Feb 26,1997
Rick Smolan, Against All Odds,
Painting on the Walls of the Digital Cave

Speaker: Rick Smolan
President
Against All Odds Productions

Title: Painting on the Walls of the Digital Cave

Abstract:

On February 8, 1996, 150 of the world's top photographers teamed up with editors and designers from major newspapers and magazines and thousands of students and amateurs to create the largest one-day online event to date. The "24 Hours in Cyberspace" project produced an "instant" World Wide Web site and digital time capsule of online life, and drew an intimate and emotional portrait of people whose lives have been dramatically affected by the new ways we work, play, learn, conduct business and interact in the online world.

In this presentation, "24 Hours" creator and producer Rick Smolan will discuss the motivation behind the project, how the San-Francisco-based Mission Control Center and server complex were assembled, and technical difficulties encountered once the project was underway. He will also review past work in the interactive publication industry and the challenge of producing interactive media for a non-technical audience, using the "24 Hours" and "Passage to Vietnam" CD-ROMs as examples.

This presentation will combine 35-mm slides, CD-ROMs, and video clips; interested parties are encouraged to attend the presentation live and in person for maximum aesthetic effect.

Biography:

Rick Smolan is a photographer for National Geographic and Life Magazines, the creator of the best-selling "Day in the Life" photography series, and founder of Against All Odds Productions, a book and multimedia publisher based in Sausalito, California. Smolan and Against All Odds pioneered the field of interactive publication, producing the photography books and associated CD-ROMs for "From Alice to Ocean", one of the first CD-ROMs to be targeted for a consumer market; "Passage to Vietnam",hailed by the Chicago Sun-Times as "the best CD-ROM ever produced"); and "24 Hours in Cyberspace", a chronicle of the largest one-day online event to date.

"24 Hours in Cyberspace" was made possible through support from Eastman Kodak Company, Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Adobe Systems, Inc., joined by America Online and Netscape Communications. Additional sponsorship was provided by MFS Communications, Illustra Information Technologies, Power Computing, NEC Technologies, NetObjects, Studio Archetype, and A & I Color. The book and CD-ROM resulting from the project are published by Que(R), an imprint of Macmillan Computer Publishing (ISBN 0-7897-0925-2).

Contact Data:

Against All Odds Productions
PO Box 1189
Sausalito, CA 94966
415-331-6300
http://www.cyber24.com

Submit a summary of this lecture to the EE380 mailbot.