Oops … seems the exit train station is Oeiras. Google Maps, don’t be evil.

Fired up and ready to OFFF ? If you’re packing your stuff and looking for a way around Lisbon, look no further. Here’s a snack size post with all you need to know to enjoy your time in Lisbon and find your way to the festival.

Lisbon

The city of seven hills, the Frisco of Europe, with the yellow trams and the iconic bridge, it’s asking you to be discovered with their hospitality and unforgettable gastronomy (try the fish).
Start at St Jorge’s Castle and go downhill to Alfama’s historic district, or explore Belem and the two World Heritage buildings: Jeronimo’s Monastery and Belem’s Tower.

Photo by Pedro Moura Pinheiro

When you’re done with monuments, get ready for a bit of shopping at the commercial district near Restauradores and take a ride on Santa Justa Lift to Carmo, one of the landmarks of Abril’s peaceful revolution. You can then rest for a while at Brasileira or walk a bit further to see the sunset at Graça. Now ready for the nightlife, head to Bairro Alto district, where you can eat on the more traditional Fado houses or have a go at the several ethnic restaurants, getting strengths for the non-stop movida (well, until 3am at least). For those still standing, time for a few clubs at Cais do Sodré or dance until the day dawns at Lux.

If you’re looking where to stay, there’s plenty to choose from, with accommodation for all budgets, starting with Hotel Açores to the hostels of 2 close friends: Lisbon Calling and Albergo Odisseo (I did the website of the last one a few years ago :). You could try any of these, and even if all booked, they’ll point you other good choices.

How to get there

Now that you got acquainted with Lisbon and the hangover from last night at Bairro Alto is long gone, time to OFFF.
The easiest way is by subway taking the green line all the way to the end (even if you’re commuting from the blue line), reaching Cais do Sodré station.

Photo by ghostboy

Get to the street level and buy a ticket to Oeiras, on the train leaving to Cascais (PDF timetable).
Now don’t you get distracted with the seaside scenery and forget to get out on time.

If you’re driving there, take N6 (Avenida Marginal) and exit in Oeiras (at the right side of the beach). On the roundabout a few meters ahead turn left and then right all the way up to Fundição de Oeiras, right across the train station.

View OFFF 2009 / Oeiras.Portugal in a larger map

Hope to meet you there on Thursday.

While browsing the One Show finalists yesterday, i came upon one Portuguese nominee that further explores the bridge between offline and online: Museu Efémero (Epheral Musuem).

The online museum, sponsored by Pampero Fundación (a rum brand) and created by Leo Burnett Portugal, curates ephemeral art spread across one of the most iconic Lisbon districts, Bairro Alto. From street graffiti to installations, the changing nature of daily art is preserved online, where you download the map with the locations along with the supporting podcast. Then head to the uphill streets of Lisbon with your mp3 player and get an inside perspective about the works and artists.

(Watch the video case below)

Being Bairro Alto famously know for their bohemian nights, it’s a great way for the brand to create awareness (they’ve just entered the market) among the hip trendsetters on a non-intrusive and creative way. The Epheral Museum is now covering other places in Lisbon and is expected to expand to other cities in the world.

You can also follow the project @museuefemero and Facebook.

Last week i was fully immersed at Shift08, the Lisbon conference on Social and Human Ideas for Technology. First, let me thank the readers who bought the ticket with my promo code, as it awarded me with a golden ticket (full refund). Awesome #1.

The first day was full of FREE workshops, with a guerrilla usability workshop by Andy Budd involving wine tasting, courtesy of Cortes de Cima and Adegga. Awesome #2.

On Thursday, the sessions started with a massive amount were to choose from. As far as i could find out on the coffe breaks, highlights were Julian Bleecker’s Design Fiction and Mark Wuben’s Home Made Ubiquitous Computing (today i’ve realized he’s also the co-author of always useful sIFR). I really enjoyed the session on Designing with common sense, by the folks of AllOfUs. Even more after i had the chance of having a great talk at lunch with Nick and Sandy. Andy Budd closed the day with a great presentation on User Experience, an appetizer for the last day main theme. Awesome #3.

