Tweet fast, print slow

We were invited to do a talk at the Integrated conference in deSingel in Antwerp. That's the biennial art & design conference organised by Sint Lucas School of Arts Antwerp. 

Oh boy! Almost 1000 people in the audience! But we made it.

Apart from our talk, we also moved a Vandercook proofing press from our studio to the hallway of deSingel, to print a massive amount of posters during those two days. That's actually 10 hours of printing a day, 20 hours in total. We didn't get to see any of the other talks ourselves, but were kept up to date by a lot of people. A lot.

We try to combine our old presses with contemporary technologies and insights. On this occasion, we wanted to touch the contrast between the slow printing technique and more transient new social media. This hybrid approach is exactly up Integrated's alley.

The audience was asked to live-tweet their favourite quotes of the speakers on stage, with the hashtag #integratedconf15. We checked which quotes were popular, and set those in wood type. So, the first day, we printed 8 quotes in blue. At the end of the day, people were recalling the talks, by looking at the posters.

But it didn't stop there.

The second day, we put red ink on our press. New quotes were selected, and these got printed over the blue ones. But not just in random or chronological order.

We combined quotes of the two days to get interesting or hilarious combinations, or to get a conversation going.

The results were really nice. Everything fitted right together.
Of course, to understand some of the posters, you need to know the content of the talks. But we think you get the point.

But most of all, we succeeded in building a bridge between the analog and the digital. We engaged the audience in a bigger project, making links between the speakers and their subjects.  Isn't that what Integrated is about?

Thanks Integrated Conference and Sint Lucas for having us, we had an amazing time! Also thanks to all the people tweeting and sending messages. This project could never work without you.

Now, back to that pixel... where were we? ...