Creative Times was in Birmingham on November 30 for the first in a series of events titled ‘The Beauty of Digital: New technologies, old aesthetics and where the two meet’. CT editor Chris Sharratt provides a brief report.

The Beauty of Digital is… a damp and blustery night in Birmingham. We’re in Fazeley Studios, a beautifully converted former chapel on the city’s Eastside; four panelists, 40 guests and me – I’m doing the introductions and chairing.

First up are Greg and Myles McLeod, collectively Stratford-upon-Avon-based animators The Brothers McLeod. They kick off with a 90-second animation, the first in their online Existential Pleading series. I sprint to the back of the room to switch the lights off.

Greg and Myles’s ten minute talk is based around Existential Pleading – it’s a great indicator of how digital has shifted the way they work, allowing for quick turnaround and distribution. They reveal that the catalyst for the series was forgetting a competition deadline and having no choice but to produce a 90-second animation in four hours. A case of needs must.

We may be working in digital but we’re stuck in an analogue mindset, and that’s trapping us in a nostalgia-tinged comfort zone.

The Brothers McLeod’s work is a great example of how traditional, hand-drawn animation techniques can work alongside digital editing and delivery. They talk of how, when they first started out, it was digital that "made it possible to do animation in an affordable way”. I sprint to the back of the room again, to dim the lights for their latest, hot off the production line, Existential Pleading video.

Next it’s Chris Unitt, Head of Social Media at Made Media Ltd. Chris has prepared charts and everything – he has plenty to say. He talks about all the ‘analogue’ stuff needed to support digital, the former nuclear bunker being used to house a server farm, the fact that cloud computing isn’t light and fluffy at all – it relies on loads of heavy duty physical kit to make it happen.

Made work a lot with arts organisations and Chris also talks about the way digital is increasingly sold as a neat and clean cure-all – which it isn’t. It can be messy and complicated and confusing too – just like the analogue world.

Chris touches briefly on the subject of Skeuomorphism – in the context of this discussion, the appropriating of an analogue aesthetic for digital projects. It’s something final panelist Pete Ashton describes as “the curse of our times”. He cites examples such as address book apps that look like books, the ”fake analogue” photos created by Instagram, volume knobs on music apps. We may be working in digital but we’re stuck in an analogue mindset, he says, and that’s restricting the possibilities of digital technology, trapping us in a nostalgia-tinged comfort zone.

Our affection for this aesthetic is partly about kicking against digital’s clean and clinical side, but, says Pete, there’s plenty of imperfections, plenty that’s messy and unpredictable about the digital sphere. We just need to dig around, resist being comfortable, be more creative.

Inevitably, the talks overrun a little, so it’s only 10 minutes or so of questions from the floor before retiring to the bar. Later, we end up in The Anchor, a proper old fashioned pub with plenty of real ale. We have a few pints. After all, it’s important to appreciate the beauty of analogue too.

The next Beauty of Digital event is in Bristol on 25 January. Details here

Image: From Existential Pleading #3 by The Brothers McLeod