Inside Ars Electronica Solutions provides exciting insights to Ars Electronica’s most recent division. Ars Electronica Solutions creates customized interactive products and services in the areas Shop Experience, Event & Show Design, Brandlands & Exhibitions and Urban Development. Besides a comprehensive presentation of project highlights, Inside Solutions demonstrates how Ars Electronica Solutions represents the final link in a process chain commencing with a visionary concept and proceeding via prototype development to culminate in an innovative product.

Hideaki Ogawa: Ars Electronica Creative Cloud Osaka
Kristefan Minski: Bienenstock
Benjamin Mayr: Virtual Cosmos
Martina Mara: Hakuhodo x Ars Innovation Catalysts
Patrick Müller: Nitsch – Schein und Sein
Hideaki Ogawa: Elekit Candlescape
Veronika Pauser: OpenAIR
Roland Aigner: Resonate
Matthew Gardiner: Project Genesis
Michael Mayr: Tosca
Patrick Müller: Miraikan Your-Cosmos
Martin Mörth, Andreas Jalsovec: Spaxels – The Sky is no Limit

Inside Futurelab
Sa 7.9. 15:00 – 17:00
SkyLoft, Ars Electronica Center

This is an opportunity for workshop talks with and presentations by key co-producers, partners and associates of the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival.

One is Zaragoza Ciudad del Conocimiento (ES), a Spanish foundation that received support from Ars Electronica in launching Paseo Project, its program to come up with new ideas for communication in and with Saragossa.

There will also be encounters with artists involved in the big Wir sind hier collective project, with Taiwanese media artists whose works are on display in Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0, and their Japanese and Israeli counterparts involved in the Japan Media Arts Festival show and this year’s Campus exhibition, IL(L) Machine.

Ars Electronica Center, Seminarraum
Sat 7. 9. 13:30

Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy was created to support students from international partner universities to realize innovative projects in the field of media art. The format’s unique features contain the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s expertise and the possibility to participate in the Ars Electronica Festival.

Queensland University of Technology:
Jeniffer Heng, Vidhi Shah: Flow[er]
Michael Hiley, Declan Brincat, Yonghan Ji: Pixel Streets
Alice Brown, Andy Bates : Trail of Traits
Moderation: Horst Hörtner and Prof. Jared Donovan

University of Newcastle
Prof. Richard Vella: PhD Program with Ars Electronica, Kristefan Minski, Matthew Gardiner, Stefan Mittlböck-Jungwirth-Fohringer.
Moderation: Horst Hörtner

Inside Ars Electronica Solutions provides exciting insights to Ars Electronica’s most recent division. Ars Electronica Solutions creates customized interactive products and services in the areas Shop Experience, Event & Show Design, Brandlands & Exhibitions and Urban Development. Besides a comprehensive presentation of project highlights, Inside Solutions demonstrates how Ars Electronica Solutions represents the final link in a process chain commencing with a visionary concept and proceeding via prototype development to culminate in an innovative product.

12:30 – 12:45 Michael Badics (AT): Introduction: Ars Electronica Solutions
12:45 – 13:15 Stephan Pointner (AT), Vanessa Schauer (AT), Cécile Bucher (AT/CH): Event & Show Design: Liebherr
13:15 – 13:40 Kathrin A. Meyer (DE/AT): Brandland & Exhibitions: MED-EL
13:40 – 14:05 Michael Badics (AT), Barbara Hinterleitner (AT): Shop Experience: Umdasch/RAG-Wall
14:05 – 14:30 Harald Moser (AT): Urban Development: Geo Pulse Fribourg

Inside Solutions
Sat 7.9. 12:30 – 14:30
SkyLoft, Ars Electronica Center

Be guided through the complex narrative and stories in Ars Electronica’s flagship exhibition Project Genesis by the curator Matthew Gardiner and artists.

