After an admittedly over-ambitious first day, I decided to take it east for Day Two - after all, SXSW is a marathon, not a race... and with 9 more days to go, I was only at the very beginning.
Day Two's photo assignments found me attending panels at SXGood and SXHealth. I learned about how technology is being used to solve environmental crimes (for example - the white spherical object below is a GPS enabled faux turtle egg that is hidden amongst actual eggs to help identify poachers), and about the US initiative to create a health database that can be used to mine for medical insights. These were panels I likely would not have attended of my own choice, but it was really interesting to learn about something new and different!
The star of SXSW Interactive this year was VR. VR cardboard was a common giveaway, VR-based startups were frequently spotted on the trade show floor, and corporations such as McDonalds (pictured below) even had VR activations!
Pictured below is an art installation called Anima. Created by artist Nick Verstand, the interactive installation reacts to movement within the room.
That evening, I attended Mashable's Mash Bash party. This event featured something that I would soon become well acquainted with: open bars (which my sleep deprived self made a conscious decision not to partake in), and LONG LINE UPS. It took almost two hours in line before we walked through the doorway!
At the MashBash party, I got two metallic foil temporary tattoos that stayed with me throughout the festival. The binary code (left) is my geek-like SXSW Interactive brand, and the party time watch (right), is of course, representative of SXSW Music.
Want to read about the rest of the adventure?
DAY NINE