An evening with the crème de la crème of the digital arts – a highlight of the 2012 Ars Electronica Gala will be the ceremony at which the Golden Nica statuettes are bestowed upon the Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners.

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

The Golden Nicas and Prizes go to

Rear Window Loop
Jeff Desom (LU)

Golden Nica Computer Animation/Film/VFX

Crystal Sounds of a Synchrotron
Jo Thomas (UK)

Golden Nica Digital Musics & Sound Art

bacterial radio
Joe Davis (US)

Golden Nica Hybrid Art

Memopol-2
Timo Toots (EE)

Golden Nica Interactive Art

Syrian people know their way
Syrian people know their way (SY)

Golden Nica Digital Communities

state of revolution
Agnes Aistleitner (AT)

Golden Nica u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD

qaul.net – tools for the next revolution
Christoph Wachter, Mathias Jud (CH)

Winner [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant

Versuch unter Kreisen
Julius von Bismarck (DE)

Winner Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN Artists Residency Award

Project Management: Barbara Hinterleitner, Romana Leopoldseder
Project Assistance: Katharina Edlmair
Screendesign: checksum5 (Joreg, Rainer Kohlberger)

The Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s highest endowed competition in the digital arts. Prizes are awarded in seven categories. The CyberArts 2012 exhibition features works honored in Hybrid Art, Interactive Art, Digital Musics & Sound Art, and Computer Animation, as well as the recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN Residency Award.

bacterial radio

Joe Davis (US)
Golden Nica Hybrid Art

Joe Davis (US) is dedicated to the ideals of the Enlightenment and art that seeks to disseminate knowledge. “bacterial radio,” his 2011 project developed out of a circuit and two bacterial cultures with the help of molecular biological technology, is meant to encourage people to use knowledge on their own in order to be independent of industrial products, as well as to understand and master the exotic technologies we use in everyday life.

Memopol-2

Timo Toots (EE)
Golden Nica Interactive Art

Timo Toots’ Memopol-2 installation impressively demonstrates what links among databanks mean for each and every one of us. After scanning a user’s ID, Memopol-2 combs Austrian and international databanks as well as the internet to harvest data about the user. This information is then displayed on a large screen to show all the stuff to be had out there.

Rear Window Loop

Jeff Desom (LU)
Golden Nica Computer Animation

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1953) is a classic much admired by film buffs, especially for its camera work that set the standard for excellence. Never before have these famous images been used in a time-lapse video. “Rear Window Loop” is based exclusively on original film material. It condenses Hitchcock’s masterpiece into twenty breathtaking minutes of footage meticulously edited and processed solely with After Effects and Photoshop.

The Free Universal Construction Kit

Golan Levin (US), Shawn Sims (US)
Award of Distinction Hybrid Art

“Free Universal Construction Kit” is a grassroots project that offers an assortment of adapters that make it possible to build stuff by combining pieces from 10 well-know construction kits (Lego, Fischertechnik, etc.) It’s thus an intentional provocation of toy manufacturers. The pieces can be downloaded free of charge from various internet file-sharing sites in the form of 3D models and produced at home using equipment like the Makerbot open-source 3D printer.

MOON GOOSE ANALOGUE: Lunar Migration Bird Facility

Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE)
Award of Distinction Hybrid Art

The works of Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE) always combine poetry and science. Here, she takes up where The Man in the Moone (1603), Bishop Francis Godwin’s tale about a goose-powered lunar expedition, left off. She raised 11 of these big birds, named them after astronauts and established herself as crew chief. Then she trained them to fly, launched missions, and put them up in quarters modeled on the Moon itself just like the facility real astronauts use for training purposes.

Solar Sinter Project

Markus Kayser (DE)
Award of Distinction Interactive Art

In the desert, there’s a surfeit of (solar) energy and raw materials (sand). Markus Kayser (DE) combines natural energy and natural materials with clever, sophisticated production technology to turn out glass objects with a 3D printer.

