I had a very interesting, and very pleasant, late afternoon yesterday with the video presentation and discussion in "Digital Lauresham". The event was hosted by EXARC on their discord server, and the discussion session has been recorded, with plans of making it available for everyone once the necessary bit of editing has been done.

Over the past years, I've done so many presentations in all kinds of different venues and for all kinds of different events, but the virtual version is quite new for me, and I was extra-nervous (Will all the tech work as intended? Will my internet connection hold up for the discussion part?). Having everything pre-recorded also means that there is no way to adapt things on the fly, in case the audience seems extra-interested in a certain topic, or in case everyone's eyes glaze over. You also can't tell from the room if people like the thing already during the presentation, you need to wait until it's all over and there is feedback, which makes it very different too, and it does take some getting used to. Another thing I missed is the immediate feedback for the questions, or the possibility to quickly ask something back to clarify. The questions were typed out on the text channel in discord, then read out by one of the EXARC volunteers for everyone to hear, then I got to answer them. This format does work well in general, and it does reduce the problem of multi-person audio on conference calls, where only one can speak at any one time, and background noises from somewhere else might kill the intended sound for everyone - but it lacks the easy interactivity of real-life Q&A sessions.

It did all work well, though, and there were a lot of interesting questions, some of which were totally unexpected for me (like the one whether I have worked with material that I'd prefer never to touch again). Though I did miss the immediate audience feedback, it was also really nice to just sit at home in a comfy chair, with the cat in the comfy chair next to me (I'm afraid she didn't really count as moral support, she was sleeping), and interact with people interested in tablet-weaving from all over the world, and see a lot of familiar names on the channel. With the easy access for a lot of people to digital presentations such as that, I can very easily live with the downsides of the format!

The videos are available on the Lauresham YouTube channel, both in English (title text is German too, but there will be English spoken text) and in German - so you can still watch them, in case you missed the event yesterday.

Let me know if you have any questions!