This school of art and design infused by the pioneering spirit has produced such illustrious media artists as Toshio Iwai (JP) and Maywa Denki (JP). Its history goes back over 30 years, and closely parallels Japan’s rise to preeminence as a technological nation. Plastic arts and mixed media, areas of artistic work and research taken completely for granted today, were opened up at Tsukuba through the establishment of corresponding courses of study. By combining competence in design and engineering, the University of Tsukuba has made a major contribution to the development and propagation of interactive technologies. Since 1996, Hiroo Iwata (JP) has been working in Tsukuba on using digital interface devices as means of artistic expression.

The title of the Linz exhibition refers to a mental attitude that is at the basis of the research work and teaching done at this academic institution, activities that oscillate between playfulness on one hand, and serious consistency on the other. Inherent in many of the works that have come out of this university is a deep-seated confrontation with playfulness. Conversely, engineering work, a pursuit purported to be highly technical and dry as dust, often results in things that are fun to use.

In contrast to Campus exhibitions in previous years, Seriously Playful / Playfully Serious features not only works by undergrads but by faculty members and alumni as well. A chronicle composed of images and videos documents the special approaches and practices that characterize work done at the University of Tsukuba and its contributions to Ars Electronica.

First of all, the numerous works presented in Linz offer an incisive look at what’s currently going on at the institute of art and design; they also insightfully consider the results of an artistic approach to the development of technology and the collaboration among engineers and designers.

Talks / Presentations / Performances

Campus Tsukuba Forum

So/Su 4. 9. 15:00 – 17:00
Ars Electronica Center, Seminar Room
Participants: Hiroo Iwata (JP), Takuro Osaka (JP), Novmichi Tosa
(Maywa Denki) (JP), Tomoe Moriyama (JP)

Campus Tsukuba Students‘ Talk

Mo/Mon 5. 9. 14:00 – 16:00
Kunstuniversität Linz

Spherical Origami Performance

Fr/Fri 2. 9. 15:00 – 15:30
Kunstuniversität Linz
Jun Mitani (JP)

Otamatone Performance

Fr/Fri 2. 9. 17:00 – 17:20
Sa/Sat 3. 9. 17:00 – 17:20
Kunstuniversität Linz
Novmichi Tosa (Maywa Denki) (JP)

PLX Performance

Sa/Sat 3. 9. 15:00 – 15:30
Kunstuniversität Linz
Ryota Kuwakubo (JP)

Robot Mask Demo

Fr/Fri 2. 9. – Di/Tue 6. 9. täglich/daily 11:00 – 12:00
Kunstuniversität Linz
Kenji Suzuki (JP), Dushyantha Jayatilake (LK), Anna Gruebler (VE)

Arbeiten / Works

Air Tiles

Kazuki Iida (JP), Junki Ikeuchi (JP), Toshiaki Uchiyama (JP), Kenji Suzuki (JP)

Arabesque

Marin Takahama (JP)

beacon

Takahiro Kamatani (JP), Miho Kyoya (JP), Toshiaki Uchiyama (JP), Kenji
Suzuki (JP)

Carnival

Masashige Iida (JP))

COLOLO

Makiko Hoshikawa (JP), Fumitoshi Ogaki (JP), Toshiaki Uchiyama (JP),
Kenji Suzuki (JP)

Connect

Nao Kozono (JP)

daruman

Mari Matsumoto (JP), Fumitoshi Ogaki (JP), Kouki Hayafuchi (JP),
Shinya Shimizu (JP), Kenji Suzuki (JP), Toshiaki Uchiyama (JP)

Feel Through

Hiroaki Yano (JP), Hiroo Iwata (JP)

make-up

Yuko Asai (JP)

Marbling Painting on a Sphere of Water – Space Art Experiment at ISSInternational Space Station

Takuro Osaka (JP)

Minstrel

Hiroko Haraguchi (JP)