It’s a jungle in here

Isobel Knowles (AU), Van Sowerwine (AU) with Matthew Gingold (AU)
Award of Distinction Interactive Art

Part psychodrama, part multimedia wonder, “It’s a jungle in here” is an astounding encounter with the fragile rules that are operative in the public sphere. A picturesque viewing booth offers room for two people to watch the screening of a stop-motion animated film starring paper figures. The faces of two of the characters are those of the two viewers (photographed by webcam), who are thus inserted into three interactive narratives about atrociously antisocial behavior and aggression aboard a suburban train.

#tweetscapes – a HEAVYLISTENING experience

Tarik Barri (NL), Anselm Venezian Nehls (DE)

“#tweetscapes” by UdK students Barri (NL) and Nehls (DE) transforms all German-language tweets into abstract sounds—as real-time sonification of what’s happening in the German Twitter scene and as an interactive, collective composition by German-speaking Twitter users. The tweets are made audible according to a strict set of rules, whereby an algorithm generates a characteristic sound for any conceivable topic.

The Body is a Big Place

Peta Clancy (AU), Helen Pynor (AU)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

“The Body is a Big Place” is a large-scale work of bioart that employs video projections, a perfusion apparatus that provides blood to a heart while it’s outside the body, and an acoustically active water landscape to investigate the process of organ transplantation as well as transition in the grey area between life and death.

2.6g 329m/s

Jailia Essaidi (NL)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

The specifications 2.6g 329m/s refer to the weight and speed of a small-caliber slug that a bullet-proof vest has to be able to withstand. Since organically produced spider silk is stronger than steel, bullets should bounce off of it too—provided it’s been woven correctly.

Jalila Essaïdi (NL) subjects this idea to trial by fire with a fabric that’s a blend of spider silk and human skin yielded by transgenic goats.

The Great Work of the Metal Lover

Adam Brown (US)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

“The Great Work of the Metal Lover” is a work at the nexus of art, science and alchemy that uses modern microbiological procedures in a new approach to transforming elements. Bringing together a highly-specialized, metal-tolerant bacteria with an artificial atmosphere enclosed in a customized alchemical bio-reactor produces gold.

Searching for the Ubiquitous Genetically Engineered Machine

ArtScienceBangalore (IN)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

In the field of synthetic biology, organic building blocks are used as abstractions or models for the production of standardized, functional living parts. “Searching for the Ubiquitous Genetically Engineered Machine” demonstrates a potential alternative application of organic building blocks—testing biodiversity in soil samples. To this end, ArtScienceBangalore (IN) makes available a free tool to laypeople interested in getting actively involved in applied science.

Ideogenetic Machine

Nova Jiang (NZ)
Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Visitors to this interactive installation become comic strip characters. An algorithm transforms a photographic portrait of the user into a stick figure. With the help of facial recognition software, empty speech bubbles are automatically applied. In accordance with a series of rules derived from the compositional decisions of a human cartoonist, the software generates non-repetitive creations. Users can e-mail the finished comics as a PDF and fill in the speech bubbles with home-brew dialog.

Dream Water Wonderland

Hörner/Antlfinger (DE)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

Two nuclear industry facilities in Germany have come to epitomize the end of technological feasibility fantasies: the breeder reactor in Kalkar that never went into operation and the Asse II nuclear waste disposal site. “Dream Water Wonderland,” an installation consisting of two Plexiglas cubes, a 1970s-vintage turntable and an audiovisual work, refers to these two places in translating the legacy of the nuclear industry into a dream world.

Occupy George

Ivan Cash (US), Andy Dao (US)
Honorary Mention Interactive Art

“Occupy George” puts US dollar notes stamped with fact-based info-graphics into circulation as a way to inform the public, bill by bill, about America’s horrendous economic inequality and the gap between rich and poor that’s yawning wider by the day.

MAQUILA REGION 4

Amor Munoz (MX)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

“Maquila Región 4” (MR4) is a mobile factory that migrates through Mexico’s most impoverished regions, hiring laborers at the US minimum wage ($7/hour as compared to 60 cents, the going rate south of the border). In MR4, they embroider electronic circuits with conductive thread and apply a code to it. When it’s decoded—for example, with a smartphone—a website detailing the production history pops up. It contains the worker’s name, the location and date of production, and how long it took. There’s also room self-expression such as dedications and videos.

