SEND US YOUR TRACK!

DC’s premiere creative and musical outlets–ReadysetDC and The Couch Sessions–are partnering up to offer area producers and musicians an exclusive opportunity to have their music featured during the innovative TEDxPennQuarter Conference this summer. The collaboration, in the interest of cross-promotion and cultivating and supporting the innovative music community in the DC creative community, will select 14 tracks to be used as a part of the TEDxPennQuarter festivities.

The TEDxPennQuarter Conference takes place on July 11th at the Newseum and will bring together some of the world’s best thinkers and influencers to the Nation’s Capital for an innovative day long conference. Selected artists will have their tracks featured in speaker introductions and video credits as well as have their work featured on The Couch Sessions and ReadysetDC.

Participants will upload their entries for review via SoundCloud.com. The deadline for
submissions is July 3rd, 2010. Entries will be judged by members of all participating organizations, and winners will be announced on July 7th, 2010.

We encourage submissions from across all music genres and styles with a focus on
artists from the Washington, DC region.

SEND US YOUR TRAC

Contest Rules:

Contest starts June 24th. Contest deadline us July 3rd at midnight. Winners will be announced on The Couch Sessions and ReadysetDC on July 7th.

• Track must be 30 – 60 seconds in length
• Track must be submitted through the Soundcloud Dropbox.http://bit.ly/TedxPQ. Email entries will NOT be accepted.
• Artists should provide the following information:
  • Name
  • Valid Email Address
  • Location (City, State)
  • Website/Twitter (if Any)
• Track must be artist’s own original work.

About TEDxPennQuarter

TEDxPennQuarter is a local, independently organized event in downtown Washington, DC that strives to re-create the distinctive experience found at TED, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers congregate to share what they are most passionate about. At its core, the fundamental goal of TED is to foster and spread great ideas. At TEDxPennQuarter, we aim to provide a platform where the smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries, and most fascinating innovators will have the opportunity to inspire others, as well as be inspired.

The conference will be held at the Newseum on Sunday, July 11, 2010 and will be centered around the theme: REINVENTINGx. Our expectations are that the diverse group of both speakers and attendees present will be able to learn from one another and leave the conference driven to creatively improve our collective future.

About The Couch Sessions

The Couch Sessions is the premier online destination for alternative urban music and
culture. The online magazine, created in 2005, covers emerging artists in hip-hop, R&B,
electronica, house, rock, and all things in between, and has attracted tech savvy and
progressive music lovers from around the world who are seeking new, underground and
underheard talent. In addition to it’s flagship website, The Couch Sessions is leveraging
its brand through Facebook, and Twitter attracting visitors from over 100 countries. With
a readership that spans America’s largest urban markets, The Couch Sessions has
consistently been ahead of the mainstream, solidifying itself as a destination for a new
generation of iPod armed consumers who are on the cutting edge of technology and
music.

About ReadysetDC

The creative current running through Washington, DC is palpable. There is a cultural renaissance taking place in our city. A window of opportunity for urban design, art, music, fashion, photography, dining and everything in between.

ReadysetDC will discover this movement. ReadysetDC will interview, blog about, document, photograph and capture this movement. We do this for the LOVE of DC, for the love of its people , for the love of its culture and for the future progression of our beloved home.
We seek to spotlight this city and the creatives behind the scenes. DC is now ground zero for creative development. ReadysetDC is a place to share ideas, discover culture, spark discussion and inspire. The time is now. Ready. Set. Go create.

Last Friday night was the first of the two night opening of Activation 440, the Artist Bazaar. Presented by ReadySetDC and No Kings Collective, the show presented a mix of artists that mostly use a cross between street and pop art aesthetics, though there were some interesting photography and modern art in the midst. Now the interesting thing about ReadySetDC’s Activations is that the very space the art is presented tend to be places under construction in one way or another. The previous Activation 2719 was also a collab between ReadySetDC and No Kings Collective, it taking place within a rowhouse (2719) in Columbia Heights. This time, for Activation 440, it was all under the roof The Josephine, a new condominium complex around the Howard-Shaw area.

Now the idea of having art galleries and shows pop up in these location is a pretty good idea since it definitely projects and advances the aesthetics many of the works in the show present. It also appeals to the growing number of people who are interested in the mix of modern art and street art. At the same time the setup gave an opportunity for artists to transform and customize their own rooms to fit their artworks. The Kelly Towles room comes to mind, “The Peepshow”, warning us of the nasty XXX nature of her room on the walls, her work incorporates, of course, the peepshow and images, that  otherwise might be considered porn, into cartoon elements using her own style prevalent in her own street art. Creating a unique caricature and commentary with her work, the room with its all black walls and writings/”warnings” on the walls was the best example of Activation 440′s original statement about space, artist and artwork. Get her exact words (and more installation photos) with ReadySetDC here.

