“It’s about ideas. Fuck, technique, I can get a monkey to do
this shit for me.” James Victore
There’s been much talk of the death of Flash in the last 2 years. Pundits have been making sweeping, sensationalist statements from both sides of the aisle – fuelled by emotion and agendas – that has made the majority of the discussion read like a particularly partisan tabloid.
I’m not going to rehash those tired old arguments here, but spending the last 3 days at the inimitable Flash on the Beach conference in Brighton, it’s impossible not to consider where it’s all going.
One indicator is that this is very probably the last Flash on the Beach. As you’d expect, the theme and subject matter of a lot of the talks this year reflected the new digital landscape and focussed on HTML5, JavaScript and mobile devices. It was even pointed out on Twitter that in session titles, “HTML” beat “Flash” by 3:2. Not exactly scientific, but even the organiser admitted that next year will probably see a rebrand that I suspect won’t feature the word “Flash”.
6 years ago, John Davey launched FotB as a conference with a difference. Rather than just technical sessions by designers and developers from the Flash community, there’s always been a mix of artists and inspirational figures that are often at best tangentially associated with Adobe Flash, or even web technologies at all. This year was no exception, with the likes of Jon Burgerman, James Victore, Bradley Munkowitz and Cyriak Harris providing inspiration through their passion and creativity.
But while the sessions may have had more JavaScript and less Actionscript than ever before, there was still plenty of amazing stuff being done in Flash by the likes of Eugene Zapetyakin, David Lenaerts and one of the most impressive Elevator Pitch sessions I’ve seen yet. Sure it’s cool that you can now do in HTML5 what only Flash could do a few years ago, but for me it’s always been more impressive seeing something that could never have been done before.
For years the Flash community has driven the growth of the web – pushing the boundaries of what can be done online, creating a template for browser developers to catch up with. When it was first created Flash (or Future Splash as it was originally titled) was simply for animation and gradually interaction and increasingly sophisticated code was introduced. By its very nature, it has grown out of a hybrid of design and code, the visual and the interactive, which has always attracted programmers with a creative streak and designers with a hacker mentality.
And that’s why I’m not worried about the future of the Flash community. Obviously, the type of inquisitive and innovative minds that were drawn to Flash when it was the only game in town, will experiment with new tools like Processing, HTML5, mobile development etc. Many may never use Flash again. We may not all use the same software anymore but it’s the same passion that drives us all, and ultimately is what unites a community.
Davey may need to come up with a new name for next year, but for my money, he’s already nailed it with the new conference he launched in New York this year, “Geeky by Nature”. It’s not the tool we use that defines our work; it’s the passion that drives the craftsman to create in the first place. And that’s something that’s just in our nature.
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Short of a couple of sneak peeks, the Adobe keynote at this year’s 