Cross Coordinates (MX-US)

Ivan Abreu (MX)
Honorary Mention Interactive Art

The fragile equilibrium of life on the Mexico-US border is the name of this demanding game for two players. Its uncommon dynamics are impressive indeed. The only way to win is via collaboration and seeking reconciliation with one’s opponent. The game is played with a special spirit (bubble) level that the players have to bring into balance. Following an experimental phase in settings such as an exhibition, the game was continued online.

ADM8

RYBN (FR)
Honorary Mention Interactive Art

On May 6, 2010 at 2:40 PM, the Dow Jones Index fell 900 points in less than 20 minutes due to miscalculations by computerized high-volume trading funds. The loss is estimated to have been a trillion dollars. To attack the forces of finance on the battlefield of their latest and most complex developments, RYBN.ORG constructed its own trading robot in the form of open-source software designed to speculate on the financial markets. This autonomous program place orders to buy and sell securities and predict imminent market movements.

Energy Parasites

Eric Paulos (US)
Honorary Mention Interactive Art

These handmade objects enable the user to tap small amounts of energy for his/her own use at various public places. With no further ado with respect to the origins or ownership of the energy thus obtained, these artifacts variously rechannel the extracted energy or store it for later use. Both malicious and useful, they call into question concepts of energy ownership.

Protei

Protei (UK)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

Protei, a fleet of sail-powered drones designed to fight pollution of the seas, is currently under construction. The production alliance’s mission is to develop an affordable open-source vehicle that can sail semi-autonomously against the wind and capture oil slicks being driven by the wind. It’s meant to be hurricane-proof, self-righting, inflatable, indestructible, low-priced and easy to set up so it can be deployed quickly in case of a crisis.

UN RESEAU TRANSLUCIDE

Prue Lang (AU)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

This 100% energy-independent stage play substantially rethinks conventional forms of theatrical production. Smart costumes make it possible to harvest, as it were, the energy generated by the dancers during the performance. To do so, the production employs devices to convert the kinetic energy of the dancers’ movements into electricity to run the sound system. The lighting is fed with current directly from a bicycle powered by the dancers themselves.

Following each performance, there’s a discussion with the audience about sustainable development and how art can set an example for creative innovation.

Crackle-canvas #1

Tom Verbruggen (NL)
Honorary Mention Digital Musics & Sound Art

“Crackle-canvas” is what Tom Verbruggen (NL) calls a picture that produces sound. Each of his artworks consists of a circuit board, loudspeakers, controller knobs, switches, wooden frames and a projection screen, and has a tonal character all its own. Via cable, it can also be linked up to other images and react to them. “Crackle-canvas” will be presented in the context of a performance after which festivalgoers will have the opportunity to play with the pictures.

Game Border

Jun Fujiki (JP)
Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

“Game Border” is a challenging game. It imparts the feeling of jumping from one game device to another and thus breaking down the borders of the hardware. It also calls upon players to interconnect the various games as seamlessly as possible. In doing so, the point is to go beyond not only physical limits but social and perceptual ones as well.

BETWEEN | YOU | AND | ME

Anke Eckardt (DE)
Honorary Mention Digital Musics & Sound Art

Physically modeling sound like a sculpture is the basic idea that inspired Anke Eckardt (DE). Between | You | And | Me is a wall of sound and light that defines an architectural space. Two thin light membranes form a visible frame filled with sound. Loudspeakers aimed at extreme angles broadcast sound textures of breaking glass. Nevertheless, all of this can be perceived only if installation visitors approach the wall and interact with it.

Versuch unter Kreisen

Julius von Bismarck (DE)

An installation visitor entering the space in which “Versuch unter Kreisen” (Experiment among Circles) by Collide@CERN prizewinner Bismarck (DE) is installed initially notices nothing unusual. Suddenly, things start to move. The suspended lamps begin to swing—slowly at first, gradually working up momentum—as if the whole building were being rocked. Each light obeys a particular choreography, whereby the mathematically computed cyclical motions were inspired by wave patterns.

Because of some copyright-issues, not all the streams are available on Youtube.

THE BIG PICTURE Symposium

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Overview Effect

SEED has put together the opening session. The point of departure is the proverbial Overview Effect triggered by the appearance in the mass media of the first pictures of our planet taken from outer space. Thus, the subject here is the role of pictorial media in forming, imparting and propagating images of the world as well as the question of which visualization techniques we can utilize in our efforts to understand, depict and get across the complex interrelationships of our time.