Moderation: Matthew Gardiner

The Ars Electronica Residency Network (AERN) is a coalition of excellence consisting of Ars Electronica Linz and prominent partner institutions all over the world that offer extraordinary opportunities and challenges for artists and scientists.

1. CERN: Ariane Koek, Bill Fontana, Subodh Patil
2. OHMI: Stephen Hetherington
3. QUT: Lubi Thomas
Moderation: Johanna Mathauer

Panel 1

Fri 6. 9. 10:00 – 13:30
Brucknerhaus

Following opening remarks by Ars Electronica artistic director Gerfried Stocker, the first session will begin with a look at and inside the site of human memory: our brain. Neuroscientist John Dylan Haynes will provide an introduction to the latest research on cognition and the brain. He’ll screen selected scenes from some classic science-fiction films—including “Total Recall,” of course—to portray the current state of research in neuroscience and future prospects in this field.

From Remembering to Forgetting

Mapping the network of nerves in the human brain will be the subject of a speech by neuroscientist Alfred Anwander of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. He’ll report on diffusion tensor imaging and connectome research, methods scientists are now using to better understand human memory.

In light of these insights into the latest research into the brain, the symposium will turn to the selective character of remembrance and the various forms of forgetting.

Aleida Assmann, a scholar in the fields of literary studies, will analyze the omnipresence of the past, which, thanks to new media and virtually unlimited data storage capabilities, can be accessed anytime, anywhere.
Arno Villringer, likewise a staff neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, will then discuss the loss of memory and go into dementia from neurological and clinical perspectives, and author/interpreter Helga Rohra, a woman suffering from Lewy Body Dementia, will give an account of daily life with this condition.

10:00 – 10:20 Intro GS
10:20 – 11:00 John-Dylan Haynes
11:00 – 11:30 Aleida Assmann
11:30 – 11:55 Alfred Anwander
11:55 – 12:25 Q+A und Pause
12:25 – 12:50 Arno Villringer
12:50 – 13:15 Helga Rohra
13:15 – 13:30 Q+A

Fri 6. 9. 10:00 – 13:30
Brucknerhaus

Panel 2

Fri 6. 9. 14:30 – 18:00
Brucknerhaus

The second session begins with a consideration of nature’s memory, DNA. Biochemist Barbara Hohn will discuss the genetic and epigenetic memory of animals and plants, and particularly elaborate on how they pass on what they remember—from leaf to leaf, for instance, or from parent to offspring.

Mathematician and zoologist Nick Goldman teams up with artist Charlotte Jarvis to consider the prospects of someday using DNA as the perfect data storage medium. And nobody’s better qualified than Goldman, who was a member of a research group that succeeded in converting an mp3 file into DNA and back again.

Cognitive Computing

Another view of the future of memory focuses on the vision of someday being able to computer model human memory. The Synapse Project in the US and the Human Brain Project in Europe are at the forefront. Can a computer learn how a human being thinks? Dharmendra S. Modha, a cognitive computing specialist at IBM, is convinced of this. Via teleconference, he’ll report on his work on computer systems modeled on the human brain.

The many major challenges that have to be overcome in order to simulate the human brain are the grounds for a more skeptical view of this undertaking by Hans Ulrich Dodt, an expert in medicine, physics and bio-electronics at the Vienna University of Technology (AT).

To conclude the first day of the symposium, we’ll return to the neurosciences as well as to art. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, head of the University of Leicester’s NeuroEngineering Lab, will talk about his research on so-called concept cells—often referred to as Jennifer Aniston neurons—and tell about how his research brought him to the works of the great Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.

