three years, their sights are set on “learning by doing” — on uniting creative thinkers and doers, encouraging collaboration, helping to evolve side-projects. Gathering over 300 people from the world’s cultural capitals (Berlin, London, Melbourne, São Paulo, New York…) and dropping them in Barcelona — a progressive axis of tech-culture and booming creativity — iF /imperfect FUTURE/’s Internet Age Media Weekend is the starting point for a movement dedicated to shaping better futures for our niche, our collective creative ecosystem.
Workshops; installations; panels; screenings; talks. Appearances from inspirational voices in our community — names that inspire: Booooooom.com, It’s Nice That, NOWNESS, Intern Magazine, Hyper Island, Vimeo, Vice, Taschen. From 20—22 March, IAM will turn the Catalan capital into a whirring, crackling field of creative force — and you can still be a part of it. As Barcelona residents, and media partners of the Internet Age Media Weekend, you can get 100€ off the price of your weekend tickets by using our exclusive discount code: W3H34RT1S1N. Join us in celebrating the cultural corner of the internet’s underbelly, and in shaping our shared futures.
