Live Soundtracks to some legendary early works of the film genre.

20:30 – 22:00
Ars Electronica Maindeck

This HUMAN NATURE will occupy the focal point at the next Ars Electronica Festival September 3-8, 2009 amidst a mix of speculative futuristic designs and provocative actionism, philosophical debate and analytical scrutiny. Thirty years after its founding, profound human curiosity is still the essential core of this global conclave’s approach, and we continue to intrepidly peer far into the future.In Ars Electronica’s signature fashion, this research will be carried out at an array of locations that go beyond classic conference venues and cultural spaces to pervade the entire cityscape. For the first time, the epicenter of these activities will be the new Ars Electronica Center that debuted on January 2, 2009.

Logo Ars Electronica Festival 2009
Press Images

Press Release Summary and Review Ars Electronica Festival 2009
Press Release Program Overview Ars Electronica Festival 2009
Press Release Highlights Ars Electronica Festival 2009
Press Release Hiroshi Ishiguro & Geminoid
Press Release Topic Ars Electronica Festival 2009
Press Release Could Intelligence
Press Release Prix Ars Electronica

About Ars Electronica
The 30th Anniversary of Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica Center
80+1 – A Journey Around the World

Press Release CyberArts / OK
Press Release See This Sound / Lentos

Biographies Christine Schöpf, Gerfried Stocker, Hannes Leopoldseder, Diethard Schwarzmair

Image Christine Schöpf (Artistic Co-Director of the Ars Electronica Festival)
Image Gerfried Stocker (Artistic Co-Director of the Ars Electronica Festival)
Image Hannes Leopoldseder (Vice-chairman of the Board of Directors and co-founder of Ars Electronica)
Image Diethard Schwarzmair (Financial Director Ars Electronica)

Accreditation for Journalists
Interview Requests

Important Dates for Journalists

Publications

STREAMS

Brucknerhaus History Stage

With Elisabeth Gottfried

Artist group: 8GG interactive (Fu Yu, Jia Haiqing) [China]
Tech: Shan Yang, Sun Zhongyi [China]
Assistance: Er Mao, Ding Ying [China]
Special thanks to: Gai Yunong, Wang Zhaofang, EON [China]
Topic: Food
Location: Lord of Salt Restaurant, Beijing, China

This project creates the illusion of moving scents from Beijing to Linz. In the Chinese capital, participants blow into a sensor, which will transmit to the electronic fan in Linz, thus releasing scents into the wind. The ensuing breeze will transport smells of the Chinese delicacy, “Spicy Hot Pot”. The installed scents are collected and obtained in advance from Beijing, which are all familiar smells from different foods or tea. Meanwhile, there are real time visual signals transmitting between Beijing and Linz so that people can feel as if the scent travels without boundaries.

Foto: Marianne Schmidt

Artist: Marianne Schmidt [Germany]
Software Engineer: André Bernhardt
Topic: Progress
Location: 80+1 basecamp and AEC

Digitie is a real-time communication channel that connects two places. For both sides, it is only a little test of courage to put a hand inside the gadget. The two hands of strangers, from far distant places, meet each other real-time on a screen. Then, they can wave, handshake or arm wrestle — all the possibilities of gesticulation and interaction are open. The interlocutors playfully determine their own form of non-verbal communication. The project illustrates the importance and representation of analog, but technological forms of communication by using human hands. How can we generate and receive information of body language, especially of emotions, using digital media?

Artist: Pierre Proske [Australia]
Tech: Damian Stewart
Software: Arturo Castro
Topic: Happiness
Location: Thimphu, Bhutan

Website: http://www.digitalstar.net/

Supported by Michael Rutland OBE, chairman of the British Bhutanese Society, Dr Claus Walter and Franz Leuthner from the Austrian Bhutanese Society, Dorji Wangchuck and Dr. Michael Schneeberger, Voluntary Artists Studio Thimphu (VAST) (Bhutan), Austrian Bhutanese Society (Austria/Bhutan)

In a response to accusations in 1987 by a journalist that the pace of development in Bhutan was slow, the then King of Bhutan replied “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product”. This signaled his commitment to building an economy appropriate to Bhutan’s culture, based on Buddhist spiritual values, and has since served as a unifying vision for the Bhutanese economy. In a survey in 2005, 45 percent of those Bhutanese surveyed reported being very happy, 52 percent reported being happy and only three percent reported not being happy. Grand Mutual Smiles is a two-way interactive installation that communicates between two parties through the transmission of images of smiling faces. Progressively captured pictures of smiling people are displayed on screens at each installation site. The motivation is to encourage users to communicate across the Internet in a non-verbal and humoristic way — by smiling. The project will present two real-time updating sets of people’s faces at each of the locations – Linz, Austria and Thimphu, Bhutan.

Artist: Samir Ayyad [Gaza]
Topic: Coexistence
Place: Gaza

Soundshelters is an interactive multi-channel sound space that connects people in Linz and in Gaza. The “real sound” in Linz will be overlaid by sound travelling from Gaza to Linz and vice versa. There may be sounds of fighting or shooting from Gaza to Linz, or perhaps the sound of singing birds from Linz to Gaza. The main goal of Soundshelters is to create a space of mutual understanding, compassion, and maybe even love.