Fr/Fri 31. 8. 10:00 – 13:00
Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal

10:00 – 10:15 Gerfried Stocker (AT)
10:15 – 10:40 Adam Bly (CA)
10:40 – 11:00 Johan Bollen (BE/US)
11:00 – 11:20 Manuel Lima (PT/US)
11:20 – 11:30 Break
11:30 – 11:50 Paola Antonelli (IT/US)
11:50 – 12:10 Golan Levin (US)
12:10 – 12:40 Panel
12:40 – 13:00 Discussion
Moderated by Adam Bly (CA)

Adam Bly (CA) is the founder and CEO of Seed, an online science magazine, as well as the initiator of the visualizing.org data visualization site. He has given speeches and made presentations at the World Economic Forum, MoMA, the Royal Society and Harvard University.

Johan Bollen (BE/US) studied experimental psychology. He teaches at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing. His specialties are data mining, digital libraries, infometrics, and adaptive information system architectures.

Manuel Lima (PT/US) works for Microsoft Bing. He initiated VisualComplexity.com for the mapping of complex networks and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Prior to Microsoft, his employers included Nokia and Siemens. Lima is one of the leading experts in information visualization.

Paola Antonelli (IT/US) is a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and one of the world’s foremost experts in contemporary architecture & design. She has designed numerous exhibitions (e.g. Workspheres and SAFE) and written books about design. She teaches the history of design at UCLA and Harvard.

Golan Levin (US) designs artifacts and experiences that investigate new forms of expressing reactions. In his work, he concentrates on the design of systems to simultaneously produce, modify and depict images and sounds. Levin teaches and does research at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the recipient of an Award of Distinction in the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica’s Hybrid Art category.

Mapping the World

The afternoon session is entitled Mapping the World. Getting things started is philosopher Thomas Macho (AT) with a fundamental cultural-historical survey of the images of the world that humankind has brought forth. Totally new pictures of the world—here meaning the whole universe—will be the topic of Lisa Kaltenegger (AT), an astronomer whose field is the discovery and measurement of planets beyond our solar system. The Tsunagari Project then shifts attention back to Planet Earth. Mahoro Uchida (JP) of Japan’s big Miraikan Science Center heads this spectacular and educational visualization project, and will present it together with architect Hajime Narukawa (JP), who has taken Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion idea and developed it further. The first day of the symposium concludes with a film: One Day on Earth doesn’t depict the world in one big integral overview but rather as a mosaic of countless subjective glimpses. This global project, which now convenes on an annual basis, will be presented by its initiators, Brandon Litman (US) and Kyle Ruddick (US).

Fr/Fri 31. 8. 15:00 – 17:30
Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal

15:00 – 15:30 Thomas Macho (AT/DE)
15:30 – 15:50 Lisa Kaltenegger (AT)
15:50 – 16:30 Hajime Narukawa, Maholo Uchida (JP)
16:30 – 16:45 Break
16:45 – 17:15 Brandon Litman, Kyle Ruddick (US)
17:15 – 17:30 Discussion
Moderated by Ariane Koek (UK/CH)

Thomas Macho (AT/DE) studied philosophy, music and pedagogy. He has held a chair in cultural history at Humboldt-Universität Berlin since 1993. He is currently guest professor at Linz Art University and a member of numerous research groups and societies.

Lisa Kaltenegger (AT) is an astrophysicist and astronomer. She conducts research on extra-solar planets—especially their atmosphere—whereby she seeks indicators for extraterrestrial life forms. Kaltenegger works at MPIA Heidelberg and teaches in the Harvard Astrophysics Department.

Hajime Narukawa (JP) is an architect whose honors include the Salon de Printemps Prize. Since the mid-1990s, he has been working on geometric theory. He worked for the Arnhem Academy of Architecture and Sasaki Structural Consultants before founding AuthaGraph in 2009.

Maholo Uchida (JP) is a curator and exhibition developer at Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. The mission of this new type of science museum is to enrich human culture by presenting and imparting ground-breaking scientific work and pioneering technologies.

