ARS ELECTRONICA FUTURELAB

VISIONS FOR ART, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

The Ars Electronica Futurelab is continually redefining mankind's interrelationship with computers. The Linz facility's productive activities are centered on media art, but the incredible diversity of its successful projects are powerful testimony to the Futurelab's creative competence contributed to joint ventures with partners in the private sector, collaborative R&D undertakings and cooperative associations with academic institutions.

The world of the Ars Electronica Futurelab is interactive, multimedial and characterized by completely new approaches to conceptualization and design. Horst Hörtner, head of the facility's staff, describes its special orientation in these terms: "Our focus is on expanding the realm of interaction among human beings and computers. Our particular research interests as well as artistic approaches flow into the solutions we come up with."His overall assessment: "Today, the various different communications technologies are already merging together. In our work, it's not the medium but the process of mediation that has highest priority."Hardware and software that can be used in an easy, intuitive way, superb design and the consummate harmony of interaction and content are at the very top of the Ars Electronica Futurelab's R&D agenda. In concrete terms, the Ars Electronica Futurelab carries out projects across the entire new media spectrum commissioned by corporate clients and in collaboration with R&D associates and cultural institutions:

• Installations that take a playful approach to facilitating the public's encounter with exhibitioncontent
• Multimedia projects for the interactive presentation of content live at trade shows and at websites online
• Media for architecture: multimedia installations featuring large-format projections and interactive elements that are permanently integrated into a building's structure and thus engender a new type of "edifice art"
• Large-format projections and installations in conjunction with art projects
• Research projectsin cooperation with partners in the private sector and academia; area of particular expertise: enhanced/upgraded hardware and software to implement Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Originality and imagination lead to spectacular results and to growing acceptance. Voestalpine, SAP, Siemens, Mobilkom Austria, the University of Linz, MIT Media Lab and the Brucknerhaus Linz are just a few of the many organizations involved in manufacturing, art and R&D who have come to appreciate the Futurelab's unique approach to doing a job. Its artistic orientation endows concepts with precisely those qualities that have made Ars Electronica such a tremendous success for over 25 years: maintaining an impartial, independent, open point of view, which makes for the vision to see beyond the confines of individual disciplines and purviews, and thus the capacity to come up with totally new approaches to solving problems.

GLOBAL ACTIVITIES - INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING

The Futurelab has collaborated with associates in Austria, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the USA. The permanent headquarters of these global activities is a 750 m2 production facility located in the Urfahr section of Linz, Austria and featuring computer infrastructure, studios, offices and workshops in which up to 40 staffers carry out their project-related work. Through its ties to the Ars Electronica Festival, the world's largest and most important festival for art, technology and society, the Futurelab maintains close contacts with leading members of the international media elite.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

New solutions that go beyond concepts pursuing conventional approaches-the Ars Electronica Futurelab is working together with universities and private sector associates to carry out innovative R&D projects in the field of information and communications technology. The Futurelab's specialty is the development of hardware and software for Virtual Reality applications.

CONCEPTUALIZING AND DESIGNING EXHIBITIONS

The visitor as featured performer at trade shows and in museums, and works of art that mobilize all of the senses and challenge those partaking of them to experience and learn about new technologies-projects engineered by the Ars Electronica Futurelab invite users to undertake a lively, handson encounter with high-tech.

MEDIA FOR ARCHITECTURE

The Ars Electronica Futurelab is redefining the concept of Kunst am Bau ("edifice art" meant to beautify building projects). Staffers are developing architecture that establishes an interactive relationship with its surroundings and thereby makes communication and interaction possible. In this way, media art becomes a visible expression of corporate culture.

MEDIA ART

Making technology useful for art, establishing it as an artistic material as well as helping artists get over various aversions to regarding it as such, and making technology available for all artistic genres-opera, dance, concert performances, film and the plastic arts-have the highest priority on the Ars Electronica Futurelab's agenda.

INTERACTIVE PRESENTATIONS

Making content available in attractive, captivating ways and facilitating access to information are top-priority items when it comes to mediating knowledge. The type of information, the target group and the setting of the presentation are just a few of the factors that Ars Electronica Futurelab staffers take into consideration as they go about the job of engineering optimal solutions.