Foto: Lila Chitayat & Alon Chitayat

Artists: Lila Chitayat [Israel] and Alon Chitayat [Israel]
Tech: Tal Chalozin [Israel]
Software: Michael Shynar [Israel]
Topic: Cultural Heritage
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Website: www.taxilinkproject.com

Supported by G.M.B.S – General Management and Business Strategy (Isreal), Garage Geeks (Israel) – http://www.garagegeeks.org/ , Hewlett-Packard (Israel), Pelephone (Israel). Jerusalem City Hall (Israel), Schreil-Hofer GmbH (Austria)

TaxiLink Project is an interactive installation that enables users to experience a distant, but authentic taxi ride in Jerusalem. While sitting in the static TaxiLink booth, virtual passengers join a real tour in and around the old city of Jerusalem, and can interact with a real-life taxi driver through live video and audio transmitted from across the world.

Credits
Thomas Seifried, Jakob Leitner, Daniel Leithinger, Peter Brandl, Michael Frühmann, Michael Haller,
Media Interaction Lab
Department of Digital Media
Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences

Ars Electronica Center
Main Gallery: BrainLab (Level -3)

From Body to Soul – new views from humankind
Franz A. Fellner, Primar am Zentralen Radiologie Institut; Siegfried Priglinger, Primar der Augenheilkunde und Optometrie, AKh Linz (AT)

Functional magnetic resonance imaging, one of the most advanced medical imaging technologies, allows physicians to take a close look inside the human body.

Biomechanical functionality of the eye
Michael Buchberger, RISC Software Seekid (AT)

How can we learn more about vision and perception by means of computer-aided research into how the eyes function, for example through eye-tracking?

Brain Computer Interfaces
Christoph Guger, g.tec medical engineering GmbH (AT)

Can we control computers with our thoughts, writing letters or reading other people’s minds? A look at current research approaches and practical applications.

Ars Electronica Center
Main Gallery: BioLab (Level -3)

Hidden Biotechniques
Reinhard Nestelbacher, DNA-Consult Sciencetainment (AT)

At BioLab selected experiments in developmental biology will be opened up to the public: in-vitro fertilization, embryo development, cloning, artificial mutations and toxic cell experiments.

Ars Electronica Center
Main Gallery: FabLab (Level -3)

Design with 3D Printing
Janne Kyttänen, Freedom Of Creation (NL)

Also featured are rapid prototyping technologies and the possibilities they offer. Visitors can try their hand at prototyping, watching as their own ideas take shape in three dimensions.

Fri 4.9. – Tue 8.9. 16:30 – 18:00

Ars Electronica Center
Main Gallery: FabLab (Level -3)

Ars Electronica Center
Main Gallery: RoboLab (Level -3)

Geminoid HI1, Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP)*
Featured Artist Talk with Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP)*

Daily short presentations

Hiroshi Ishiguro, professor at the University of Osaka and quest group leader at ATR Intelligent robotics and Communication Laboratories, developed and served as the model for HI-1, the very first geminoid.

*supported by EU-Japan Fest Committee and Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) of Japan Science and Technology Agency (Device Art)

Brucknerhaus, History Stage

Local Supporters & Critical Companions I

With: Fadi Dorninger, Georg Ritter, Regina Patsch, Dietmar Offenhuber, Wolfgang Winkler

Social Networkers

With: Andy Cameron, etoy, Isaac Mao, Derrick de Kerckhove

Local Supporters & Critical Companions II

With: Stefan Mittlböck-Jungwirth-Fohringer, Gabi Kepplinger, Martin Sturm, Christa Sommerer, Reinhard Kannonier, Klaus Obermaier

Brucknerhaus, History Stage

Ars Electronica did (not) fall from the sky
The early development of programming and institutional independence

With: Barbara U. Schmidt, Hannes Leopoldseder

Brucknerhaus, History Stage

With: Jutta Schmiederer, Martina Wagner, Michael Badics

Before the Internet

With: Hermann A. Maurer

Ars Makers & Curators

With: Hannes Leopoldseder, Herbert W. Franke, Tomoe Moriyama, Gottfried Hattinger, Gerfried Stocker

Creators & Illusionists of Sound

With: Bill Fontana, Paul de Marinis, Rupert Huber, Carsten Nicolai, Kurt Hentschläger, Werner Jauk

New Media Pioneers

With: Itsuo Sakane, Joachim Sauter, Hiroshi Ishii, Golan Levin, Eduardo Kac, Richard Kriesche, Monika Fleischmann, Wolfgang Straus

Source: Emiko Ogawa

The Opening Event of the 2009 Ars Electronica Festival

Thu3.9.

beginning at 10 AM on Hauptplatz

beginning at 7 PM on the Maindeck of the Ars Electronica Center

Since June 17, 2009, Linz’s Main Square has served as the Base Camp of “80+1 A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD,” a project sponsored jointly by Ars Electronica, voestalpine and Linz09. Ars Electronica 2009—“Human Nature”—and 80+1 will encounter one another for the first time on September 3, 2009 at the opening of this year’s 30th anniversary festival in what promises to be a very fortuitous convergence!