Personally, Gaia again managed to get my attention on his whole wall spanning murals – like ink drawings made from spray paint. And also, I found myself taking another look at the mixed media artist Sarah Martin, this being the first time her work is displayed in this way. The gallery also featured the paintings of Aniekan Udofia, including a lot from his two prominent subjects, Obama and Biggie, and instead of street art itself, painting about street art. Get his words with ReadySetDC here.

And of course I couldn’t cover everyone’s art here, so check out some of the participating artists’ online portfolios:

No Kings Collective: http://www.nokingscollective.com/
Nicole Aguirre: http://www.wornmagazine.com/
Joshua Yospyn: http://www.yospyn.com/
Aniekan Udofia: http://www.artofaniekanudofia.com/
Gaia: http://www.gaiastreetart.com/
Kelly Towles: http://www.kellytowles.com/
Ky’Leigh Wilson: http://www.urbanabstractions.com/
Annie Kielman: http://www.anniekielman.carbonmade.com/
Sarah Martin: http://www.wix.com/smartino/sarahmartin
Dan Barojas: http://www.r5imaging.com/

Words by @chrisloos and @bloch_party
Photos by @vincentgallegos

Twitter geeks from across the DMV region and beyond converged on the Grand Hyatt last Thursday for TWTRCON DC. Being quite the Twitter geeks ourselves (Tweeks?), ReadysetDC was there to soak up the social media goodness in all its 140 character glory.

Speakers from a range of backgrounds gave talks on everything from personal branding, to the downfall of newspapers, to geolocation, to the power of real-time communities. One of the highlights was a talk early on from Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist) moderated by Alan Murray, the deputy managing director of the Wall Street Journal. While a techno-socialist and a super-capitalist make for strange bedfellows, they also make for a fascinating debate.

Photos and TOP TEN #TWTRCON TWEETS after the jump:

Local HR guru, blogger, and Twitter advocate Jessica Lee was also on hand to give an informative and entertaining talk on recruiting with Twitter. One interesting takeaway from her talk: By creating a new communication channel for job seekers to contact HR professionals, Twitter has created a way around the “black hole” problem where job seekers send their resumes in without ever even receiving an acknowledgment that it has been received.

It was slightly disappointing (and ironic) how few speakers actually made use of Twitter to engage the conference goers at a conference devoted to engaging people through Twitter. Two large screens flanking the stage displayed any tweets containing the #twtrcon hashtag, so there was a lot of potential to use these for interaction back and forth between speaker, audience, and the larger audience outside the room. Instead, the screen was filled with tweets and retweets from the audience simply quoting the speakers, ad nauseum. It became giant live-blogging, echo-chamber for most of the the conference.

Things finally got fun towards the end when ReadysetDC’s own @bloch_party promised a cookie to the 200th person that followed him.

#cookiebribe, indeed.

TOP TEN #TWTRCON TWEETS (via @bloch_party)

1. RT @MiddleOfMayhem: A-M-E-N. There is no social media expert. #TWTRCON(via @aslesinski)

2. RT @chrisloos Analogy of the day: RT @Jeanne23 Twitter is a sushi conveyor belt moving at 100mph. #twtrcon

3. Incredible presentation by @scottharrison about online organizing for offline causes like @charitywater thru events like @twestival #twtrcon

4. RT @danaschwartz83: RT @cuennie “the truth is, this is the most exciting time for journalism that I’ve experienced” @wsj #twtrcon

5. RT @TWTRCON: “People should tweet, not brands” #twtrcon

6. Just test drove new analytics app @PeopleBrowsr… Super cool way to gauge the reach of your Tweets. #twtrcon

7. RT @MiddleofMayhem http://twitpic.com/mhjxv – Twitter nerds. And proud.#twtrcon

8. #twtrcon – My friend, a DC public school teacher, used @DonorsChoose last year to get supplies for her classroom. It works!!

9. I’d rock this on a T-Shirt! RT @cuennie “if you aren’t failing you aren’t trying” @afpaa #twtrcon

10. RT @chrisloos Too. Much. Metatweeting. #twtrcon

MANY more photos from Vincent Gallegos on Flickr and @ReadysetDC.