Brandon Litman and Kyle Ruddick (US) are the initiators, director (Ruddick) and producer (Litman) of “One Day on Earth,” a film that is both a global media movement and a global community. Made together with 70 NGO partners including the UN, “One Day on Earth” is the first film in history to be shot collaboratively with approximately 19,000 cast & crew members from all countries worldwide.

Ariane Koek (UK/CH) was a multiple award-winning producer at BBC TV and BBC Radio for over 20 years, as well as director of the Arvon Foundation for Creative Writing. Since 2010, she has headed the International Arts Development Program at CERN.

Science & Art I

On Saturday, the symposium scene shifts from the Brucknerhaus to the Lentos, an ideal venue for a discussion of the respective roles allocated to art and science, and the real-world possibilities of and limits to collaboration between them. Scientist George Church (US) and artist Joe Davis (US), brilliant transgressors of the borders of their respective disciplines, will present their positions and work in the area of new biotechnologies. Afterwards, they’ll take part in a panel discussion about the theory and practice of collaboration among artists and scientists with curator and bio-art expert Jens Hauser (DE/FR) and CERN physicist Michael Doser (AT/CH). Then Gabriele Lohmann (DE) will elaborate of the role of new imaging methods in brain research, and give us an idea of the enormous potential the latest findings in the neurosciences have to change our views of humankind.

Sa/Sat 1. 9. 10:30 – 13:00
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

10:30 – 11:00 George Church (US)
11:00 – 11:30 Joe Davis (US)
11:30 – 11:50 George Church (US), Joe Davis (US), Jens Hauser (DE/FR)
11:50 – 12:00 Break
12:00 – 12:20 Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP)
12:20 – 12:45 Gabriele Lohmann (DE)
12:45 – 13:00 Discussion
Moderated by Michael Doser (AT/CH)

George Church (US) holds a chair in genetics at Harvard Medical School and heads the Center for Computational Genetics. In 1984, he became the first to decode a genome, which led to many other revolutionary discoveries and software developments in the fields of genetic engineering and synthetic biology.

Joe Davis (US) is an artist, researcher and scientist who works at, among other places, MIT’s Department of Biology. He has done intensive research in molecular biology and bioinformatics, created genetic databanks, and developed new biological art forms and numerous uncategorizable works at the nexus of art and science. His “Bacterial Radio” was honored with the 2012 Golden Nica in Hybrid Art.

Jens Hauser (DE/FR) lives and works in Paris as an author, cultural journalist and curator of such exhibitions as Synth-ethic (Vienna, 2011) and Fingerprints… (Berlin, 2011; Munich, 2012). He has dealt extensively with interactions between art and technology, and contextual aesthetics that transcend the boundaries of individual genres. He was a juror in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Hybrid Art category.

Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP) is a scientist and artist. He heads the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at the University of Osaka’s Department of Adaptive Machine Systems. He has made numerous guest appearances at Ars Electronica with extraordinary robots and robotics feats—for instance, his mechanical doppelgänger Geminoid H-1 and, most recently, Android-Human Theater (2011).

Gabriele Lohmann (DE) studied mathematics, mathematical logic and philosophy. She develops new methods of analyzing visual data—first, of satellite images of Earth for cartographical applications at the DLR–German Aerospace Center, and since 1995 in the field of brain research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig.

Michael Doser (AT/CH) is a particle physicist working at CERN. He has been working with antimatter since 1983. In 2002, he was part of the team that made cold atoms of antihydrogen for the first time, and currently leads the AEGIS experiment that will measure how antimatter falls.

Science & Art II

In the afternoon session, the art-science discussion goes a bit deeper, scrutinizing in particular whether art is in a position to go beyond interpreting scientifically induced pictures of the world and can itself, in a comparable way, engender and propagate new concepts about our world and the interrelationships and interactions in it. Julius von Bismarck (DE), the first artist-in-residence in the program under the joint aegis of CERN and Ars Electronica, will present his work and relate his experiences, and then go into detail in a panel discussion with James Wells (US), his scientific advisor during his residency, and Ariane Koek (UK/CH), CERN’s director of artistic affairs. CERN physicist Michael Doser will moderate. The broad spectrum of positions that artistic works can take with respect to scientific issues will occupy the focal point of the rest of the afternoon session. The work presentations by prizewinners in the Hybrid Art and Interactive Art categories will demonstrate once again the great fascination as well as relevance such works can achieve beyond the discrete domain of art.