As soon as the sun dips below the horizon, the illumination of the cityscape will get switched down a notch or two in line with the watchwords “Lights Out. Starlight.” In cooperation with the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’s Upper Austria Regional Studio, we’re calling upon Linzers to turn off the lights in their homes from 10 PM to 12 Midnight, and come and do some stargazing on Hauptplatz. Amateur astronomers will make their telescopes and their knowledge of the heavens available to visitors.
A great lineup of music and performances will kick off at 7 PM on the Maindeck of the Ars Electronica Center.

Program:

Beginning at 10 AM Hauptplatz
Bring us a star bearing your own personal wish for the future!
An essential element of the “80+1 A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD” project is peering into the future. In conjunction with “Starry Starry Night,” we’ll be collecting your fondest hopes and desires on a “wish tree” at www.80plus1.org and sending them out into the world.

Beginning at 10 AM Hauptplatz
Exhibition of the Rolling Stars and Planets

10 AM-3 PM Hauptplatz
Austrian Space Forum (ÖWF) Workshops for Young People
ÖWF experts will show you how to build model rockets that can then be launched from the banks of the Danube.

10 AM-6 PM Hauptplatz
Astronaut Trainer from the Children & Youth Service

10 AM-6 PM Hauptplatz
ÖWF Workshops for Young People
Take a test drive in the Dignity Rover, a vehicle used in the space program. Youngsters can try on space suits and experience what it’s like to be an astronaut.

10 AM-6 PM Hauptplatz
COSMOS – An Advanced Scientific Repository for Science Teaching and Learning
Would you like to find out more about the COSMOS website www.cosmos-project.eu? Then pay a visit to the project’s information stand, where staffers will be on hand to answer your questions one-on-one.

12 Noon-6 PM 80+1 Base Camp
Global Window Live
Get linked up LIVE to the whole wide world! Plus: incredible films, links and info about astronomy, space exploration, stars and the cosmos.

3-4 PM Hauptplatz
Trip through the Solar System
Join the ÖWF’s Gernot Grömer on a journey through our solar system and then come along on an Austro-Mars expedition.

4-5 PM Hauptplatz
LIVE remote hookup to Franz Kerschbaum of the University of Vienna’s Department of Astronomy
Franz Kerschbaum provides insights into, among other subjects, the history of astronomy, the birth and death of stars, and the future of our Sun in conversation with ÖWF’s Dietmar Hager and Gernot Grömer.

5-5:45 PM Hauptplatz
LIVE remote hookup to the ESO
We establish contact with the ESO’s Yuri Beletsky.

6:30-7 PM Hauptplatz
Light Pollution
Astronomy expert Dietmar Hager provides interesting information and insights about light pollution and astrophotography.

7-8 PM Hauptplatz
Future Talk alfresco
on the subject of exploration with Franz Viehböck, Austria’s first astronaut, geneticist Josef Penninger and American mathematician John L. Casti; moderated by AEC artistic director Gerfried Stocker

7-9 PM Kirche Urfahr
Klanghimmel and Speeds of Time

8-9 PM Maindeck
Futuristic Sound-Performance – Felix Kubin
The artist Felix Kubin works against the gravitation: Electroacoustic Pop – Noise and rhythm.

8-9 PM Hauptplatz
Stellar Music: Nordwest featuring Louis Nostitz, Ali Andress and Flo Muigg
World premiere of Thomas Nordwest’s “Sternenmusik” featuring Louis Nostitz, Ali Andress and Flo Muigg.

9 -10 PM Hauptplatz
Sternenstunde: Astrology with Gerda Rogers
What does the zodiac portend for Linzers’ future?

10-11 PM Maindeck
InterSidera – TeZ
World premiere of “InterSidera,” a sound performance composed especially for this event by media artist TeZ.

10 PM-12 Midnight Hauptplatz
“Lights Out – Starlight” / A Battery of Telescopes for Stargazing
A one-of-a-kind experience awaits stargazers—amateur astronomers will make available their telescopes and also provide expert explanations of the constellations and the cosmos. Special highlight: the new telescope of the Petrinum parochial high school’s observatory.

10 PM-12 Midnight Hauptplatz
Performance of Rolling Stars & Planets
The Ladies First Ladies modern dance group from BiondekBühne Baden and the SlowForward performance group present “Breath of the Universe” and “The Birth of the World,” thereby conjuring up the stars and constellations on the Nibelungen Bridge.

10 PM-12 Midnight Hauptplatz
Stellar Myths
Stirring accounts of the fairytale creatures that populate the night sky, the heroic sagas of Andromeda, Perseus & Co. and the mythical beasts of the heavens.

12 Midnight Stadtwerkstatt, Café Strom
Ars Electronica Nightline
Numorai live, Sonic Death Monkey, DJ Malvin Elektronik

www.80plus1.org

Important Traffic & Public Transportation Information
9 PM to 1 AM: Hauptplatz closed to all traffic

80+1, Ars Electronica, voesalpine, Linz09, ORF OÖ, LinzAG , Österreichisches Weltraum Forum (ÖWF), Linzer Astronomische Gemeinschaft (LAG), Stadt Linz.

