SoA’s Academy Days X
State of Art Academy has announced this year’s Academy Days conference which takes place in Venice between 3 – 5 October.
Us CG Artists used to find that our careers isolated us. Of course we have friends and family, but our passion is not their passion. Talk about tris and most people think rugby, mention a normal map and they’ll hand you an atlas.
Not so anymore. Over the last 10 years we’ve seen a mushrooming of international events and conferences, especially in Europe, with high quality speakers and plenty of time to hang out with people that speak the same language – even if that’s not always literally the case.
This year’s upcoming Academy Day conference in Venice promises to be no exception. With plenty of talks from leading artists spread over two days, a separate full day dedicated to training, demo rooms, a party in a secret location, food, networking and more. It’s a far cry from the event’s humble beginnings ten year’s ago.
The Academy Day conference was started, and continues to be run, by Gianpierro Monopoli, Roberto De Rose and the rest of the team at State of Art Academy, a well respected school dedicated to providing training in architectural visualisation. Recent editions have moved away from a potpourri of content chosen large by the presenters themselves, to direct speakers to create presentations within a framework of overarching themes.
This started a couple of years ago when speakers addressed new technologies and their effect on the industry and their work. As you can imagine, at the time this led to a lot of practical discussions of real-time, VR and mixed reality, plus new and emerging pipelines (for example using substance for texturing which was quite unusual in Archviz at that time, and still not common today).
Last year’s presenters were given the title “Artist Vs. Machine” as their starting point which led to interesting talks about, well, real-time, VR, and new pipelines like substance for texturing. AI and machine learning also featured heavily of course, and it raised a number of fascinating conversation points, interpretations of the brief, and some crystal ball gazing to try and anticipate the future of the industry.
Having a fixed topic really seemed to encourage creative deviations from the usual formula you see if you visit a lot of these types of events. For example, CGPress attended last year where there was a scientific presentation on what is meant by a beautiful image from a neurolinguistic perspective. Fascinating stuff, and an interesting contribution to ongoing discussions about AI and its limits and benefits for the creative industries.
Which brings us to this year – the 10th anniversary of the conference. The line-up has yet to be announced, but according to the organisers you can expect “the best companies and archviz artists of the last ten years brought together to take stock of the changes faced by the industry and speculate on what to expect in the immediate and far future. Expect great opportunities to learn from experts about business and project management, client retention, technical developments, and the latest trends and topics. “
Academy Day X takes place on October 4 – 5 with a training day on October 3 at Double Tree by Hilton in Venice. Tickets cost €239 but there’s currently an early-bird sale at €189 until May 15. Spaces for the workshops on October 3 will be released soon and will be bookable separately. To find out more visit the event’s page.
We’re also pleased to announce that CGPress are media partners of this year’s Academy Day event. Expect more news and features soon to help keep informed those planning to go, and share a flavour of the conference for those who are unable to attend in person.