Sa/Sat 1. 9. 15:00 – 17:30
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

15:00 – 15:20 Julius von Bismarck (DE)
15:20 – 15:45 Julius von Bismarck (DE), Ariane Koek (UK/CH), James Wells (US)
15:45 – 16:05 Jo Thomas (UK)
16:05 – 16:25 Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE)
16:25 – 16:40 Break
16:40 – 17:30 Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (AU), Timo Toots (EE)
Moderated by Michael Doser (AT/CH)

Julius von Bismarck (DE) is the 2012 Collide@CERN prizewinner. He lives and works in Berlin, where he studies at the Institute for Spatial Experiments. Prior to that, he graduated from the MFA program at Hunter College in New York. He won a Golden Nica at the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica for his “Image Fulgarator”.

James Wells (US) is a theoretical physicist and a member of the scientific staff at CERN. The recipient of numerous prizes, he was previously a professor at the University of Michigan and the University of California, and also worked at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg.

Jo Thomas (UK) is a London-based musician. She uses multichannel systems to produce pieces in which she works with microsounds, pure tones and interference pulses as a means of dealing musically with the polarity of failure and success. She is the recipient of the 2012 Golden Nica in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Musics & Sound Art category.

Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE) is at the experimental edge of art and science with her work in both
sculpture and new media art. Exhibited worldwide, it is exploring the zone between fact and fiction. She received an Prix Ars Electronica 2012 Award of Distinction Hybrid Art.

Isobel Knowles (AU) is an artist who works predominantly with animation. She incorporates it into installations, films, music videos, commercial work and anywhere else it might fit in.

Van Sowerwine (AU) is a media artist active in the fields of animation, installation and interaction. For many years, she has been collaborating with Isobel Knowles (AU) on stop-motion animated works and interactive installations that are exhibited worldwide. At the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica, she was singled out for recognition with an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Art category.

Timo Toots (EE) studied computer science and photography. Since 2005, he has been producing interactive art projects that analyze, comment on and reflect upon developments in Information Society. He also works on projects about public spaces. He received the 2012 Golden Nica in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Interactive Art category.

Everyday Rebellion/Prix Forum II – Digital Communities

The comprehensive cross-media project “Everyday Rebellion” by the Riahi Brothers (AT) gives the third symposium day both its theme and name. As a Web-2.0 platform as well as a documentary film currently in production, their work is a group portrait of—and homage to—courageous people putting up nonviolent political resistance worldwide. Following the presentation by Arash and Arman Riahi, we will hear from some Everyday Rebels whose commitment to a just cause has been honored by the Prix Ars Electronica. They are activists and artists who have made creative and very tangible contributions to the struggle for democratic freedom of opinion and artistic freedom in diverse countries including Syria, China and the USA. They employ artistic as well as technical and legal means.

So/Sun 2. 9. 10:30 – 17:15
Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal

The comprehensive cross-media project “Everyday Rebellion” by the Riahi Brothers (AT) gives the third symposium day both its theme and name. As a Web-2.0 platform as well as a documentary film currently in production, their work is a group portrait of—and homage to—courageous people putting up nonviolent political resistance worldwide.

Following the presentation by Arash and Arman Riahi, we will hear from some Everyday Rebels whose commitment to a just cause has been honored by the Prix Ars Electronica. They are activists and artists who have made creative and very tangible contributions to the struggle for democratic freedom of opinion and artistic freedom in diverse countries including Syria, China and the USA. They employ artistic as well as technical and legal means.

10:30 – 11:00 Leila Nachawati (ES)
11:00 – 11:30 Arash T. Riahi, Arman T. Riahi (AT)
11:30 – 11:50 Sherien Al-Hayek (US)
11:50 – 12:00 Break
12:00 – 12:20 Hexie Farm (CN)
12:20 – 12:40 Agnes Aistleitner (AT)
12:40 – 13:00 Discussion
15:00 – 15:20 Mathias Jud, Christoph Wachter (CH)
15:20 – 15:40 James Burke (UK)
15:40 – 15:45 Discussion
15:45 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 16:20 Shawn Sims (US)
16:20 – 16:40 Sebastian Pichelhofer (AT), Oscar Spierenburg (NL)
16:40 – 17:15 Discussion

Leila Nachawati (ES) is a Spanish-Syrian blogger, communications strategist and human rights activist. She has written for Al-Jazeera, Global Voices, Periodismo Humano, et al. In 2012, she was a juror in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities category.