Otamatone

Maywa Denki (JP)

PLX – parallax of the game

Ryota Kuwakubo (JP)

Robot Mask

Dushyantha Jayatilake(LK), Anna Gruebler(VE), Kenji Suzuki(JP)

Secrets

Sakamoto Nodoka (JP)

Shadows

Junya Kataoka (JP)

Spherical Origami

Jun Mitani (JP)

Spiral Top – Space Art Experiment at ISS-International Space Station

Takuro Osaka (JP)

Talk Torque-2

Hideaki Kuzuoka (JP), Hiroshi Kasai (JP), Ikkaku Kawaguchi (JP),
Toshimasa Yamanaka (JP)

The Forest

Ikumi Aihara (JP)

Tsukuba Scope

Fumiaki Murakami (JP)

Twilight

Junya Kataoka (JP)

The Crocodilian Moves Occasionally Before We Know

Yuki Tabuchi (JP)

Torus Treadmill

Hiroo Iwata (JP)

Art and utility—not necessarily a harmonious pairing. An essential element of artistic freedom is the right to think up and make things that are at first glance totally useless. Designers and technologists are the ones who helpfully intervene in human-machine coexistence. But only artistic confrontations that break out of the confines of practical considerations produce what is truly unexpected and really new. The eminently useful useless is thus the driving force behind the development of the works featured in this exhibition by Linz Art University’s Interface Cultures program.

Instructors: Christa Sommerer (AT), Laurent Mignonneau (FR), Martin Kaltenbrunner (AT), Marlene Hochrieser (AT), Michaela Ortner (AT)

Works

Arbeiten

Error Messages

Vesela Mihaylova (BL)

FMR1

Fabrizio Lamoncha (ES), Ioan Ovidiu Cernei (RO), Maša Jazbec (SLO)

GearBox

Ulrich Brandstätter (AT), Oliver Buchtala (DE)

Huis Clos

Fabrizio Lamoncha (ES), Ioan Ovidiu Cernei (RO), Maša Jazbec (SI)

iWilson

Veronika Pauser (AT)

Lichtspeicher

Henning Schulze (DE)

Oma, erzähl mal!

David Brunnthaler (AT)

QmusiQ

Irmgard Falkinger-Reiter (AT)

Sight Clearing

Andrea Suter (CH)

Squeezer

Fabrizio Lamoncha (E), Ioan Ovidiu Cernei (RO), Maša Jazbec (SLO)

The Will

Lenka Klimešová (CZ), Arwa Ahmed Ramadan (EG)

Weltschmerz

Maša Jazbec (SI), Tiago Martins (PO)

A Balloon for …

Davide Tidoni (IT)

is an itinerant project that brings to life the sound responses of specific spaces. By bursting balloons, the project discovers unique acoustic sites and invites people to explore space through listening.

A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter

Larsen Caleb (US)

This is a two-part work of art: it’s a small piece of sculpture with a controller and active internet connection; it’s also a script by means of which the sculpture is offered for sale on eBay. With each sale, the script launches a new auction on the popular online sales site.

algorithmic search for love

Julian Palacz (AT)

Songs as well as videos you’ve downloaded or shot yourself—nowadays, there’s hardly a home PC hard drive on which the quantities of data haven’t gotten completely out of hand. Julian Palacz (AT) has developed a cleaver search tool. It finds spoken or sung words and word combinations and then indicates precisely where they occur in a particular song or video sequence.

Be Your Own Souvenir

blablabLAB (ES)

Having your portrait sketched by a quickie downtown sidewalk artist was yesterday. The latest rage is an instant bust generated by a 3D printer! Be Your Own Souvenir invites you to pose and then take your likeness home with you in the form of a three-dimensional statuette.