Friday started with another great session by Brian Suda about semantic web and microformats, and the morning ended with our own robotic curator Leonel Moura discussing Artificial Creativity. The afternoon had the most expected sessions with Stowe Boyd and Tara Hunt focusing on social flow and social capital. Awesome #4.

If you couldn’t attend (shame on you), grab the presentations, now highlighted on Slideshare.net homepage as Shift08. Awesome #5.

And did i mentioned that it was a great chance to meet a lot of interesting people, from all over Europe, and start a true Shift movement? Awesome #6.

If further prove is needed how awesome it was, check the video testimonials below:

Loved it in 2006, 2008 was awesome, can’t wait for 2009. A big thanks to all of Shift’s team. Awesome.

New media festivals are usually promising, with lots of great performances and exhibitions, and yet, they do a lousy job of promoting themselves on the web. That’s what probably happened to UM, the International Festival for Experimental and Mixed Media, taking place in Lisbon, that has almost no reference in Google. Come on, is it that hard to announce the event on Upcoming.org or Rhizome ?

Of course i’m not happy about as the even occurs while i’m out. AdobeAS3Tour with Colin Moock is taking place next Monday, and no way i’ll miss a weekend break in Milan for a badly announced event. For those interested, here’s a small selection:

2008 Programme

Lisbon, 19 – 22 June 2008

Exhibition

• 
  Conscious Space, Sonia Cillari, NL

• 

  Tape Loop, André Gonçalves, PT

• 

  Crackle Canvas, Tom Verbruggen, NL

• 

  Patchery, Laetitia Morais, PT

• 

  Come and See the View, Kathy Hinde, UK

• 

  Delicate Boundaries, Chris Sugrue, US

Performances

• 

  Andy Moor, NL

• 

  A Cable Plays, Chris Surgue, US and Damian Stewart, NZ/PT

• 

  N.I.P. collective, UK/NL/PT

• 

  BOP, UK

• 

  Goodiepal, FO/UK

• 

  Rudolfo Quintas, PT

• 

  Turntable Reconstructions, DJ Sniff, US/NL

• 

  TokTek, NL

Workshops

• 

  Wearin’ it – DIY wearable workshop, André Gonçalves, PT

• 

  Wii Undressed, Frank Balde/STEIM, NL

• 

  Build your own electronic noise machine, Tom Bugs, UK

• 

  Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra, Goodiepal, (FO/UK)

Enjoy.

P.S.:
Any reader suggestions for this weekend in Milan are welcome.

Ever wanted to find out what’s the magic in Twitter? Curious to know how your followers look like? And most important, are you in Lisbon?
Then come and meet the tweeple at Twiitlis, a Lisbon meeting where every Twitter user (except Blaine Cook) can join.

Illustration by me :)

The tweetup takes place this Wednesday at 7:00 pm, right downtown at the HardRock Cafe, just in case we have beer scalability issues.

Downtime is no excuse to miss it.

Olá ! (hello in Portuguese). We’re all set for the last day and it’s been great.
Check this flickr set from Pedro Sousa to get a feeling.

12:00

Entering the afternoon with several directors from Boolab, a motion studio, and an almost oficial partner of Psyop.

13:00

Adobe misses their talk. Missing evangelizing opportunities like this one brings no good karma. Chris, of Crashmedia, Canada, is filling their shoes.

14:00

Oh great, porn ! The Shai project, with compliments by Agence7seven.

16:30

Onesize, Gmunk and Minivegas answer how creativity and technology shape motion graphics. Minivegas showed a impressive software to create generative station ID’s, based on live footage. And also, more penis.

Gmunk debunks motion-fx houses, claiming they don’t know shit about design. The discussion goes into the domain of pushing interactivity (live data, user input) into motion graphics.

18:00

Group 94 is now on stage with a behind-the-scenes of their web design work. They applied a panorama transition of Jeronimos Monastery to their Nokia project.

Awesome.