Arash T. Riahi (AT) is the founder of Golden Girls, a film production company. He is the producer, author and director of prizewinning documentary and experimental films, music videos and commercials. His works include “Exile Family Movie” and “For a moment, freedom” as well as the Everyday Rebellion project and communications platform focusing of nonviolent resistance.

Arman T. Riahi (AT) has been an author and director of TV productions for the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company (Sendung ohne Namen; Sunshine Airlines) since 2005 as well as the Red Bull Media House’s “Momentum” documentary series. In 2011, he produced “Schwarzkopf,” his first cinematic documentary film. He launched the Everyday Rebellion platform with his brother Arash.

Sherien Al-Hayek (US) is a member of the group Syrian people know their way, a coalition of cultural creatives in or originally from Syria who are using artistic means in various social media sites to support the efforts of their countrymen and -women to bring democracy to Syria. Al-Hayek produces the Arabic-English-language blog Tabasher/Charcoals.

Hexie Farm (CN) is the freelance cartoonist behind the series (of the same name) of political cartoons against censorship and state propaganda in China. He uses the internet to anonymously publish his work. His online campaign “Dark Glasses.Portrait” was honored with an Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities category this year.

Agnes Aistleitner (AT) was born in 1993 in Upper Austria and graduated from Linz’s High School for Artistic Design in 2012. She shot her 15-minute video “state of revolution” independently in Egypt. It won the 2012 Golden Nica in u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD.

Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter (CH) have been collaborating since 2000 on open participatory community projects for which they have been honored with various prizes including [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant. In their qaul.net project, they implemented an overlapping, open communications system in which WLAN-capable computers and mobile devices can form a direct, spontaneous network independent of the internet and telecommunications providers.

James Burke (UK) is an expert in interaction design and user experience. He is associated with the Netherlands-based P2P Foundation that was honored with [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant in 2011 for its Choke Point Project, an investigation of who actually controls—or can control—the internet.

Shawn Sims (US) is the founder and director of Synaptic Lab that is developing new technology applications in the area of form. A graduate of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Carnegie Mellon University’s Computational Design Lab, he is currently working in robotics and advanced digital design & production methods. He won a 2012 Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Hybrid Art category.

Sebastian Pichelhofer (AT) is director of the Apertus Open Source Cinema project that was honored with a 2012 Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities category. Apertus is an open platform for filmmakers with about 15 core members and 100 additional participants. Its aim is to develop a top-of-the-line, high-performance film camera on an open-source basis.

Oscar Spierenburg (NL) is a painter and filmmaker. He conceived Apertus Open Source Cinema (2012 Award of Distinction winner in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities category) and established its international community of developers. He lives in Belgium and is currently working on his first full-length feature film.

Juries made up of prominent experts from all over the world selected the winners of 6 Golden Nicas, 12 Awards of Distinction, 1 [the next idea] Grant and 72 Honorary Mentions. Honarees also received a total of 117,500 euros in prize money.

This year, a jury also selected the first recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN Award, the new artist-in-residence program established by CERN and Ars Electronica.

Prix Forum I – Hybrid Art

is part of the THE BIG PICTURE – Symposium
Sa/Sat 1. 9. 10:30 – 17:30
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Auditorium

The prize winners in the Hybrid Art category

Joe Davis (US) – bacterial radio / Golden Nica
Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE) – MOON GOOSE ANALOGUE: Lunar Migration Bird Facility / Award of Distinction
Golan Levin (US), Shawn Sims (US) – The Free Universal Construction Kit / Award of Distinction

Prix Forum II – Interactive Art

is part of THE BIG PICTURE – Symposium on Saturday afternoon
Sa/Sat 1. 9. 15:00 – 17:30
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Auditorium

