It’s a truth universally acknowledged by scientists and philosophers alike that the sandwich represents the peak of human innovation. We can all of us only try to create something that good. But whether you’re an artist, a scientist or a tech-head, you can learn something from the humble sandwich. Because just as you can’t make a sanger without bread and butter, you need certain basic skills before you can bring your genius vision to life.

Here at The Edge we’d love to be the kitchen where you make your game-changing sandwich. That’s why we’re very excited about bringing you a new series of workshops. “Bread and Butter” are your digital basics. They’re an introduction to the software, gear, techniques or skills you need to create your masterpiece.

So we wanna know – what do you wanna learn? What’s your take on the basics? What do you need to know about so you can kick your creativity into high-gear?

We’ve got some ideas to get the ball rolling. Head to our Facebook page to vote now for what you think should be part of the Bread and Butter Digital Skills program – and add your thoughts. Here are our ideas so far:

• Music recording
• Video Editing 101
• Animation Basics
• Writing for your audience – blogs
• Graphic Design 101
• Introduction to Photography
• Basic app creation
• Programming with Ruby On Rails
• Processing
• Building a website with WordPress
• Basic electronics and hardware hacking
• Introduction to Data Visualisation

• The Edge Garden
• DIY Sustainable Power

What other Bread & Butter skills would you like to learn? While we won’t be able to accommodate every request, your input is really important to make these workshops relevant.  Vote and add your suggestions on our Facebook page, or below in the comments.

The Lock-in
9.00am Saturday May 28 – 9.00am Sunday May 29, 2011
Where: The Edge
Cost: Free (including food)
Bookings: book.it@edgeqld.org.au (individuals and teams)

Program:
Saturday May 28
9.00am Registration
9.30am Intro to the points system
10.00am Libraryhack overview
10.30am Librarian expert briefings – picture QLD, Music QLD, Convict Records
11.45am Brainstorming in groups, lunch available
12.30pm Google Enterprise Solutions Engineer Shyam Govardhan on App Engine and Fusion Tables
1.15pm  Microsoft Web Evangelist Jorke Odolphi on cloud computing
2.00pm Shyam and Jorke talk to groups
3.00pm Suburban Trends’ Michael Henderson presents his winning mashup from Mashup Australia 2009
3.30pm Neal Fitzgerald QLD maps and XML data use
4.00pm Zac Fitzwalter talks about gamification
4.30pm Group work & afternoon tea
5.30pm YouTube and TED films (latest time to join the Lock In)
6.30pm Xbox, Rock Band… Dinner available
7.30pm onwards – more games, competitions, and group time

Sunday May 29
8.00am Presentations and points scoring… winners announced

Are you up for the whole Lock-In?
Register individually or as a team of up to six: book.it@edgeqld.org.au
Under 18? Click here for some things to be aware of.

If you’d prefer to just check out one or two of the sessions, that’s cool too. Still email book.it@edgeqld.org.au and just be clear about what you’d like to attend.

“Hack & Mash” basic data-hack workshop
12.30-5.00pm, Sunday May 15, 2011
Who: Dave Wallace
Where: The Edge
Cost: FREE
Bookings: book.it@edgeqld.org.au

A basic data-mash workshop explaining online programs (eg Yahoo Pipes) you can use to mash together data-sets from the State Library of Queensland and beyond. This workshop will also help you prepare your data to create a beautiful data visualisation like those recently presented by Colleen Morgan.

“Hack & Mash 2″ data-hack workshop
12.30-5.30pm, Sunday May 22, 2011
Who: Dave Wallace
Where: The Edge
Cost: FREE
Bookings: book.it@edgeqld.org.au

Take your ideas an extra step further with this intermediate workshop.

Both workshops will be an excellent start if you’re thinking about entering the Libraryhack competition. And why wouldn’t you, when you could win up to $6000 or an iPad2?! Not to mention the unique thrill of dragging data and resources (including photographs, music scores, maps and more) from the dusty library archives into this shiny, new digital age. Think of it as your chance to leave your own spin on the history books…

Check out some of Dave’s work here – he’s mashed up feeds of news and content on the Japan disaster, juxtaposing international reporting and video with personal stories.

Sunday May 29, 1-3pm
The Edge
Free, bookings required (email book.it@edgeqld.org.au)

Digital Poetry is a wondrous new literary form where writers and artists use technology to create, complement or rethink their prose. Creators develop new works in a broad range of technologies from video poems, to twitter writings, to complex poetry games, to map-based and multimedia creations.

This workshop will help you get your head around digital poetry, and get you rethinking your writing in interactive and multimedia ways. Draw on library resources – datasets, photography archives and other collections – for inspiration, and mash up some basic digital poems. You might work with a simple interface like Twitter or Google Maps to digitise your poetry. Or, if you’ve got more technical skillz you could plot larger, more dynamic digital poems with the goal of entering the Libraryhack competition.