Bee

Apostolos Loufopoulos (GR)

A work of sound art, bee conveys listeners into the acoustic cosmos of insects. Intensive movement and occasionally rapid rhythms with fast transitions are characteristic of this work. Moments of tranquility, of quiet and minimal motion alternate with sudden spurts of activity, and thus shed light on the antithetical motion patterns of flies, bees and other insects.

Cinema for Primates

Rachel Mayeri (US)

It has long been known that our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, the chimpanzees, follow with interest what happens on a TV monitor. But until now, nobody has taken the trouble to develop programming that appeals to primates. And then along came Rachel Mayeri (US). Cinema for Primates is a series of videos produced especially for chimps living in the Edinburgh Zoo.

Continuization Loop

Wim Janssen (BE)

A 35mm film that consists solely of black and transparent surfaces runs over 150 guide rollers and thus produces a “wall of film” completely without projection. Wim Janssen’s (BE) work thus evokes elements from three generations of visual media: the materiality of film, the emptiness of the video signal and the binary logic of the digital.

empathetic heartbeat

Hideyuki Ando (JP), Junji Watanabe (JP), Masahiko Sato (JP)

In this installation, the visitor’s own heartbeat becomes a medium of empathy. Subjects use a stethoscope and headphones to listen to the beating of their heart. At the same time, they watch film clips and acoustically bond so intensively with the on-screen protagonists that the sound of their heart dissolves in total empathy with acoustic existence.

Face to Facebook – Hacking Monopoly Trilogy

Paolo Cirio (IT), Alessandro Ludovico (IT)

In the wake of their critical-subversive confrontations with Google and Amazon, Cirio and Ludovico set their sights on internet behemoth Facebook. They deployed some home-brew software to circumvent the social network’s well-oiled gears. It computes its way through the inconceivably vast number of faces depicted on that site and groups them into various categories that correspond to the ordering patterns people use in everyday life in dealing with others.

Gambiocycle

Gambiologia Collective (Fred Paulino, Lucas Mafra and “The Goose” / BR)

The street merchants and brokers of political information who ride their two-wheelers through Brazilian cities were the inspiration for the Gambiocycle. As a piece of ambulant sculpture and a mobile transmitter unit for digital graffiti and interactive video projections in public spaces, the Gambiocycle is ideally suited to electronic happenings and guerilla information activities.

Inside the Tropospheric Laboratory

Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE)

As a gigantic and rather confusing data & image generator, Tropospheric Laboratory enables us to see such things as aerosols that, as floating gas particles, make up the core of the clouds in the atmosphere. Meyer-Brandis’ (DE) installation thereby artfully veils the boundary between the visible and the invisible. The cloud cores are simultaneously omnipresent and, due to their nano-size, invisible.

Is there a horizon in the deepwater?

HeHe (FR): Helen Evans (UK), Heiko Hansen (DE)

In 2010, the Deep Horizon oil platform exploded, unleashing the worst-ever marine oil catastrophe. With her performance Is there a horizon in the deepwater? HeHe works through the ecological tragedy by minutely reconstructing the event.

MACHT GESCHENKE: DAS KAPITAL

Christin Lahr (DE)

The restrictiveness with which cash outflows from bank accounts are regulated is matched by the liberality with which capital can flow into the same account. Equally unlimited is the freedom to state what the payment is for on the paperwork documenting the transaction. Christin Lahr (DE) has discovered the art of transferring funds and uses this as a means of lowering Germany’s budget deficit. Every day since 2009, the online banking user has transferred one euro cent to the account of the Deutsche Bundesbank. In the memo section, he includes a 108-character quotation from “Das Kapital.”

May the Horse Live in Me

Art Orienté Objet (FR)

This performance spans a bridge between animal and human being as well as between the discipline of bioart and extreme body art. May the Horse Live in Me performs the ritual of blood brotherhood between horse and performer. Immunologically prepared horse blood is injected into a human’s body and initiates a potentially therapeutic process.

