SXSW at 75
It’s 38. I’m 75
I am not the target demographic of SXSW. I was once but I didn’t attend in the early years so I won’t be writing a then-and-now piece. Just a brief look back at my recent experience, now that none of it matters to me like it used to.
Oddly enough, I had a reason to be there, multiple reasons.
I’m in the perfect position with an organization that officially launched at this year’s extravaganza — I was welcome at everything but nothing depended on me. It sounds good and it was, but it also takes some getting used to.
I made things happen, or helped make things happen, for decades. Daily things, weekly things, monthly things. Annual things. Now I’m semi-old and post-career and it’s not my make-things-happen time of life so much any more.
Now I am fortunate to be even a peripheral participant, to be affiliated with a cool org at all. To see what a launch is like in 2024, having started a small 501c3 non-profit with my friends back in 1972. There were parties and panels, press and presentations, but I wouldn’t have left my comfort zone and flown to Texas for that alone.
I knew I was going when our son told me he’d be there with his company and could free up a day. His team was all together in an AirBnb, which I visited and met the people he works with. I also dropped by their place at SXSW and saw my son’s boss talking about the VR community I’m a part of.
Later on, we did have most of a day together, things flowing easily between us. At the end, I took a Lyft back to an old friend’s house where I was staying in Austin. He’s a college friend and I enjoyed going with him to his favorite breakfast taco place and a lot more, a perfect third layer for the visit.
Favorite Things I Saw at SXSW
The Rez Dogs Panel: I loved this series on FX/Hulu and I loved this panel. Sterlin Harjo set the tone by speaking like a human being from the get-go. Devery Jacobs (Elora) was full of emotion when she talked about the production wrapping up quickly and said maybe everyone needed some more saying-goodbye time. Also, she is a calm and quiet powerhouse, with projects going on in every medium.
The K*METAVERSE, at the Creative Industries Expo: The Government of South Korea supports spatial media development with direct funding as well as an ambitious metropolitan services project named, Metaverse Seoul. At SXSW, Korean enterprises occupied four complete rows of exhibits, all draped and branded as a group. There were apps for travel, healthcare, and preserving your grandparents as avatars before it’s too late.
Tripp Panel: Tripp is a meditation app. I want the company to be successful because the benefits of meditation are well known — if Tripp is doing well, we are all doing better. The Tripp panel I attended featured CEO Nanea Reeves and a small group of people discussing social and mental health possibilities in virtual worlds. She mentioned Tripp VR events focused on death and loss — the events I host or co-host with my friend Ryan Astheimer.
Community Death Care: I looked forward to this panel more than any other. As a long-time fan of mortality, I was a little disappointed to learn that the term, Community Death Care refers primarily to what happens after dying — bodies, funerals, mourning. Green Burial is a movement. Composting has good possibilities. Cremation is very popular but energy intensive. This panel represented the second time Death was on the SXSW Menu. I believe that a broader and more interactive presence would be well-received.
Traces: I know how much it means to be heard and to hear other people describing what they’re feeling. I know we can help each other get our balance back when we lose it. However, every single immersive app I tried at SXSW was designed as a single-user experience — with the exception of Traces, which is specifically about grief. Traces can accommodate four people at a time. I’d like the option of having more, but four isn’t a bad start. It plays as a journey, along a path. Also not a bad start, as long as there are plenty of degrees of freedom.
Agog Launch: For me, the launch was when now-CEO Chip Giller began wondering about a new medium, new channels for reaching people. I talked with him about what I found and am still finding today in social VR. He brought his wife to a Street Art event I hosted about love, on Valentine’s Day, 2023. Later we pulled off some now-for-the-first-time-ever gigs that were all just steps along the way to a lively, formal Launch at the Rules & Regs, a roof top bar on the seventh floor of the Fairmont Hotel. Chip got up and said very nicely that Agog wanted to support creative people and change the world. I hung out with Thomas from Austria and Carlos from Austin, the world’s best spatial videographer. Carlos and I had goosebumps when we realized Gene Youngblood’s immortal, “Expanded Cinema,” changed both our lives a long time ago.
Favorite Things I Saw in My Brief Time Austin
Thanks to my friend Ben, I had three breakfasts at Veracruz All Natural Tacos. Ben is a very discerning person and while I cannot say I have sampled Top Tacos around the world, now I may not have to. I’ll just come back to Austin and work my way through the Veracruz menu.
Also thanks to Ben, I started three of my days there with some Austin walking unrelated to SXSW. Barton Springs is a well-known swimming hole, next to Lady Bird Lake. Waller Creek below 15th Street shows how a little stream can add some life to a section of the city and create a nice place to stroll. I loved the layout of the new Library and the way I could see from the roof how downtown Austin had sprouted.
My wife and I raised two children and our house was unusually open to other kids when they were all growing up. It’s a great joy to me seeing them in their forties now, recognizable and surprising at the same time. That’s why my best meal in Austin by far was consumed at Terry Black’s Barbecue on Barton Spring’s Road, where our old friend Adam gave forth on Stormtroopers, BBQ and all things Austin. The Brisket broke when you held it vertically.
The E-Assist Pedicabs were hanging around at the Convention Center all the time and one day it was warm enough for me to give one a try. As I sat down, the driver asked, “what music would you like?” I said, “Dead.” In about three seconds, I was listening to, “Friend of the Devil” blasting out of a large speaker in front of me as we moved through Austin.
Tom Nickel writes about new media technologies and other topics he has little if any standing to write about.
His work has not appeared in The New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, The New Republic, the New England Journal of Medicine, or anything New at all.
Tom holds a Black Belt in Learning and is active in both physical and extended realities (XR). He also writes some, more here.
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