Special thanks to voestalpine, Linz09, ORF OÖ, LinzAG, Magistrat der Stadt Linz, Österreichisches Weltraum Forum (ÖWF), Linzer Astronomische Gemeinschaft (LAG), Bischöfliches Gymnasium Petrinum, Teleskop-Sternwartenzentrum Linz, Stargazer-Observatory, Teleskop-Service Ransburg GmbH, Dietmar Hager, Lajos Santos, Gerda Rogers, Franz Viehböck, Elisabeth Ledersberger-Lehoczky, „Ladies First Ladies” Modern-Dance-Gruppe von der BiondekBühne Baden und „SlowForward” Performace-Gruppe, Wiener Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Astronomie, Astrofreunde Oberes Mühlviertel, sowie allen Teilnehmer beim Teleskopwald, Cosmos – An Advanced Scientific Repository for Science Teaching and Learning, Österreichische Versuchsender Verband (ÖVSV), Kinder- und Jugendservice der Stadt Linz, Werner Prödl, City Ring, Wirtschaftskammer Linz, Jindrak, Stadtgärten Linz, Anrainer und Gewerbetreibenden des Hauptplatzes.

Opening hours during the festival

Thu 3.9. – Mon 7.9. 10:00 – 20:30
Tue 8.9. 10:00 – 18:00

The Ars Electronica Center’s exhibition that debuted on January 2, 2009 is focusing on fields in which the most massive and controversial innovative thrust is now in the process of emerging: the life sciences. Hand in hand with rapid-fire technological advances that are producing computers offering steadily increasing performance and higher-resolution imaging, these research disciplines also explore some compelling relationships – resulting in findings that challenge our conventional view of humanity and man’s place in the world. The Ars Electronica Center is spotlighting these “New Images of Humankind.” Simultaneously atelier and lab, the new facility attests to the affinity between art and science, and to our timeless fascination with our own kind. The commitment to creativity and productivity is stronger than ever. The core is the 1,000-m2 Main Gallery, a space in which artists and scientists, school kids and college students, parents and children can experiment, work and play. This spectacular exhibition doesn’t put the accent strictly on leading-edge technological developments; instead, it concentrates on the concrete question: What’s the impact on me and my life?

(Ars Electronica Center Exhibits: ars.electronica.art/center)

see all Events and Exhibitions in the new Ars Electronica Center

All the target-group-specific offerings that make up this year’s program designed to mediate visitors encounters with festival content having to do with the “Human Nature” theme focus on a concept invented by Paul Crutzen: the Anthropocene Age, a time in which we human beings exert ever-greater influence on our planet, assume what is tantamount to control over it, and thus have more and more influence on society and our natural environment. Achievements in genetic engineering and biotechnology emerge from the depths of the laboratory and are changing our everyday life as well as the entire spectrum of forms of artistic expression. Many questions remain open and some problems still haven’t been cleared up, but cloning and experimentation goes on, boldly and unabated. Plus, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Ars Electronica Festival, we’ll also be taking a few retrospective looks at comparable projects, ideas, exhibitions and personalities of the past. And doing so while we continue to peer far into the future. The key issue: What will this new human-engendered nature look like and what undreamt-of possibilities and niches exist for us human beings within it?

See all events of we guide you 2009

Ars Electronica Center

Thu 3.9. – Mon 7.9.
10:00 – 20:30

Tue 8.9.
10:00 – 18:00

www.u19.at

At this year’s Ars Electronica Center exhibition, the spotlight will be on u19 –freestyle computing. The inherently broad spectrum of u19 and the multifaceted entries submitted to it make it the Prix Ars Electronica’s most highly diversified category year after year. Now, for the first time, the prizewinners will be showcased in the new Ars Electronica Center. The honored projects spanned a wide arc once again this year, ranging from perennial favorites like animated films and videos, to Web 2.0 applications and virtual worlds, all the way to extremely elaborate robotics experiments and complex interactive software.

Idea / Concept / Project Management: Susi Windischbauer

See all projects of u19 – freestyle computing

Golden Nica
In den Tiefen
Matej Petrek

Distinction
Having A Wonderful Time
Tarek Kalifa

Distinction
Sound Machines
HLW des Schulvereins der Kreuzschwestern (Benedikt Hageneder, Matthias Jungwirth, Christoph Matscheko, Sigrid Probst, Doris Wimmer, Anna Kitzmüller, Ulrike Rossrucker, Martina Hutterer, Stephanie Figl, Dominik Rainer, André Mayr, Daniela Leitner, Thomas Rupp, Daniela Schmid, Helene Wild, Victoria Preuer)

Merchandise Prize u10 Index 137
Sieben auf einen Streich
Volksschule Neußerling (Raphael Birngruber, Laura Fischerlehner, Richard Prommer, Kerstin Füchsl, Lukas Prammer, Martin Donner, Jakob Hacklbauer)

Merchandise Prize u14
Lego Chemie
Hauptschule Dr.-Aloys-Weissenbach Telfs (Elena Kihr, Gerald Körber, Johannes Christler, Marcel Pfurtscheller, Simon Neurauter, Philip Mader, Matthias Zeni, Andreas Muigg, Simon Draxler, Tolga Cosar, Fachlehrer Andreas Bellony)

Honorary Mention
Buddytown.AT
Daniel Stocker
http://buddytown.at/

www.daskonzept.at
Maximillian Zinner
Fabian Todt
http://www.daskonzept.at/

CityFlow – Urban Climate Simulation
Oliver Spies, Andreas Mursch-Radlgruber, Michael Kappel, Stefan Pozar
http://www.cityflow.at/

