With only one month left to go, PICTOPLASMA NYC is shaping up rapidly! Now is the time to mark 3 - 6 of November in your calendars and memorize the updated line-up of CONFERENCE SPEAKERS, waiting to take the stage:


Monster mash-up maestro JOSHUA BEN LONGO has managed to open the doors to both, the fine art and design worlds. Besides creating furniture, elaborate exhibits, and illustration, he also teaches, writes music, makes movies, works as a design consultant and is responsible for some of the scariest soft sculptures you've ever considered to hug.

TIM BISKUP, long recognized for mixing complex color and design theories with a decidedly populist aesthetic, has amassed a cadre of loyal fans, propelled further by his steady output of limited edition prints, vinyl figures, books and other objects.

French-Swiss Technicolor enfants terribles BEN & JULIA create colorful and creative work, mixing animation, live footage and puppetry. Their distinct weakness for nature, forests and especially fungi, have lead them to be signed by Hornet Inc for commercial representation.

Animation wunderkind JOEL TRUSSELL, best known for his hysterical music videos for M. Ward, Jason Forrest or Morcheeba, sums up his style as "one scoop appeal, one scoop disturbance, a dash of irreverence topped with a few modest WTF sprinkles".

Do the math yourselves and add the above 4 reasons towards the already announced speakers, including internationally acclaimed graphic designer Geneviève Gauckler + artist, author and product designer Jeremyville + social robot and pop-icon 'Keepon' makers BeatBots + fine artist Allyson Mellberg Taylor + art and salad specialist Jon Burgerman + creator of uncanny street interventions Mark Jenkins + uber-talent Raymond Lemstra!

You won't need a calculator to know there'll be plenty of interesting shoulders to rub up against! But that's not all...

We've just multiplied the goodness by 20 with the release of first CHARACTER WALK EXHIBITION details: Accompanying the conference - and for the first time in the US - Pictoplasma NYC will be arriving with numerous exhibitions, art events and happenings spread throughout the city, all welcoming the general public between November 3 and 6.

Just a few examples: Expect to feast your eyes on the delightful 30 x 16.5ft LED screen of Big Screen Plaza, each individual pixel solely serving the good cause of delivering the choicest picks of our all time Best Of Characters in Motion screenings (We'll also have an additional Mini-Plasma reel in our luggage suitable for younger character fans with shorter attention spans).
After that, drop by the White Rabbit Bar on Thursday night, when we all pre-gather for a first mysticism-infused PicTarot session, in which Lars and me personally predict your future. Or at least try to.

This should prepare you for the hanahou gallery, where you'll be exposed to the work of fiber artist Anna Hrachovec, who has pushed knitting to its physical and emotional limits in a miniature epic battle scene overflowing with cuteness and chaos .
A few blocks down the avenue at Jonathan LeVine's the artist AJ Fosik has painstakingly arranged hundreds of individually cut and varnished bits of wood to form reliefs and free-standing sculptures, gently tugging the carpet out of the comfort zone.
Just around the corner, the playful work of Argentinean artist Sonni is on display at myplasticheart. His wooden toys are invested with an immense sense of responsibility and craftsmanship, and as with all good art, when perfected and mixed with passion and fun, the burden seems weightless.

After 20+ exhibitions, featuring Raymond Lemstra, Andy Remender, Geneviève Gauckler, Joshua Ben Longo and Makerbot, you'll be thankful to shake off the visual overload at the official Pictoplasma Conference After Party during an exquisite Anxieteam concert! The band is a hi-fun, lo-fi collaboration between Berlin's underground art cult figure Jim Avignon and british doodle maestro extraordinaire Jon Burgerman, featuring electronic beats, a ukulele and a bunch of masks. Conference speaker Tim Biskup will later spin his favorite tunes to keep the dance floor animated.
As if that weren't enough, on Sunday the 6th, French urban artists Koralie and SupaKitch open their private studio in Brooklyn for a drink and chat - and to show recent paintings, prints and sculptures, where detailed female characters are transported out of the floating world to mingle and entwine with fluid animal forms...

Before we go on forever, hop over to our site, shake well, and align all the ingredients for your own, personal CHARACTER WALK.

More soon - in the meantime, witness the growing goodness at http://nyc.pictoplasma.com and secure your full Conference pass before someone else does it...

Counting the days,

peter and lars