Join Jason Nelson, Lecturer of Digital Art and Writing at Griffith University, for some brain-stretching workshops. Explore new ways of writing that cross electronic boundaries within the context of the Libraryhack Project.

Check out some Libraryhack experiments Jason has made which combine images and data from the library’s collection with digital poetry:

http://www.secrettechnology.com/libraryhack/mash1.html
http://www.secrettechnology.com/libraryhack/mash2.html

Jason will also be taking the workshop to regional communities in Queensland throughout May:

Jason Nelson Digital Media Mash Tour

LAIDLEY
1.30-4.00pm, Saturday April 30, 2011
Who: Jason Nelson
Where: Laidley Library
Cost: FREE
Bookings: Locker Valley Libraries 07 5466 8849

GATTON
5.00-7.30pm, Saturday April 30, 2011
Who: Jason Nelson
Where: Gatton Library
Cost: FREE
Bookings: Locker Valley Libraries 07 5466 8849

NORTH LAKES
10.00am-12.00pm, Saturday May 7, 2011
Who: Jason Nelson
Where: North Lakes Library
Cost: FREE
Bookings: North Lakes Library 07 3840 9920

NERANG
3.30-5.30pm, Friday May 13, 2011
Who: Jason Nelson
Where: Nerang Library
Cost: FREE
Bookings: Nerang Library 07 55817180

MAROOCHYDORE
2.00-4.00pm, Friday May 20, 2011
Who: Jason Nelson
Where: Maroochydore Library
Cost: FREE
Bookings: Maroochydore Library 07 5475 8900

April 19, 20 & 21, 4-7.30pm
The Edge, Lab 1
Bookings required (email giordana@4zzzfm.org.au)

4ZZZ is going digital and they want you to get involved! The community radio station’s Zed Digital will be officially launched in May 2011, opening up roles for new program-makers who are passionate about music and counter-culture.

If you’re interested in contributing, you’ll first need a primer in the basics of being a Zed-head. Lucky for you, 4ZZZ are running workshops at The Edge that do just that.

The Get Digital on the Radio workshops at The Edge will introduce the Zed Digital policy, show you how to get a program aired on the channel and give them the skills to start producing their very own program.

Anyone with a passion for media can apply. The Get Digital on the Radio workshops are filling fast, so to secure a space please email giordana@4zzzfm.org.au.

I am currently being tagged as ‘the wearables person’ here at The Edge.  It’s true I do have a passion for wearable electronics and am looking forward to kicking off some activities that combine fashion and electronics.  I was first inspired to explore the world of wearables after hearing about ANAT’s ReSkin Emerging Technologies Lab back in 2007 and I am a big fan of self-titled fashion nerd, Diana Eng.  Check out her fairytale fashion show for some inspiration. If wearables sound like your cup of tea, please give me a shout, I’d love to share and help you out however I can.

However my interests include all sorts of wonderful things.  I love games that mess with the virtual and the real.  These are often called Alternate Reality Games (ARG’s) and one of my favourites is Year Zero a game made by 42 Entertainment to launch the Nine Inch Nails album of the same name.  Players found USB sticks in bathrooms, hidden messages revealed when the thermochrome CD was heated and made phone calls to the United States Bureau of Morality. I have worked a number of iterations of an ARG called SCOOT where players must beat dodgy carnies at their own games to save our world!  I also have a soft-spot for interactive urban art and data mashups.

Something else you should know about me; I grew up in Darwin NT and therefore love big storms and mangoes, but still manage to complain when it gets hot in Brisbane.

I will be floating around The Edge for the next six months and I’m here to have fun with you so if you see me don’t be shy, please say hi.

Here is a taste of things to come at International Animation Day this weekend, the 30th of October.

These are entries for the digital art competition, with a brief to submit a digital art piece with the theme ‘when I grow up’.

Which one do you think will be judged by Peter Viska as the best?

Come along and explore the possibilities of working with digital video and sound. In this workshop we will produce and re-mix an audiovisual collage from scratch.

Learn skills in filming, editing, sound production, VJing and animation and become a super-star-audiovisual-ninja-attack-robot. No experience necessary.

Virion is a screen-based digital art exhibition with works being played at variety of sites around Brisbane—including The Edge—until 1 August 2010.

Each screen around town will play a compilation of diverse images and video that represent a wide and integrated range of local and international art practices and styles.

Screens are located across a range of public, gallery and institutional sites to offer unique viewing experiences and to maximise and diversify Brisbane audiences’ exposure to new media practices.

There will be a workshop at The Edge, where people bring their own content to remix on Sunday 25 July 2010.

Participants are invited to bring their own content (past and current work, works in progress etc.) in digital format (digital photographs, scans, digital sound, video) for the purpose of contributing and collaborating in a group work. During the course of the workshop ideas of collaboration and ‘mashing’ will be explored.

Participants will work in small groups, combining their raw material into a new collaborative mash-up that can then be uploaded and exhibited as part of Virion. The focus of the workshop is to explore the potential of digital and new media technologies for the process of innovative collaboration, and to also link to online exhibition practices.

