Diffusion

2004

Thomas Lorenz
Christine Hohenbüchler
Petra Gemeinböck (AT)
Nicolaj Kirisits (AT)
Barbara Larndorfer (AT)
Björn Wilfinger (AT)
Asli Serbest
Florian Gruber
Clemens Hausch
Julia Schmölzer
Klaus Pichler
Irene Bittner
Klaus Ransmayr
Winni Ransmayr
Elisabeth Steinegger
Matthias Würfel
Ruth Brozek
Erwin Herzberger

The “Diffusion” projects make the Ars Electronica Center’s media façade the largest interactive space in Linz. By painting and playing, using sounds and words, any user can directly influence the design being displayed on the façade!

In collaboration with the Ars Electronica Futurelab and under the supervision of Thomas Lorenz, Christine Hohenbüchler, Petra Gemeinböck and Nicolaj Kirisits, students at the Technical University of Vienna’s Department of Artistic Design as well as the Department of Media Design / Digital Art at Vienna’s University of Applied Art developed animation sequences and films for the Center’s media façade.

Di Ana Log
(Barbara Larndorfer, Björn Wilfinger)

Two platforms set up in public space—one near the Stadtwerkstatt and one in front of the New City Hall, thus both with an unimpeded view of the Ars Electronica Center—enable visitors to make the media façade their own personal monitor screen. 1:1 copies of the façade’s projection surfaces are installed as screens on the pavement, and any passers-by interested in doing so can paint or play any way they like with the analog media on them. The results are collectively created, analog images produced on the three surfaces. The actions taking place on the platforms are recorded from above and projected directly onto the façade. The upshot is a linkage between analog and digital, real and virtual space.

Tic.Txt
(Asli Serbest, Erwin Herzberger)

In “Tic.Txt,” objects that are positioned on one side of the façade and cannot be seen from the other sides are projected onto the other two façade screens. The surfaces of the displayed images consist of graphic texts that morph into legible individual words. Following each phase of dissolution of the images into text, new initial images appear. The words undergo constant variation as viewers—via SMS or by filling out an online form—interactively assign texts to the objects.

bønk
(Florian Gruber, Clemens Hausch)

“bonk” is a set of architectural rules for audiovisual compositions. Via videotracking, the stone pavement slabs in front of the Ars Electronica Center become an interactive input medium. The installation adjusts its basic audiovisual settings in accordance with the number of pedestrians passing by, how fast they’re walking, the ambient noise level and the brightness of the lighting conditions. The passers-by then modify the image and sound in real time. The projection shows the city an abstract likeness of its own urban dynamics.

Growing City
(Klaus Ransmayer, Winni Ransmayer)

Computer animation and time-lapse imagery are superimposed on one another to depict Linz as a growing urban center. In addition, abstract recontextualizations of the city skyline generate a futuristic scenario whose impression is even further intensified by the alternation of the light of day and the darkness of night.

hauskleid
(Elisabeth Steinegger, Matthias Würfel)

The “hauskleid” (house dress) project utilizes the natural elements round about the Ars Electronica Center—water, wind and light—as design elements. A long day at the workplace with all the stress and strain associated with it is portrayed in a multifaceted structure consisting of movement, brightness, tempo and color projected on the Arbeitskleid (working clothes). As soon as it’s time to knock off for the day, Festkleid (evening attire) is donned. Now it’s time to celebrate and euphoria makes its presence felt.

sphinx
(Julia Schmölzer, Klaus Pichler, Irene Bittner)

A person is cloned in the three niches of the projection screen cube. The confusing situation brings her to the point of desperation. She attempts to flee, to break out, becomes aggressive and then resigned. Then—an idea! The person presses her face against the walls of the glass cube, occupies the space, and makes herself comfortable with a building as her body.

r-slides
(Ruth Brozek)

A person walks through an architecturally-statically dominated space beyond the realms of tourists and highly styled, garishly commercial shopping districts. The city as residential domain, the unloved gray periphery as the setting of everyday life. Urban architecture is diametrically juxtaposed to dynamic, mobile mankind. The cityscape becomes a realm of action, an escape route, a sphere of motion. The act of fleeing between home and workplace, the question of where one feels at home—all of this comes into play in the fusion of multiple layers of imagery. Several strata are superimposed upon each other, are shifted up against one another, dovetail and are overlain.

Initiated and realized in collaboration with Ars Electronica Futurelab: Christopher Lindinger, Theodor Watson, Erwin Reitböck.