Stop Motion Lightshow
Thomas Niedermaier

Music Robot
Johannes Masanz

IOCC – Die Polizei im Rennen gegen die Zeit
Alexander Niederklapfer, David Wurm, Magdalena Wurm, Ehrentraud Hager

Melt
Nana Susanne Thurner

Semantic Tag Cloud
HTL Donaustadt (Sinja Hemer, Jasmin Haider)
http://wechselwirkungen.biz/stc/

Robot Control with Mobile Phone Motion
HTL Braunau (Leo Höckner)

european II ways
Franz Fellinger

Brucknerhaus, History Lounge

The presentation of the awarded projects in the Prix Ars Electronica’s “Digital Communities” category.

Special Mention
Grass Mud Horse

Thu 3.9. – Mon 7.9.
10:00 – 20:00

Tue 8.9.
10:00 – 17:00

A digital death ritual for the information age

etoy

http://www.missioneternity.org
http://www.etoy.com

mission eternity zeremonie

Sun 6.9. 20:00 – 20:30

“MISSION ETERNITY” (M∞) trespasses the norms of a civilization obsessed with data storage and transportation of cargo. Existing architecture and rituals are inadequate when facing death today.

Independent of religious beliefs and scientific speculations, etoy explores life after death. The art group exploits computer technology and global transportation networks to process, distribute and revive human remains.

The key to this long-term project is TIME. etoy decided to invest 32 years into M∞. At the heart of M∞ stands the creation and long-term conservation of ARCANUM CAPSULES. They are hosted in the shared memory of thousands of networked computers and mobile devices of M∞ ANGELS, people who contribute a part of their digital storage capacity to the mission. The ARCANUM CAPSULE is a digital portrait of a M∞ PILOT – a data swarm that travels space and time forever. It contains digital fragments of a person’s life: ASCII text, statistics, voice samples, electrocardiograms, photos and other records from government and family archives or online sources. The launch of an ARCANUM CAPSULE requires the active presence of a living PILOT. An ARCANUM CAPSULE is defined by a unique 16 digit alphanumerical ID (e.g. F718 34AA 6A9A 6586) assigned to each PILOT.

etoy.AGENTS could encapsulate 7 billion individuals per second for more than 83 years.

At the M∞ GATE (http://www.missioneternity.org/gate), PILOTS hand over their data and the control over them to eternity. From this point forward, the data cannot be changed or revoked.

After uploading the digital heritage, the integration of the mortal remains (the hardware) of a PILOT complements the death ritual.

The TERMINUS, a cube-shaped plug, molds the ashes of a PILOT with cement. During a ceremony the TERMINUS is installed in the SARCOPHAGUS: a 20-foot cargo container outfitted with 17,000 LEDs that displays ARCANUM CAPSULE content of up to 1,000 human beings who passed away. As part of the worldwide container traffic, the SARCOPHAGUS travels through the geographical space just as the ARCANUM CAPSULES travel as data packages through the internet.

In cooperation with Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture – Extra Europa Schweiz.

Fri 4.9. – Mon 7.9.
from 10:00

Quarter, Campingplatz

students from: École européene supérieure de l’image (Angoulême/Poitiers; F), Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (D), Vilniaus dailės akademija (LT)
www.migaa.eu

This art project is headquartered in a camper. It considers movement, media and European identity via other teaching and tenets of an artistic and social nature. Following Berlin and Vilnius, Ars Electronica in Linz is the third stop on the itinerary of the project’s “Sequence” stage.

This project is subsidized by the EU (Culture 2007).

Open Lab

daily from 10:00
Open Lab with students’ presentations, performances, happenings, workshop gatherings etc.

Presentations
daily from 18:00

Friday, 9/4/2009
18.00 Nicolas Rivet: One thousand Leaves
19:00 Gabriel Vanegas: El Newton
19:30 Daniele Spiga, Manuela Serra: Connect/Collect
20:00 Jokubas Cizikas, Monika Lipsic: Live Music Performance
21:00 Students of Academy of Media Arts Cologne: Sequences
21:30 Documentation of projects developed at Academy of Media Arts Cologne

Saturday, 9/5/2009
18:00 Lasse Scherffig: GPS and Satellite Watching
19:00 Fabien Zocco: Playable Database
19.30 Olivier Gain: Live Performance

Sunday, 9/6/2009
18:00 Jonas Hansen (* Hielscher): Lanscape
19:00 Ji Hyun Park: Grundlos
20:00 Jokubas Cizikas, Domas Rukas: Analogue Noise
21:00 Students of Vilnius Art Academy: Identity. Video Compilation

Monday, 9/7/2009
18:00 Martin Rumori: Binaural Soundscape Browsing
19:00 Daniele Spiga, Manuela Serra: Connect/Collect
19:30 Gabriel Vanegas: El Newton
20:00 Auriel: City Noise
20:30 Raphael Dupont, Marine Antony: Video Performance. Special Guest: Auriel
21:00 Students of Vilnius Art Academy: Movement. Video Compilation

