Feeling competitive?

A new competition involving the work of Douglas Adams has been announced by the Literary Platform, a website dedicated to showcasing those marrying literature and technology.

The Literary Platform invites entrants to produce an animation to illustrate a recording DNA made discussing the evolution of the book, a recording which, to no-one’s surprise, turned out to be accurate and prophetic.

The idea of the competition is to produce something using part or all of what he says to complement the words. Click here to find our more about the competition, which has as its judges Stephen Fry, Bob Stein (SocialBook, Inc), Ranjit Dhaliwal (The Guardian) and Merlin Nation and Chris Angelkov (Atyp). Prizes incude a whole host of Douglas Adams goodies and the opportunity to have the winning work displayed on the Literary Platform and an event to tie in with Towel Day celebrations.

Closing date for entries is 15th April, with the announcement of the winner on 25th May, Towel Day itself.

What does this have to do with h2g2?

Nothing, actually, except that we thought some people might be interested in having a crack at it.

This space, then, is dedicated to anyone wishing to discuss the project, either the ideas in the recording, as a thought experiment in how they would go about illustrating it or with a real view to putting together an entry.

After all, h2g2ers have a vast and deep understanding of DNA, his works and his views about how technology might enrich our lives. Participating in a discussion about the recording and how it should be enhanced can only help produce a fully realised animation. Your fellow hootooizens might also be able to suggest further avenues of research to help generate ideas. There must be other snippets and recordings out there, ones which might expand on this very topic even.

And perhaps someone with the skillz might want to hook up with someone with the vision. We welcome that too. We certainly have a numer of h2g2 Artists and Techies standing by eady to asnwer questions.

Either way, it’s an interesting task to set creatives with a love of Douglas Adams, and we can all enjoy the resulting clips, which will be posted on the Literary Platform as soon as people start uploading them.

So, go on, listen to the clip. What do you think?