See Virion’s terms of use on their site.

On Monday 21 June, The Edge will be one of many, many spaces around Brisbane opening up it’s doors to amateur and hobbyist musicians for Fete De La Musique.
Don’t speak French? Fête de la Musique is the largest international live music event in the world, held in 350 cities across the globe on the very same day each year – June 21 – in accordance with an International Charter developed by the French Government in 1982.
This year The Edge has a line-up of some Brisbane’s best digital musicians (and one of Perth’s also). Check out this line-up:

2:00 pm – M Rosner (Perth)
2:30 pm – Ambrose Chapel
3:00 pm – Hologram Carver
3:30 pm – (Intermission)
4:00 pm – Citizen Loud
4:30 pm – Grids/Units/Planes
5:00 pm – HistoriOnyx

+ Visuals and friendly atmosphere.

All completely free of charge.

People are always breaking the news to us at The Edge that there is a project similar to The Edge happening somewhere. (We’re also often told about projects with ‘the edge’ in their name but that’s fairly expectable; just ask Google.)

People are often concerned for us that there are other projects exploring digital culture, because they might steal The Edge’s ideas or market share or kudos.

The truth is, The Edge, as lots of people have commented, is a spectacularly timely project. It’s exactly what people want and need, not just in Brisbane or Queensland or Australia, but all over the world.

And there are visionaries everywhere who are putting together innovative cultural projects.

One of these is Melbourne’s Signal. It’s an arts centre especially for 13 to 20 year olds built in an old signal box—it used to signal trains in and out of Flinders Street Station—in the middle of Melbourne. It’s got a fair focus on digitality, just because a lot of creativity is happening through digital channels at the moment.

Signal’s Director Simon Spain came to The Edge the other day to chat with our Director David. Signal is doing some really exciting work and we’ll hopefully be teaming up on projects in the future.

Other digitally oriented centres around the world worth checking out are Eyebeam in NYC, Digicel in PNG, the Banff Centre in Canada, and the Broken Hill Art Exchange in NSW.

There’s also Jamaica’s The Container Project and iStreet Lab by The Edge’s first international Resident mervin Jarman who will be in Brisbane in a couple of weeks.

He’ll be working with us, Human Ventures, QPASTT, d/lux Media Arts and others on projects engaging recent refugees and at-risk young people.

12pm–6pm Saturday 10 July 2010
Who: Kate Eltham, Queensland Writers Centre and if: book Australia
Cost: $30 / $50
Bookings: www.qwc.asn.au or 07 3842 9922

E-books, digital rights, online platforms… authors need to understand the changes happening in book publishing and media to be successful in the digital age.

This workshop will deliver essential knowledge about digital publishing and helps writers take control of their opportunities.

In partnership with Queensland Writers Centre and if:book Australia

The digital age is often touted as being greener than the days of typewriters and faxes because it’s reduced the amount of paper we use.

Being ‘green’, of course, is much more complicated than using less paper.

Mobile phones and computers are made of plastics and metals. Plastics are extremely toxic to the environment. When they’re thrown away, mobiles and computers become toxic chemical waste because these materials. Their batteries are seriously toxic too.

Nickel is an essential ingredient in mobiles and laptops, and is highly sought after for its versatility, especially for its use in alloys like stainless steel. We get it from strip mines, the kind where you dig out hectares of land to get to the riches underneath. Then there’s the energy use in the mining to take into account, not to mention the refining process

There are a few ways to purify nickel ore to get the metal to a useable state, but all of them involve high temperatures for roasting the ore and release gases into the atmosphere.

(Nickel isn’t the worst though; that upside down crown goes to aluminium which needs to be fired at about 2000°C to extract the metal.)

While we’re on energy use, electronic devices aren’t the best. It takes energy to manufacture them, and once they’re in use, it takes energy to use them. Until someone invents a battery that lasts for years (sounds nuclear to me) we’ll all be plugging our junk into the carbon economy.

And then there’s the disposability of devices. Most mobile and laptop users get new ones everyone two or three years. That means half or a third of adults in the developed world are throwing away a phone and a computer every year. That’s a whole lot of toxic waste that could be leaking into our drinking water.

The digital age isn’t looking so green anymore.

Until this week when Acer brought out its new Aspire laptops that are completely free of environmental baddies PVCs (polyvinyl chloride) and BFRs (brominated flame retardants.

The green laptop market seems to be small but growing as more people become environmentally conscious. Disappointingly for Apple evangelists, Macs are the least eco-friendly according to Greenpeace, and the highest rated is Lenovo (of ThinkPad fame) with brick manufacturer Dell hovering in the top five for the last few years.

For mobile makers, Nokia of the ubiquitous charger has been top of Greenpeace’s list for years, and Sharp, LG, Samsung and others all have solar powered phones on offer.

The present is kind of bleak but the big guns seem to be taking greening the digital world seriously. I’m not quite sure whether to be encouraged or really worried. What do you think?