Exhibited works:
Gabriel Vanegas: The Impossible Trip
Daniele Spiga, Manuela Serra: Connect/Collect
Marine Antony: Scanning
Ieva Bernotaité: In
Dainius Meskauskas: Radio Silence
Raphael Dupont: Walking Wall
Fabien Zocco: Playable Database

Credits: Hubertus v. Amelunxen, Mindaugas Gapsevicius, Jonas Hansen (* Hielscher), Zilvinas Lilas, Alvydas Lukys, Sylvie Marchand, Vaclovas Nevcesauskas, Martin Rumori
Students: Marine Antony, Ieva Bernotaite, Jokubas Cizikas, Raphael Dupont, Olivier Gain, Karine Guiho, Monika Lipsic, Dainius Meskauskas, Ji Hyun Park, Auriel Reich, Domas Rukas, Manuela Serra, Daniele Spiga, Gabriel Vanegas, Fabien Zocco

An der Arbeit für http://magazin.rebell.tv #4

Stefan M. Seydel, rebell.tv, Tina Piazzi (CH/IT), Stefan M. Seydel (CH/IT), Irene Hilpertshauser (CH), Philipp Meier (CH)

http://rebelll.tv
http://blog.rebell.tv/p12138.html (Coverage from the Festival)

Exactly ten years ago, social worker Stefan M. Seydel came to the Ars Electronica in Linz for the first time. He set up a special hard-coded website for the occasion – “kein spURLoses tagebuch” – and reported back daily with astonishment on his discoveries. For the 30^th anniversary of Ars Electronica, “rebell.tv AG” will for the third time pull up to the festival in a 13-ton, 12-meter-long, 4-meter-wide luxury broadcasting van. Using an 800-gram camera and a 3-kilo notebook, Seydel will put online via WLAN unedited video clips, reports as “field correspondent” for rocketboom.com, notes, links, and observations from his card file and the 10 o’clock morning news: “Welcome to the German-speaking Part of Europe!”

Thu 3.9. – Tue 8.9.
13:00 – 14:00
17:00 – 18:00

Thu 3.9.
19:00-20:00

Sat 5.9.
20:00 – 20:30

Pfarrkirche Urfahr

Andres Bosshard (CH)
www.soundcity.ws/index.html

Based on the fundamental concepts of Baroque “trompe-l’oeil” painting in general and particularly its cunningly stylish way of producing starkly multi-layered depth of field effects that are still capable of eliciting expressions of astonishment from modern viewers, the sound architecture designed by Anders Bosshard aims to conjure up a “sound heaven” within the local parish church in Linz’s Urfahr neighborhood.

The main elements situated within the church’s reverberating vault are eight resonating ceramic bodies created by David Fuchs that display extraordinary acoustic radiation qualities. The sounds emanating from the loudspeaker system are first filtered through these ceramic balls and then radiated ball-shaped into the interior space. Moreover, the spatial constellation of the eight balls forms an intentionally implemented network configuration that makes it possible to produce clear and astoundingly multi-layered tonal imagery in the church’s long and quite diffused resonating space. Of particular importance are apparent tonal space movements that glide through the church’s nave. Andres Bosshard spent several nights in the church before composing a tonal space choreography consisting of musical modules played live on an eight-channel stereophonic sound instrument. The sound coming directly from the balls, the reflections off the vault, interior walls and floor, and the almost inaudible sounds of the city that penetrate the church nave’s walls from outside blend together with virtual sound space projections into a very fine choreophony.

With support by Stadtpfarre Urfahr

Foto: Bill Fontana

Thu 3.9. – Tue 8.9.
14:00 – 15:00
18:00 – 19:00

Thu 3.9.
20:00-21:00

Fri 4.9.
20:00 – 21:00

Pfarrkirche Urfahr

Bill Fontana (US)
Golden Nica Digital Musics
http://resoundings.org/

Speeds of Time 1
Scott George, Sound Engineer from Autograph Sound Recording Limited
Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, House of Commons, Palace of Westminster
Meyer Sound Labs
Charlie Richmond, Richmond Sound Design

Speeds of Time 2
Scott George, Sound Engineer from Autograph Sound Recording Limited
BBC Radio 4
The Arts Council of England
Meyer Sound Labs
Tate Britain
Chelsea College of Art
Haunch of Venison Gallery

“Speeds of Time” is a musical deconstruction of the most famous acoustic icon and symbol of time, Big Ben. Live sensors and microphones are mounted on the clockwork mechanism and near the bells of Big Ben to generate a spatial-acoustic composition, which is placed in an historic colonnade of the New Palace Yard, directly below and within earshot of the bells. The presence of the sound sculpture in this setting interacts with the natural sound of the bells, creating a multi-dimensional acoustic zone. While this work was installed in Westminster, a 12-hour multi-track recording of the sound sculpture was made that makes it possible to fully recreate the real time sense of this artwork, which can be realized as an eight-channel sound installation. This recording is fully accurate to real time and, if started at precisely five seconds before 10 o’clock, it will faithfully keep time.

With support by Stadtpfarre Urfahr

Thu 3.9. – Tue 8.9.

