Most of you must have already heard from Pecha Kucha. For the ones who haven’t, Garr Reynolds explains it in detail on his blog. But in short:

On a Pecha Kucha evening, people who have something to share with others can tell their story to the audience with only one constraint: Each of the 20 slides they have to use is shown for only 20 seconds.

The Pecha Kucha (which means chit-chat) originated in Japan, and quickly spread around the globe. Berlin was one of the first cities to follow, so I had to check it out locally.

What I experienced earlier in Rotterdam and the Hague, was that the evening completely depends on the quality of the speakers. It can be shit, or a hit. The same case in Berlin:

Shiro Masuyama

Shiro MASUYAMA from Japan hardly spoke English nor German. Although the slides showed interesting art installations, it was impossible to understand a word, so I could have just watched them on the internet. Twenty seconds suddenly seemed like a awful long time for a slide.

However, there were two speakers who actually saved the evening with their projects:

Tobi’s Timemachine:

Tobi has developed a Firefox Plug-in that restyles any web page to the 90’s, completely with animated gif’s and midi-music. Completely useless, but we, the audience, loved it. FourStarters would look like this. You can download his timemachine or watch some more examples on flickr.

Alex von Furstenberg:

David Henry Brown Jr is an Artist based in NYC. For one of his projects he used to dress up as a German royalty called Alex von Furstenberg. He would bluf his way into VIP parties this way, and meet up with famous Celebrities to gain his 15 minutes of fame.

His talk really gave extra value to his photos, giving extra information behind every shot. The reason for example, that he had a red nose on some of the pictures, was that he had to wait in the cold before he finally found a way to penetrate into the party ground.

Of course I visited the party afterwards (which wasn’t VIP) to collect a picture with Alex von Furstenberg for my personal 15 minutes of fame.

Round Up:

First of all, the Evening could have used a bit more spice to my taste. Why not ‘boo’ at someone who doesn’t captivate your attention, and ‘cheer’ at someone who does? It may sound harsh, but they are grown-ups who choose to get up that stage. At least it motivates them more to improve, than their friends saying “Great Talk!”.

Secondly, some of the Speakers have no clue about their audience. The event is mainly visited by designers, architects, artists, filmmakers and musicians. So there is no point in asking “Who of you owns a Football Club to sponsor me?” Pecha Kucha is a great place to promote your projects, but don’t expect any miracles if the audience has the same interests as yourself.

Did I learn anything? No. Did I get inspired? Yes.

Will I participate in the future? Yes.

About what? To be continued…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 20:58 and is filed under Pecha Kucha, design, presentation.