DreamCon 2009

So I had this dream. I've had it before, where I'm sitting in workshops at a conference and walking around. There's always a workshop or a panel I forgot about, and wish I'd gone to, like the panel where everyone is learning to change the colors of crystalline rocks in jars. Or the one where they are learning to install beehives in pieces of furniture (taught by the same guy, interestingly, an intense young man who seems to hold it against anyone who didn't come to his workshop, and in fact puts a chair full of bees in my car to show me what I missed).

There's a panel on Do Spiders Understand Geometry? and one on Static Electricity As Art Form.

Some of the groups, such as the one of mechanical wind-instrument geeks, had their own rooms with terrine-style displays of items of interest such as working valves from tuba-like items, odd keys from unusual bassoons, and interesting bits of other, lesser known instruments - things which I had no idea could be so complex and magical. One group, Ants for Architecture, had a whole display on using ants to build your house. A little like the bee-furniture, I suppose; I'm not certain why there are so many insects in this particular convention.

Some other popular panels and activities:

- Writing Live Code: codemakers as zookeepers, or how to keep your functions from escaping into the next code-object
- Designing Electronics Through Intuitive Fields: how to use the emotion of electronic fields to guide your circuit-building
- Direct Optical Music: redesigning your optical drive to play the tonal qualities of, say, a piece of metallic lace or a piece of tin foil
- Ethernet Fishtank: teaching your fish to swim the network

There were so many more; what I liked about this particular con was how much the different compartments of our worlds intersect to create something never before seen. I do wish I could go to some of these panels when I was conscious, though.

What panel or workshop would you like to see at DreamCon? Any suggestions?