Newstweek

Julian Oliver (NZ/DE), Danja Vasiliev (RU/DE)

Newstweek is a high-tech device—small and unobtrusive, but nevertheless well suited for an attack on the nervous system of democracy. As something that appears to be a normal part of the technical infrastructure of an internet hotspot, Newstweek makes it possible to manipulate what’s received by those accessing the internet via W-LAN without them knowing about it. This is done by secretly modifying the news they read on their laptops, smartphones and tablets.

Pigeon d’Or

Tuur van Balen (BE)

This proposed solution to the pigeon problem consists of two elegantly designed birdhouses—one for the home; one for a parked car. In it, you can catch pigeons, feed them with a special bacteria culture that converts the birds’ highly infectious excrement into a disinfectant cleanser that works on such things as window panes and car windshields.

Particles

Daito Manabe (JP), Motoi Ishibashi (JP)

This walk-through installation by Manabe (JP) and Ishibashi (JP) is an exquisitely beautiful work of light art. On a construction that resembles a rollercoaster, light balls can be orchestrated via control screen to whiz about in all directions and grouped into brilliant moving patterns.

Safe Cuddling

Helge Fischer (DE)

Originally conceived as an ironic statement about Western societies’ deepseated fears that are being assiduously stirred up by the media, this Safe Cuddling suit designed for children became the center of a dead-serious discussion about dealing with parental fear of child abuse. Helge Fischer’s (DE) construction offers protection by sounding an alarm when a child is cuddled too long or in an inappropriate place.

Sentient City Survival Kit

Mark Shepard (US)

The Sentient City Survival Kit is a bitingly ironic comment on the rapidly materializing vision of ubiquitous computing that’s being accompanied by the total surveillance of our behavior as consumers, our habits and our
movements. It consists of, among other things, an umbrella that generates crazy light effects to disrupt any video surveillance system, a not-your-everyday navigation app for cell phones, communication-enabled coffee cups and underwear that can easily outfox the RFID chip sensors at the mall.

Six-Forty by Fourty-Eighty

Jamie Zigelbaum, Marcelo Coelho (US)

This interpretation of the touchscreen principle consists of handy magnetic pixels that can be arrayed however the user wishes. One touch is all it takes to change a pixel’s color or to copy onto another.

TUNNEL

Rejane Cantoni (BR), Leonardo Crescenti (BR)

Tunnel is a finely designed, moveable passageway, living architecture that several persons can walk through simultaneously. Depending of the pedestrians’ weight, size and movement, it changes its design and dimension to fit the circumstances.

Auf der ARS Electronica 2011 geht es u.a. um „ORIGIN – wie alles beginnt“, also vor allem auch den gigantischen Teilchenbeschleuniger LHC in CERN am Genfer See und den Ursprung unseres Universums. Das trifft sich gut, denn damit kennen sich die Science Busters nicht nur aus, sondern können darüber auch referieren, dass es alle verstehen. Zzgl. Witze!

Univ.–Prof. Heinz Oberhummer (TU, theoretische Physik und Kernphysik mit Schlagseite Astrobiologie), Univ.–Lekt. Werner Gruber (UNI Wien, Neurophysik und experimentelle Physik mit Schlagseite Kulinarik) und Martin Puntigam (Studienabbrecher UNI Graz, heute Satiriker im Vollerwerb) erklären, warum wegen der Protonen in Genf in Österreich die Krebsrate sinken wird, wie man Antimaterie einsperrt, warum sich Teilchenbeschleuniger vor dem Mond fürchten, der LHC aber trotzdem beweisen kann, dass die Menschen auf dem Mond waren.

Und vieles mehr.

Live und in Stereo.

Wissenschaft für alle mit der schärfsten Science–Boygroup der Milchstraße.

Am Donnerstag, 01.09.2011, 12:30 – 14:00 live am AEC Maindeck und auf radio FM4.