19:00

Devoid of yesterday premieres the event titles. Lots of fish. I’ll post it as soon as it’s available.

20:30

Fallon talking about the power of ideas.

Ideas are leaps of imagination … with commercial consequences.

Of course they showed Cadbury’s gorilla. Which is just a stunt by a production company (Glass and a half full) whose goal is to deliver joy.
Digital makes ideas more useful and involving.

Ok. we’re done. As the conference organizers just confirmed, see you next year at OFFF 2009 Lisbon !

Hello everyone !

12:00-12:30

50Done & friends is presenting. For those who don’t know yet 50Done & friends is a project of Rui Vieira ( currently Creative Director at Fullsix Portugal) to do out of the box projects in the areas of digital creation and communication they work with real clients but in a diferent way of communication. Rui presents the Body and Soul, a project for Nokia that showcases beautiful models (one component shows the body , the other a more emotional soul) .

Ingrediente X – A motion design showcase.

Carlos Matias – Dialectica shows his creative work applied on t-shirts and shoes, and some of the illustrations shown here at the venue.

Pedro Pinto, a 3d motion designer at Fullsix with some sample work.

13:00

Karlssonwilker with a weird piece: a spoken portfolio, on audio tape.

14:00

Regine is on stage, sharing how We-Make.-oney-Not-Art evolved and reflecting on emerging art and the relation with technology. Right next to her, Andy Cameron, now creative director at Fabrica, talking about his work and what interactive media means. They both hate Second Life, and finish their talk with a discussion on the challenges of nem media art.

16:00

Hellokimori is now on stage.

17:00

A great panel on information visualization. Quite more useful than the usual showcase that we’ve seen today.

18:00

FakePilot rolling his impressive ground of work. Feels a lot like Chris Cunningham.

19:20

Now a Interaction Deigin Panel, starting with the folks from naninka. Beats me why the organization decided to this “panels” when no interaction with the audience kicks in. Surprised to find out that Nanika was involved in the BBC radio (below).

20:00 -21:00

After some astonishing works by Alex Trochut, we’re ending with Hi-Res.

Hello everyone. It’s been a few days since I’ve posted, but back from vacations (and a bit sick) I’m ready for the full 3 days at OFFF Lisbon 2008, live blogging and twittering.

12:00

Loads of people outside (an estimate of around 2000). Collecting their tickets, getting a sun tan and drinking beer. I’ll need to do an errand, but i’ve been told the doors are already opening.

12:30

TheKDU is showcasing their works.

12:40

Just found out that some conferences are being broadcasted at
http://videos.sapo.pt/offf. For those abroad, Sapo is a xtra cool portuguese portal, and i’ve met with some of their team here at the event.

13:10

Dino dos Santos, one of Portugal’s most famous type designers, talking (in English) about the process and themes that inspire him.

18:00

Late lunch and more errands, after watching Eric Natzke (North kingdom cancelled their talk).

Now watching Trafik and their several interactive projects.

19:00 – 22:00

Last but not the least, the all exciting Joshua Davis, with his humorous talk, inviting everyone to get naked. The day wrapped with the work of PsyOp (and a wonderful making-of their latest commercial for Absolut). See ya tomorrow.

What a bummer. I realized that i just missed the shooting of the latest work by FarFar and HobbyFilm here in Portugal, downtown Lisbon.


URL: http://www.get-out-and-play.com/

The first time i saw the video at Adverblog it felt somehow familiar, and as i browsed the website it became clear that the real-life snake game was indeed shot in the always beautiful and sunny Lisbon.

The Get Out and Play website features the full HD frame-by-frame video and a impressive behind the scenes involving 1000 people playing life-size Snake at a popular Lisbon square, Martim Moniz.
The mobile gaming concept is further brought to life with a chance to also play Blocks with real people and highlighting the Nokia N-Gage game service for models N81, N82 and N95.

Now i have no excuse to miss Improv Everywhere’s Portuguese mission, even it isn’t done by some wacky Swedish folks (*).

(*) I wonder if any of them is coming to OFFF ?