Ars Electronica Center, Maindeck

Walking-Chair Design Studio (Karl Emilio Pircher & Fidel Peugeot) (AT)  in cooperation with LYNfabrikken (DK)
www.walking-chair.com

YOU MAY takes the public space

YOU MAY is a new furniture for the urban public space. YOU MAY does many things: it is a bar and a bench, conference table and quiet corner at the same time, it functions as a lounge as well as a stage or workspace. YOU MAY works with innovative materials, different seat heights, it plays with niches and corners. It provides communication and privacy for up to 15 persons in the same spot. The furniture itself becomes a vivid meeting point, it invites to work, discuss, eat and relax. YOU MAY enables the modern, mobile person to much more than just passive relaxing and therefore significantly differs from all current standard furnitures for parks and public spaces. The Vienna based design duo Karl Emilio Pircher & Fidel Peugeot provides mayors, urban planners and residents with a versatile instrument for enhancing the quality of the public space and filling it with a new lively spirit. YOU MAY is a cooperation between Walking-Chair Design Studio and the danish platform LYNfabrikken. The first edition was finished during May 2009 for the Aarhus Festuge (Århus Festival Week) in Denmark and will also be used for the Vienna Knowledge Space at Karlsplatz, Vienna from June 2009 on. Further exhibitions and shows are already being planned.

Special thanks to our YOU MAY cooperation partner in Denmark: LYNfabrikken.dk & The Aarhus Festival. YOU MAY is powered by departure, wirtschaft kunst und kultur gmbh

You can also find You May Furniture in the History Lounge (Brucknerhaus).

The redesigned city district around Kirchengasse, now known as the “Quarter,” is becoming a magnet for creativity – exhibitions, performances, concerts and artistic interventions in public space form the backdrop for the convergence of the city’s independent arts and culture scene at the Stadtwerkstatt, the Stadtpfarrkirche Urfahr and the Ars Electronica Center.

See all projects of Ars Electronica Quarter

Hauptplatz

The Mobile Ö1 Atelier has been designed especially to serve as a center of public dialog. It offers visitors the opportunity to engage in direct communication and reflection. Plus, there’s a special entertainment feature this year—a presentation of Japanese media art in the field of game design.

The Mobile Ö1 Atelier set up on Linz’s Hauptplatz will showcase prizewinning works from the Japan Media Arts Festival. Visitors are invited to get active and try these games out for themselves. You’ll see how much contemporary media art and game design influence one another and overlap to such a great extent that it can be called an artform in its own right.

Radio Österreich 1 will focus on “Human Nature,” the theme of this 30th Ars Electronica Festival. How are people portrayed in these game worlds? Are modes of behavior and the tasks players have to accomplish ethically acceptable? What changes are the perception and design of landscapes and architecture undergoing? How do we behave in virtual parallel worlds? Can art create completely new realities, or do we just repeatedly return to old, familiar experiential spaces?

Presented works:
Retro: Super Mario Bros. / Donkey Kong / Packman / Xevius
Versus beat’ em-up: Monster Hunter 2 / Virtua Fighter 5
Sports: Wii Sports
Music: Taiko no Tatsujin / Pixel Junk Eden

Foto: Handong Zhu

The construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant in the vicinity of China’s Three Gorges was accompanied by some heated discussions concerning energy production as well as the protection of the region’s population, environment and cultural heritage.

Now, you can pay a visit to the idyllic Three Gorges region via the Internet portal “Second Life” and experience a journey through history. Immerse yourself in the past, hike through the landscape as it exists in the present, or soar high above it into the future.

A video documentary complements the presentation and reflects life in and around the villages of the Three Gorges region.

Credits
Artist: Zhu Handong
Photographer: Liao Hongbo
Second Life Technician: Zhao Ken
Project Assistant: Zhang Han
http://www.zhuhandong.com/

Foto: ARCHIPICTURE Mag. Dietmar Tollerian

Since time immemorial, people have been coming together to make music and sing. As universal means of communication, rhythms, melodies and songs mediate interaction across language barriers, cultures and generations.

The “Arrorró” project invites installation visitors to engage in international understanding by way of music and to sing together with others. The mission is for all sorts of people to mutually exchange their stories, dreams, traditions and languages in a shared setting. Visitors are invited to themselves record lullabies for the project’s homepage and to log on to it to hear the songs of others.

Credits:
Artist: Gabriela Golder

Realization: Gabriela Golder,
Escuela de Comunicación Multimedial de la Universidad Maimónides [Argentina]
Production: Abel Cassanelli
Design, website and connectivity: Violeta Gau /José Allona
Edition: Santiago Pedroncini
Team: María Fernanda Amenta, Facundo Colantonio, Guido Gardini, Violeta Cassanelli, Tiago Espírito Santo, Valeria Evdemón, Pablo Martín Fernández, Guido Ceratto, Alexis Wurstein, Ars Electronica [Austria]

Supported by:
Universidad Maimónides.

http://www.arrorrolullabies.com.ar/

Fotos: Shahjahan Siraj

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is a vibrant metropolis of 12 million inhabitants. Here, markets, tiny shops and bazaars pack just about every street corner. The merchandise ranges from traditional local products all the way to fast food, coffee to go and luxury goods.

80+1 – A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD immerses you via live video into the hustle and bustle of colorful everyday life in Dhaka. Every day, we’ll be visiting another market and enjoying fascinating experiences—for instance, a ride in a rickshaw or a tomtom (horse-drawn cart). In Dhaka, we’ll be shooting short daily videos that, at the end of the project, will be edited into an 81-minute film.