FM4 wird während des ARS Electronica Festivals 2011 erneut mit dem mobilen Studio und einem großen Redakteur/innen-Team live in Linz vor Ort sein und tagesaktuell sowie in Spezialsendungen berichten – BesucherInnen sind im Studio herzlich willkommen!

Darüber hinaus wird das Festival auch online auf fm4.orf.at in eigenen Stories abgebildet werden – nicht nur in Texten und Bildern, sondern auch in selbstproduzierten Videos. Erste Eindrücke vom Festival gibt es am Donnerstag, den 1. September, in FM4 Connected (15-19h) zu hören. Am selben Tag stehen die Science Busters live ab 13h am AEC Maindeck HörerInnen für Fragen zum Ursprung des Universums zur Verfügung (nähere Info s.u.). Und am Abend desselben Tages (19-22 Uhr) sowie an den folgenden Nachmittagen am Freitag und Samstag (je 15-19 Uhr) wird live aus Linz aus dem Studio im ARS Electronica Center übertragen. Wissenschaftler/innen und Künstler/innen, die sich zum Festivalthema „ORIGIN“ beim Ars Electronica Festival 2011 einfinden, werden zum Gespräch ins mobile Radiostudio geladen. Wie vielfältig dabei die diesjährige Kernfrage nach den Ursprüngen beantwortet werden wird und welche Form der Inspiration Kunstschaffende, Besucher und Berichterstatter davon tragen werden – all das wird FM4 während der Festivalzeit der Ars Electronica wiederspiegeln.

„You‘re at home, baby“ – das gilt auch als Einladung an Hörerinnen und Hörer, die in unserem FM4-Studio in Linz vorbeischauen und zuhören möchten!

FM4 auf der Ars Electronica und der Auftritt der Science Busters dort finden mit freundlicher Unterstützung von Orange statt.
Foto: ©Ingo Pertramer

Regular price: 27€ inluding transfer (please consider making a reservation through ars.electronica.art/origin/en/tickets/)

The entry and transfer is free for owners of the festivalpass.

The transfer will be done with busses.

The Ars Electronica offers the transfer of 500 guests from Linz to the Pettenfirst and back. Because of technical and logistical reasons we cannot offer more seats then that, so we strongly recommend to make a reservation through ars.electronica.art/origin/en/tickets/.

Some things to consider:

It is possible to get to this event on your own. Find infos on how to get there here.

We wish you a pleasant trip to the Hausruck and an amazing experience!

Please note that due to the limited seats you will need a separate invitation or a seat reservation for the Gala.

The Golden Nicas and Prizes go to:

Metachaos

Alessandro Bavari (IT)
Golden Nica Computer Animation / Film /VFX

Energy Field

Jana Winderen (NO)
Golden Nica Digital Musics & Sound Art

May the Horse Live in me

Art Orienté Objet: Marion Laval-Jeantet (FR), Benoît Mangin (FR)
Golden Nica Hybrid Art

Newstweek

Julian Oliver (NZ), Danja Vasiliev (RU)
Golden Nica Interactive Art

Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente

Golden Nica Digital Communities

Weltherberge Schulhaus

HBLA für Künstlerische Gestaltung Linz / HTL Leonding
Golden Nica u19 Create Your World

Choke Point Project

P2P Foundation (NL)
Winner [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant

ARS Electronica Animation Festival 2011 – Trailer

Timetable

02.09.2011 Fr/Fr 10:00-22:00
03.09.2011 Sa/Sat 10:00-13:15
04.09.2011 So/Sun – 06.09.2011 Di/Tue 10:00-22:00

PDF-Download of the Animation Festival Folder

In the 1992 Prix Ars Electronica’s Computer Animation category, “Terminator 2” was awarded an honorary Nica—and thus not a cash prize—to honor it as a superlative display of state-of-the-art computer-generated visual effects. In the jury’s statement, Peter Weibel wrote that industrial & commercial films weren’t just popularizing computer animation; they were also showcasing the manifold array of possibilities it afforded and thus advancing it.

