A Successful Start to the Next Quarter Century!
“Timeshift – The World in 25 Years” offers insights into and an overview of the past and future of phenomena at the nexus of art, technology and society. The Festival has attracted overwhelming international and regional interest.
Linz (9/7/04). With “Timeshift – The World in 25 Years” as their focal point theme, international artists, theoreticians and scientists have spent the last week discussing past developments and the future prospects of media-cultural phenomena. A jam-packed program of events and performances has offered an up-close-and-personal look at the state of the art in media art.
“A retrospective approach combined with consideration of today’s leading edge certainly bears out the high quality of the works singled out for recognition as well as the dramatic process of development that media art has undergone,” said Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker.
Never have so many venues in Linz been integrated into the proceedings and so many partner institutions gotten involved. A trend that has continued from 2003 is the extremely high demand for tickets to Festival events. The performances of “Apparition” and the “L’Espace Temporel” concert were sell-outs, and both were extremely enthusiastically received by audiences. Other absolute favorites of local attendees and international guests alike have been the “Linz Writes Its Future” installation on the city’s Main Square as well as alfresco events such as “An Evening in the Gardens” and “Vita Pulsante.”
Audience interest was by no means limited to evening presentations—attendance at symposia and conferences has been great too. Numerous exhibitions in the Brucknerhaus, the O.K Center for Contemporary Art, the Ars Electronica Center, Linz’s University of Art and Industrial Design, the Lentos Museum of Art, and in public spaces proved to be big hits.
A thoroughly positive reception was accorded to the repositioning of the Festival timeframe to run from Thursday to Tuesday (with the “Language of Networks” as lead-in beginning on Wednesday) in order to take full advantage of the entire weekend.
The numbers—34,000 visitorsy, 555 participants and 587 journalists from a total of 43 countries, as well as the wide array of projects carried out jointly with partner universities or in collaboration with guest curators—underscore Ars Electronica’s international standing.
Ars Electronica thus takes momentum and élan into its next quarter century. Shaping up as the highlight of Spring 2005: the “Digital Avant-Garde” exhibition will run from March 26 to May 31 in the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Here, Ars Electronica will be following up on its successful launch in New York by establishing a strong presence in Asia for the first time. The Prix Ars Electronica, the foremost international prize for cyberarts, will begin accepting entries again in January 2005.
Contact:
Mag. Wolfgang Bednarzek MAS
Press Officer 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
|