Credits:
Artist, Coordinator, Editor: Shahjahan Siraj
Cinematographer: Jahangir Alam
Researcher: Raihath Sohel
Field Assistant: Farhad Hossain
Photographer: Kamrul Hasan
Production Assistant: Junaed Shahriar
Volunteer, Advisor: Matsuzaki Misuzu

Foto: ARCHIPICTURE Mag. Dietmar Tollerian

The “80+1 – A Journey around the World” exhibition’s project entitled WIA < > WIA -Water in Africa – Water in Austria, which was purportedly to have linked up Linz via the internet to an African village’s well in order to gather data in real time about African water usage and transmit the data to Linz where it would be used to flush a toilet with the exact same amount of water, was actually completely fabricated. Nor does there exist an artist named Melissa Fatoumata Touré. Both the artist and the entire project are fictions that I invented, and I intentionally did not inform Ars Electronica of this fact. Nevertheless, when doubts began to mount about the reality of this project, it seemed advisable to go public with the truth and state the background facts and circumstances.

In a public call for the tender of ideas in 2008, Ars Electronica invited artists and scholars to submit proposals for a virtual journey around the world, a medial reinterpretation of the trip protagonist Phileas Fogg took in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days. The aim is to thereby call attention to important issues that affect the population of the whole world.

I took the journey’s belletristic basis (as specified by Ars Electronica itself) as an occasion to consider an installation that would be played out in the realm of fiction just like the novel that gave the whole project its name. The internet as the filter in the communication between Ars Electronica and me played an essential role in this by effectively concealing my true identity for a long time. Inventing and subsequently maintaining a fictional identity by means of digital communication have also simultaneously been the core of my artistic contribution to this exhibition.

The WIA < > WIA installation I proposed via a fictitious person named Melissa Fatoumata Touré unfortunately deals with a very serious issue: the fact that not all people in this world have enough clean drinking water at their disposal. The installation is set up in such a way that it puts forth a real solution to this very real problem: the operation of the installation will help to raise money that will be used to subsidize the building of wells in Africa.

These facts are not changed in the least by the otherwise fictive character of the installation. The data that are being fed to the toilet in Linz don’t come from an African well hooked up to the internet but rather from a random number generator. And the panoramic image of the African village square that adorns the walls of the toilet is actually a Photoshop collage assembled using images freely available online.

An integral part of a fiction, if it’s to be perpetrated in such a way that people will give it credence, is skepticism. What was originally perceived by the project organizer and audiences as a real project by a real person was revealed, at a certain point, to be a deception. From an artistic perspective, I was interested in exploring this borderline. How long does one keep believing in information? At what point does one classify it as false? And how can I, someone who disseminates fictitious information, use my influence to cause it to be believed nevertheless? This is why the way in which the project is set up calls attention to a problem that, although it has always existed in all media, has been significantly exacerbated by the speed and multilayered complexity of global digital communications: the increasing importance of being able to autonomously assess the extent to which information is true. Or to put this in different terms: to be cognizant of ones occasional impotence in this regard. After all, one is not always in the enviable situation of being able to correctly classify the quality of a piece of information or its source.

I custom-tailored both the WIA < > WIA installation as well as the fictional artist Melissa Fatoumata Touré to the wishes expressed by the project organizers in their published call for submissions.

Doing so afforded me the opportunity to very vividly treat the subject of fraudulent identity and falsified information on the basis of a concrete example in an exhibition context since it’s my opinion that 80+1 – A Journey around the World, a project structured precisely in such a way as to take advantage of all modes of electronic data transfer, should also shed light on this dark side of the internet.

I’m pleased that discovery on the part of Ars Electronica has now brought closure to this undertaking.

Since sustainably providing all people with clean drinking water is more important than the subject of misinformation in the media—indeed, is truly a matter of life or death—I’m also happy that the installation will remain in operation until the conclusion of 80+1 – A Journey around the World and will continue to raise donations to finance the construction of actual wells in Africa.

Electronics: Zoumana Habib Tounkara
Programming: Djelimady Samaké
Internet access: Ballaké Touré
Sibiri Touré, Soumano Dieneba Touré
Sponsored by Niklas Roy
http://www.niklasroy.com/shows/index.htm

“Urbanet” focuses on Johannesburg—and particular on the raw underbelly of the city that remains hidden from the eyes of most tourists. A city that is characterized by problematic social and economic conditions as well as the grueling conflict between the highly motivated democracy movement and the system of apartheid whose legacy is still present in many areas of life.
“Urbanet” presents art as a challenge to discover something new. Hidden among the windows looking out on Linz’s Main Square are numerous projects that you can discover with the installation’s camera. Become an inconspicuous observer; walk through the dense thicket of the cityscape in search of rips and cracks in the surface of pretty appearances.
Then, via live telephone hookup, you can share and discuss your discoveries with inhabitants of Johannesburg.

Credits:
Artists: Stephen Hobbes, Marcus Neustetter
Supported by:
Österreichische Provinz der Jesuiten, Ignatiuskirche / Alter Dom
Kunstuniversität Linz
Uniconsult
Dr. Manfred Lehner
Altes Rathaus, Linz