Which was spot on, as we can now see. That’s how it was 19 years ago when “Terminator 2” was produced. Today, we take special effects completely for granted. It no longer takes massive computing power to achieve breathtaking visual design. In the 1990s, it seemed that students and indie filmmakers had to make do with second-rate capabilities; now, they’re restricted only by the boundaries of their imagination.

Works submitted for 2011 Prix Ars Electronica prize consideration conclusively attest to this. Most of the short-listed films are by freelancers. The Ars Electronica Animation Festival has selected and grouped them into lineups that give viewers a concentrated overview of current digital filmmaking.

The Program Lineups

Narration
Tales of real life told in cinematic terms—a child solves the problems of everyday existence with drawings; an elderly lady and her difficulties with a hotplate; the abstruse story of a light bulb producer; a family soap opera about a complexly interwoven relationship.

Parallel Worlds
Strange things, the stuff that fables are made of, occur on a regular basis here. War scenarios are turned topsy-turvy; messages-in-a-bottle connect the poles; an art thief becomes the product of his craving; creatures that immerse themselves in shadows end up landing in Nowhere—a fantasy realm emerges!

Chaos
Individual, chaotic sensitivities, excursions on the verge of psychosis, a midnight car crash, the collision of nature, emotion, evolution and morality, the dynamic impact of highly contrasting realities, and media on the dissection table make up this program.

Short Cuts
In an attempt to rescue a lost ray of light, the Sun destroys a whole city. In a supermarket at night, a tumbling tangerine triggers a chaotic chain reaction. A cute little kitty dreams of being an action star. This lineup is proof positive that even the most animated tales of adventure take only a few minutes to tell.

Fight & Chase
These warriors battle each other or on the same side, struggle for a cause or against one, or maybe with themselves. Japanese sword fighters face off against Nordic Vikings, and a guy just trying to get his food home intact takes on all comers. You better have your seatbelt buckled for this white-knuckle ride!

Dark Stories
Clashes, criminal cases, internal chasms; the shadowy, gloomy, sinister side of life—these disturbing plots draw viewers into a world of absurdities and monstrosities, into the very core of the subconscious sphere. Definitely not a “nighty night, sleep tight” kind of show!
Digital Bestiary

There’s plenty of activity in this highly diverse biotope full of dogs, cats, walruses, fish, birds and God knows what else. You don’t necessarily have to be an animal lover to like this lineup teeming with profound insights into the domain inhabited by our biological kin—environments ranging from tropical rainforests to high alpine meadows.

Position & Message
The crisis in Greece, the consequences of the Chernobyl meltdown, obsessive dieting & eating disorders, global warming, individuals drifting away from stable social structures—filmmakers offer up trenchant statements in this program.

Late Night
The faint-hearted have no business here! Blood will flow, violence will be rampant. Hybrids walk the Earth; monsters proliferate to put quite a different face on normal, everyday life; a city of the headless dictates its own rules & regulations. Bring nerves of steel to this screening!
Transformations

The perceptions of internal and external worlds undergo striking shifts. Architectural perspectives are reformulated, along with visualizations of interior and exterior spaces. Construction and deconstruction are the essential parameters of this program.

Visuals & Sounds & Music
The interplay of musical and visual imagery just might be the art form with the longest tradition, though one that’s now undergoing a radical reinterpretation. This program showcases a selection of music visualizations and music videos submitted for Prix prize consideration.

Japan Media Arts Selection
Visual imaginativeness and unconventional narrative forms characterize animation made in Japan. This program shows various kinds of Japanese animation from the latest Japan Media Arts Festival.

Young Animations
Witty, off-beat, subtle, tragic and serious animated work produced by young filmmakers.

Filming and photographing during the screenings is prohibited.

Filming and photographing during the Electronic Theater screenings is prohibited.

Filming and photographing during the Electronic Theater screenings is prohibited.