14:30 – 15:00 Barbara Hohn
15:00 – 15:25 Nick Goldman
15:25 – 15:50 Charlotte Jarvis
15:50 – 16:20 Q+A und Pause
16:20 – 16:40 Dharmendra Modha (Tele-Talk)
16:40 – 17:10 Hans-Ulrich Dodt
17:10 – 17:40 Rodrigo Quian Quiroga
17:40 – 18:00 Diskussion

Moderation: Michael Doser (AT/CH)

Fri 6. 9. 14:30 – 18:00
Brucknerhaus

Panel 3

Sun 8. 9. 14:30 – 17:00
Brucknerhaus

The third session will consider the cultural and technological history of memory recording devices. Claudia Schmölders, a scholar in the field of cultural studies, will present her impressive research on the presence or absence of female voices in historical sound archives. Media philosopher Frank Hartmann will take symposium participants back to the early history of Information Society—to the fantastic lifework of Paul Otlet and his ground-breaking prototype of a universal library that’s often called the first forerunner of the internet. Michael Buckland, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, will recall another pioneer of modern information processing, Emanuel Goldberg. Catapulting us back into the present will be Hiroshi Ishiguro, the star of Japanese robotics research. He’s using robots and androids to preserve the memory of an extraordinary Japanese actor.

14:30 – 15:00 Claudia Schmölders
15:00 – 15:30 Frank Hartmann
15:30 – 15:45 Q+A
15:45 – 16:15 Michael Buckland
16:15 – 16:45 Hiroshi Ishiguro
16:45 – 17:00 Diskussion

Moderation: Xaver Forthuber (AT)

Sun 8. 9. 14:30 – 17:00
Brucknerhaus

Participants

Alfred Anwander (DE) is a neuroscientist and connectome researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig who is making important contributions to research on anatomic linkages with an emphasis on language networks in the brain and learning to speak.

Aleida Assmann (DE) is a neuroscientist and connectome researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig who is making important contributions to research on anatomic linkages with an emphasis on language networks in the brain and learning to speak.

Michael K. Buckland (UK/US) is Emeritus Professor, University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. He has written extensively about library services, the organization of knowledge, and the history documentation.

Hans Ulrich Dodt (DE) is professor of solid body electronics at the Vienna University of Technology. He uses optical methods to visualize nerve cells and take 3-D flights through the transparent brain. In his interdisciplinary research field, bioelectronics, he applies approaches from astronomy to problems in neuroscience.

Nick Goldman (UK) works at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton (UK), researching algorithms to study genome evolution. He holds degrees in mathematics and zoology from the University of Cambridge.

Frank Hartmann (DE) is a media philosopher and professor at the Faculty of Art & Design, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany. He has published several book on media theory, media archaeology and visual communication.

John-Dylan Haynes (UK/DE) is a psychologist, neuroscientist and Professor of Theory and Analysis of Large-Scale Brain Signals at the Bernstein Center of Charité Berlin. Haynes and his team conduct research on the neuronal basis of consciousness, volition, intentions and free will. They have used MRI technology to show that decision-making is initiated by subconscious brain processes.

Barbara Hohn (AT/CH) is a biochemist at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel. Her fields of research include genetic expression and recombination as well as environmental influences on the stability of plant genomes.

Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP) has been a Professor in the Department of Systems Innovation at the Osaka University since 2009 and Group Leader of the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute. His research interests include sensor networks, interactive robotics and android science.

Charlotte Jarvis (UK) is currently artist in residence at The Netherlands Proteomics Centre. Last year they collaborated on the project Blighted by Kenning in which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was encoded into DNA. This year Charlotte and the NPC are working on Ergo Sum, in which Charlotte will be creating a second self using body parts grown from her stem cells.

Dharmendra Modha (US) has done pioneering work in the field of artificial intelligence and memory simulation. He set up the Cognitive Computing division at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and heads the DARPA SyNAPSE project. He and his team are working on a computer system that emulates the essential functions and structures of biological brains.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga (AR) Rodrigo Quian Quiroga is the director of the Centre for Systems Neuroscience and the head of the Bioengineering Research Group at the University of Leicester. His main research interest is on the study of the principles of visual perception and memory. He discovered what has been named “Concept cells” or “Jennifer Aniston neurons”—neurons in the human brain that play a key role in memory formation.