The prize winners in the Interactive Art category

Timo Toots (EE) – Memopol-2 / Golden Nica
Markus Kayser (DE) – Solar Sinter Project / Award of Distinction
Isobel Knowles (AU), Van Sowerwine (AU) with Matthew Gingold (AU) – It’s a jungle in here / Award of Distinction

Prix Forum III – Digital Communities

is part of the Everyday Rebellion Conference
So/Sun 2. 9. 10:30 – 17:30
Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal

The prize winners in the Digital Communities category

Syrian people know their way: http://sha3b3aref.blogspot.com / Golden Nica
Dark Glasses.Portrait: http://ichenguangcheng.blogspot.com / Award of Distinction
Apertus Open Source Cinema: http://www.apertus.org / Award of Distinction

Prix Forum IV – Computer Animation

So/Sun 2. 9. 11:00 – 12:30
Ars Electronica Center, Seminarraum

The prize winners in the Computer Animation category

Jeff Desom (LU) – Rear Window Loop / Golden Nica
Weta Digital (NZ) – Rise of the Planet of the Apes / Award of Distinction
Evan Viera (US) – Caldera / Award of Distinction
Participants of the Forum
Christine Schöpf (AT)
Jeff Desom (LU)
Evan Viera (US)

Prix Forum V – Digital Musics

is part of the Ars Electronica Music Day
Mo/Mon 3. 9. 11:30 – 13:30
Brucknerhaus, Großer Saal

The prize winners in the Digital Musics & Sound Art category

Jo Thomas (UK) – Crystal Sounds of a Synchrotron / Golden Nica
Tarik Barri (NL), Anselm Venezian Nehls (DE) – #tweetscapes – a HEAVYLISTENING experience / Award of Distinction
Cheng Xu (CN) – scape-sequenser / Award of Distinction

Participants of the Forum
Martin Supper (DE) – Member of the Jury
Jo Thomas (UK)
Tarik Barri (NL), Anselm Venezian Nehls (DE)
Cheng Xu (CN)

Prix Forum u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD

Fr/ Fri 31. 8. 13:30 – 15:00
u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD-Festivalstadt

Sa/Sat 1. 9. 15:00 – 17:30
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

15:00 – 15:20 Julius von Bismarck (DE)
15:20 – 15:45 Julius von Bismarck (DE), Ariane Koek (UK/CH), James Wells (US)
15:45 – 16:05 Jo Thomas (UK)
16:05 – 16:25 Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE)
16:25 – 16:40 Break
16:40 – 17:30 Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (AU), Timo Toots (EE)
Moderated by Michael Doser (AT/CH)

Julius von Bismarck (DE) is the 2012 Collide@CERN prizewinner. He lives and works in Berlin, where he studies at the Institute for Spatial Experiments. Prior to that, he graduated from the MFA program at Hunter College in New York. He won a Golden Nica at the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica for his “Image Fulgarator”.

James Wells (US) is a theoretical physicist and a member of the scientific staff at CERN. The recipient of numerous prizes, he was previously a professor at the University of Michigan and the University of California, and also worked at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg.

Jo Thomas (UK) is a London-based musician. She uses multichannel systems to produce pieces in which she works with microsounds, pure tones and interference pulses as a means of dealing musically with the polarity of failure and success. She is the recipient of the 2012 Golden Nica in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Musics & Sound Art category.

Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE) is at the experimental edge of art and science with her work in both
sculpture and new media art. Exhibited worldwide, it is exploring the zone between fact and fiction. She received an Prix Ars Electronica 2012 Award of Distinction Hybrid Art.

Isobel Knowles (AU) is an artist who works predominantly with animation. She incorporates it into installations, films, music videos, commercial work and anywhere else it might fit in.

Van Sowerwine (AU) is a media artist active in the fields of animation, installation and interaction. For many years, she has been collaborating with Isobel Knowles (AU) on stop-motion animated works and interactive installations that are exhibited worldwide. At the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica, she was singled out for recognition with an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Art category.

Timo Toots (EE) studied computer science and photography. Since 2005, he has been producing interactive art projects that analyze, comment on and reflect upon developments in Information Society. He also works on projects about public spaces. He received the 2012 Golden Nica in the Prix Ars Electronica’s Interactive Art category.