Elevated Space

2003

Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)
Thomas Lorenz
Dietmar Offenhuber (AT)
Christopher Lindinger (AT)
Karin Reisinger
Margit Thieme
Andreas Mäule
Volker Gebhard
Emilie Hagen
Minka Ludwig
Erwin Reitböck (AT)
Robert Abt (AT)
Volker Christian

The films that make up “Elevated Space” were created by students at the University of Stuttgart and the Vienna University of Technology for the elevator in the Ars Electronica Center.

The Moon and the Soup (Karin Reisinger)
The artist contrasts moon formations—objects of ongoing scientific research—with so-called soup formations that, although they are located much closer than the moon and can be found in practically every kitchen, are treated by scientists as unwanted stepchildren. Whereas anyone can conduct experiments with soup formations at any time in the privacy of their own home, trying out the mass-in-motion in the context of ones own body can be done only in the Ars Electronica Center elevator.

Exit (Margit Thieme)
It is not the horizon that is the first orientation point of our view, but rather the light pressure of a universal attraction that imposes upon us its orientation on the center of the earth and the danger of downfall, symbolized by the whirlwind of animation.

Um-Chi-Im e Je-Sul – The Art of Movement (Andreas Mäule)
Due to human anatomy, man is forced to make use of technical and architectural aids to travel vertically through space. The space constructed for this motion—the elevator shaft—has been filled by the artist with two Manga warriors moving through it vertically.

Uzumaki – The Spiral (Volker Gebhard)
The elevator serves to overcome the horizontal to which the human being has actually been relegated. In order to break the vertical axis, it has to be overlaid with a second movement so that there is no longer a forward and backward, nor any more up and down—just the spiral that exists in different forms in our world: as fans, snakes ...

Pedestrian (Emilie Hagen & Minka Ludwig)
On this ride, you can see what you’ve been missing by taking the elevator—climbing stairs. Synchronously with the elevator, someone climbs the stairs, walking while the passengers are riding and stopping when the individual floors are reached.

“Elevated Space” is the work of students taking of two courses at the Casino IT/DP Workshop at the University of Stuttgart’s Department of Urban Planning and Architecture, and those in the Visual Culture Program offered by the Vienna University of Technology’s Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, and was produced in cooperation with the Ars Electronica Futurelab.