Ars Electronica 2005: Hybrid - living in paradox
The rapid ongoing abrogation of boundaries and fusions in art, technology
and society will occupy the focal point of the 2005 Ars Electronica Festival. A profusion of fascinating events, conferences, symposia, exhibitions and performances will open up insights into the state-of-the-art of international media culture.
Ars Electronica 2005: The Festival Theme
Science, research, media, politics, art, cultural identity and the definition of
physicality—boundaries are vanishing clear across all spheres and aspects of society. Traditionally separate domains are blending together to engender new products, alliances and forms of expression. The consequences of this trend that is increasingly encompassing and pervading all facets of human creativity are “mixed,” hybrid solutions like nanotechnology, bionic prostheses, culture jams, hybrid motors, podcasting and blogging—to name just a few. Nike products in Lagos, manga comix in Grieskirchen, Muslim headscarf-rappers in Berlin, ethnic look as accessorized lifestyle, media moguls as prime ministers—these are just a few examples of how borders are disintegrating and new identities are emerging in a globalized, technologized world.
Via modern media and international networking, individuals have long since come to define themselves in terms of a cultural mix composed of highly diverse influences.
“Hybrid – no other term provides such a consummately appropriate and
comprehensive description of the highly paradoxical current state of our world, one that is characterized by interrelationships that, among other things, are extraordinarily contradictory,” is how Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker sums this up.“Cultures are being superimposed upon one another and fused together, barriers are being broken down—national ones as well as those of a material, technological and psychological nature.”
Hybrid Highlights / New Program Features
Among the innovative highlights making their debut at this year’s Ars
Electronica are the Animation Festival, a thematic focus on Featured Artists, and a new location for the opening night’s festivities.
Animation lets millions of viewers experience with their own eyes the blending of real and virtual worlds. Leading-edge technological developments and an amazing variety of new currents and approaches characterize this discipline. In big-budget blockbusters as well as works by up-andcoming indie-scene artists, the dynamism evident in the field of animation is breathtaking. Ars Electronica is giving this development the consideration it is due by presenting an Animation Festival with a lineup of over 100 outstanding films featuring computer animation.
Another festival program first is a special focus on . Ulf
Langheinrich and Theo Jansen will showcase their work in performances and installations. Each artist will also deliver a keynote address providing audiences with insights into the conceptual background of their work.
The Austrian Federal Railway’s spacious assembly shop in Linz provides an extraordinary new backdrop for the conclusion of the first day of the festival
and the international, multicultural kickoff of Ars Electronica week with an event entitled “Emotional Traffic & Suspended Engines”This spectacular vernissage featuring performances and installations by Maurice Benayoun and Jean-Baptiste Barrière as well as DJs from Linz and Bangalore marks the beginning of the Ars Electronica Festival.
Hybrid Theory / Conferences
The centerpiece of considerations at the 2005 Ars Electronica Festival is the
incredibly rapid and widespread development recently of hybrid phenomena and the new technologies that have been the essential driving forces behind them. The Hybrid Theme Symposium at Linz’s Brucknerhaus will undertake an analysis of the causes and consequences of and the deep-seated interconnections among these trends. Derrick de Kerckhove, internationally renowned head of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s leading media experts, is curating the symposium, and has lined up an impressive group of top-name international theoreticians, philosophers and scientists as panelists and
speakers.
A number of other conferences will provide settings for encounters with the
latest artistic, technological and social trends. The 2005 Pixelspaces Conference, a get-together of experts hosted by the Ars Electronica Futurelab, will thematicize “Emotion and Data Processing.”The Man and Computer Conference" will reflect upon design methods using interactive media. Technical and legal aspects of Free Media outlets’ access to information will occupy the attention of participants in this year’s Radio FRO Conference. Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners will elaborate on their working techniques and concepts at the Prix Forums.
The focal-point topics of this year’s Electrolobby are media activism in Italy,
Digital Divide politics as practiced in India, the issue of openness in conjunction with free software, free access and open cultures.
Hybrid Exhibitions
Artists’ approaches to creativity are increasingly making use of scientific
instruments such as the techniques of biotechnology. In doing so, they are, among other aims, satirizing the efforts of scientists to imitate or even to outdo nature with the aid of new technologies such as robotics, bionics or bio-engineering. Art thereby becomes a hybrid between technology and creativity.“Hybrid Creatures and Paradox Machines” at Architekturforum Oberösterreich will exhibit examples of this trend. Theo Jansen’s “beach creatures,” which will be on display on Linz’s Main Square, are also hybrid forms of life combining computer-supported engineering and biological principles.
The artistic efforts being undertaken at the Srishti School of Art and Technology
in Bangalore comprise a mixture of traditional artforms with modern media and thus become hybrid forms of expression at the interface of yesterday and tomorrow. Geetha Narayanan, the school’s director, will serve as the curator of this year’s Campus Exhibition hosted by Linz’s University of Art. And another international institution of higher education in media technology, Istanbul’s Bilgi University, is making its mark on the 2005 festival with “VCD: Relocate-Retro Tracks.”The Ars Electronica Center – Museum of the Future will be showcasing works singled out for recognition in the Prix Ars Electronica’s “u19 -freestyle computing” category for young people.
