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The 2005 Ars Electronica Festival: Summing Things Up
“Hybrid – living in paradox” has featured a profusion of events, conferences, symposia, exhibitions and performances that, taken together, amounts to a comprehensive look at the state of the art of global media culture. The Festival has met with an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response on the part of local and international visitors.
Linz (September 6, 2005). With “Hybrid – living in paradox” as their overarching theme, artists, theoreticians, scientists and festivalgoers from all over the world have spent the last seven days in Linz presenting and discussing recent developments of phenomena of media culture and their prospects for the future.
“Attendance numbers were remarkably high this year, and the attendees’ confrontation with the Festival’s gist and content was also on an impressively high level,” according to Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker. “Ars Electronica has once again succeeded in showcasing the breadth of media art and underscoring its significance for our time.”
Just as in 2003 and 2004, the events on this year’s lineup were very well attended. There were highly positive reactions to the Ars Electronica Gala’s exhilarating new format that keeps the spotlight of attention shining right where it belongs: on the artists and their prizewinning works. The performances of “Gezgin” as well as the “Listening between the Lines” concert were sold out. The results: audience ovations and rave reviews.
Strong interest on the part of local attendees and international guests alike was focused on Linz’s Main Square (Hauptplatz), the site of the exhibition of Theo Jansen’s “Strandbeest” sculptures and a host of other activities. Another smash hit was “Suspended Engines,” the opening event set in quite an unusual location: the Linz assembly shop of the Austrian Federal Railways’ Technical Services. The premiere of the Animation Festival, a new “festival within the Festival” focusing on computer animation, got thumbs up from a packed house.
But public interest wasn’t just limited to the soirées, screenings and events; the symposia and conferences were very well attended too. The astonishing lineup of exhibitions in the Brucknerhaus, the O.K. Center for Contemporary Art, the Ars Electronica Center, Linz’s University of Artistic and Industrial Design, the Lentos Museum of Art as well as outdoors in public settings was a big draw. And two new venues—Architekturforum Oberösterreich and Landesgalerie Linz—also attracted large crowds.
There was a lot of positive feedback about the rearrangement of the Festival program to run from Thursday to Tuesday, which makes it possible to take maximum advantage of the entire weekend.
33.000 visitors, 453 participants and 532 journalists from a total of 35 countries, as well as a dazzling array of projects developed in collaboration with partner universities and guest curators underscore Ars Electronica’s ongoing success in making a name for itself worldwide.
FACTS AND FIGURES
BesucherInnen / Visitors
Ars Electronica 2005
33.000 BesucherInnen Kontakte/Visitorcontacts
Linzer Klangwolke
90.000 BesucherInnen/Visitors
Artists & Scientists
453 KünstlerInnen und WissenschafterInnen aus 26 Nationen
453 Artists and Scientists from 26 countries.
Australien, Brasilien, Deutschland, Finnland, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Indien, Irland, Italien, Japan,k Kanada, Lettland, Mali, Niederlande, Norwegen, Polen, Schweiz, Spanien, Taiwan, Russland, Saudi Arabien, Süd-Korea, Tschechische Republik, Türkei, Vereinigte Staaten.
Akkreditierungen / Accreditations
532 akkreditierte JournalistInnen aus 35 Nationen
532 accreditated journalists from 35 countries
Australien, Belgien, Brasilien, China, Dänemark, Deutschland, Estland, Finnland, Frankreich, Indien, Irland, Italien, Japan, Kanada, Kolumbien, Kroatien, Lettland, Niederlande, Norwegen, Österreich, Polen, Portugal, Schweden, Schweiz, Serbien-Montenegro, Slowakei, Slowenien, Spanien, Taiwan, Tschechische Republik, Tunesien, Türkei, Ungarn, United Kingdom, Vereinigte Staaten.
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