Helga Rohra (DE) is an interpreter and author. She has come out as someone suffering from dementia and is an activist on behalf of her fellow sufferers.

Claudia Schmölders (DE) is an interpreter and author. She has come out as someone suffering from dementia and is an activist on behalf of her fellow sufferers.

Arno Villringer (DE) is a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. Among his fields of research are neurophysiological processes in the brain activity of human beings as well as regeneration processes in the brain—for example, after a stroke.

Austrian Film Academy (AT)

Young designers’ approaches to this no-longer-young medium will be the subject of an open discussion moderated by actor/director Karl Markovics (AT). What accounts for audiences’ unbroken fascination with the cinema? How and why do member of Generation 2000 fall under its spell? Panelists include film producer and teacher Danny Krausz (AT), Young Animations curator Sirikit Amann (AT), u19-CREATE YOUR WORLD Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners Florian Bührle (AT) and Isidor Dietrich (AT) as well Martin Honzik (AT), head of Ars Electronica Festival and Prix Ars Electronica.

In cooperation with Fachverband der Film-und Musikindustrie (AT). The Austrian Film Academy is supported by bmukk, ÖFI, bmwfj, FISA, BMmeiA, Kulturamt Stadt Wien, F&MA, WKO Wien, VDFS, VAM, Vienna Film Commission, Erste Bank, VIG, Listo Videofilm, AI-Film, epo-film, Satel Film, AAFP, Film Austria, von vielen KooperationspartnerInnen/Sponsoren und ihren Mitgliedern.

Fri 6. 9. 15:00
Ars Electronica Center, Maindeck

Ars Electronica, Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen (AT)

Conditions like Alzheimer’s disease affect sufferers’ short-term memory, thought processes, speech, mobility and, in some cases, even their personality structure. The progressive loss of memory (and self-control) is a drastic and currently irreversible change that is a severe blow to the victim as well as his/her loved ones. The 2013 Ars Electronica Festival and the Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen invite festivalgoers to deal with the subject of dementia, which, in light of our aging society, might well become extremely widespread in the future.

Meet Someone with First-hand Experience

Helga Rohra (DE), a woman suffering from dementia, will attend the TOTAL RECALL symposium. The interpreter and author had the courage to go public with her condition. She’ll give an account of life with Lewy-Body-Dementia.

Fri 6. 9. 12:50
Brucknerhaus

Afternoon Info Session: Dementia. Living with Forgetting

How does dementia manifest itself, what is everyday life with dementia like and what does providing care to dementia sufferers entail? Neurologist Klaus-Dieter Kieslinger (AT), gerontologist/psychologist Alexander Aschenbrenner (AT) and Sylvia Boubenicek (AT), head of a daycare center for people with dementia, will address these questions.

Sun 8. 9. 16:00
Ars Electronica Center, Sky Media Loft

Ars Electronica, Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen (AT)

Conditions like Alzheimer’s disease affect sufferers’ short-term memory, thought processes, speech, mobility and, in some cases, even their personality structure. The progressive loss of memory (and self-control) is a drastic and currently irreversible change that is a severe blow to the victim as well as his/her loved ones. The 2013 Ars Electronica Festival and the Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen invite festivalgoers to deal with the subject of dementia, which, in light of our aging society, might well become extremely widespread in the future.

Musical Remembrance

Acoustic memories—for instance, recollections of certain pieces of music—are among the forms of stored information that endure the longest. Ars Electronica und Diakonie Gallneukirchen cordially invite you to an entertaining afternoon featuring coffee, cake and Musical Remembrance. Meet people suffering from dementia who are receiving care at the Diakoniewerk’s centers in Gallneukirchen, Linz and Wels.

Attention: Limited capacity!
Sat, 7. 9. 15:00 – 17:00
Altes Rathaus