The logo of this year’s festival is based on “Origin,” a series of images by
internationally renowned artist Daniel Lee, who utilizes software to create hybrid forms that blend human and animal expressions. The entire series will be on public display in the Brucknerhaus. The CyberArts Exhibition in the O.K Center
for Contemporary Art will present a selection of outstanding works that exemplify the state-of-the-art of international media culture.
Hybrid Events and Performances
Hybrid experiences of sound and light, of technology and nature in the midst
of intercontinental exchange will occupy the focal point of events staged in conjunction with “Hybrid - living in paradox.”
“Listening between the Lines” will be a concert evening of major proportions
featuring works at the interface of orchestral music, digital sound synthesis, live electronics and remix. Music by György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez and Philip Glass will be performed by an ensemble including Linz’s Bruckner Orchestra under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies and young practitioners of electronic sound generation.
An impressive show featuring music, video and light on Linz’s Main Square
organized by the Srishti School from Bangalore will link up artists in Austria and India in a live collaborative performance.
In “Drift B” at the Posthof, Ulf Langheinrich blends visualization and sound into
a hypnotic sensory experience. Linz’s Main Square will mutate into a beach and thus the biotope of Theo Jansen’s multilegged critters designed to roam the Dutch coastline. Lawine Torrén, artist Hubert Lepka’s crew that has made a name for itself staging remarkable spectacles, is designing the Visualized Klangwolke this year. Electronic Theatre/O.K Night will present prizewinning works of animation from the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica as well as digital music and visual performances on the Media Deck of the O.K Center for Contemporary Art. Mercan Dede’s enchanting evening spent at the confluence of Near Eastern musical traditions and digital sounds in the Brucknerhaus is entitled “gezgin.”
Linz as the City of Media Culture – Open House at AEC
Linz’s role as the center of global media culture will be confirmed in emphatic
fashion during the 2005 Ars Electronica Festival with the opening of the new Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Culture and Media Science.With the presentation of “Interface Cultures” in conjunction with the festival, Linz’s University of Art will introduce its new program of study in the field of media culture.
Prix Ars Electronica at the Ars Electronica Festival
As the world’s most important competition in the cyberarts, the Prix Ars
Electronica has been a barometer of trends in the thriving world of media art since 1987. The highpoint of the festival’s calendar of events is the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica awards ceremony held as part of the Ars Electronica Gala on September 2 in the Brucknerhaus. Additional Prix-related presentations include the CyberArts Exhibition at the O.K Center for Contemporary Art, the exhibit at the Ars Electronica Center - Museum of the Future showcasing winning works from the “u19 - freestyle computing” category, as well as the Prix Forums (theme:“Digital Commons and Communities”) in the Brucknerhaus.
Services
Our website at www.aec.at/hybrid will be providing you with regular updates
about the festival theme, program details and news during the run-up to the festival. During the festival, the website will deliver live streams from symposia as well as online reports about all that’s been going on. After the festival, information about all Ars Electronica Festivals will be available at our online archive. You’ll find a wealth of material including press releases, photography in print-ready format and background information at the Ars Electronica press portal at www.aec.at/press. Online press accreditation for media outlet representatives will begin June 21 at www.aec.at/accreditation.
The ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’s Upper Austria Regional Studio is
producing a film documenting the festival and the Prix Ars Electronica. It will be televised on September 4, 2005 on ORF 2 and on September 5, 2005 on 3sat.
Radio station Ö1 is an Ars Electronica media partner again this year, and three of its shows—“matrix – computer & neue medien,”“Radiokolleg” and “Dimensionen”—will be broadcasting festival-related content.
Patrons and Sponsors
The Ars Electronica Festival and the Prix Ars Electronica are produced by the Ars
Electronica Center in cooperation with the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’s Upper Austria Regional Studio, Brucknerhaus Linz and the O.K Center for Contemporary Art.
Collaborating associates are the Linz University of Art, Linz’s Lentos Museum of
Art, Architekturforum Oberösterreich and Posthof Linz.
Ars Electronica and the Prix Ars Electronica are funded by the City of Linz, the
Province of Upper Austria and the Office of the Chancellor of the Republic of Austria.
Lead sponsors are Telekom Austria and voestalpine.
Ars Electronica is sponsored by Festo, Casinos Austria, Microsoft, Linz AG,
Mitsubishi Electric, Sony DADC and Siemens Österreich.
Additional support has been provided by 3com, Frank&Partner, Lexmark,
Pöstlingberschlößl, VS Fickenscher, Jindrak, KulturKontakt Austria, Austrian Airlines, M-AUDIO and Lenz Moser
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More information and pictures in the Digital Press Kit of Hybrid-Living in Paradox.
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For further information please contact:
Mag. Wolfgang Bednarzek
Pressesprecher Ars Electronica
AEC Ars Electronica Center Linz
Museumsgesellschaft mbH
Hauptstraße 2, A - 4040 Linz, Austria
Tel ++43.732.7272-38
Fax ++43.732.7272-638
wolfgang.bednarzek@aec.at
http://www.aec.at/press
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