Station Rose (AT)

Station Rose, founded 25 years ago by visual artist Elisa Rose (AT) and musician/composer Gary Danner (AT) 25 years ago as Vienna’s first address of the open digital leading edge, has reached in 2013 the Digital Quarter Century mark/DQC. DQC is a current project designed to conserve cultural heritage as viewed from the perspective of artists, the pioneers of digital culture.

A Playhouse

STR has now created DQC_ShelTeR as a playable installation, an A/V sculpture, a digital archive, a playhouse for grownups, an effort to avoid losing an overview of the data. Elisa Rose & Gary Danner perform live in audiovisual sessions. DQC data are looped into new A/V material composed especially for the Festival. The world premiere of the DQC_ShelTeR performance will, in turn, be recorded.

Performances

5.9. 14:00
6.9. 16:30
7.9. 13:00
8.9. 15:00, 22:00
9.9. 22:00

Opening Hours installation

Thu 5. 9. 12:00 – 24:00
Fri 6. – Mon 9. 9. 10:00 – 21:00
Tabakfabrik

MEGA e.V. – Museum of Electronic Games & Art (DE)

Media are bearers of cultural memory. This also applies to electronic games, which have become a mainstay medium and an essential mode of cultural expression that plays a formative role in many people’s childhood memories.

MEGA’s Ludic Memento exhibition is a journey through time from the birth of electronic games to the present. It shows how important it is to conserve, restore and reconstruct gaming systems as a means of avoiding digital amnesia.

Digital Cultural Heritage

The objects on display allow for a profound substantive encounter with the history of technology and with the visual, auditory and hapitic aspects of the gaming experience. The exhibition proposes a new form of cultural transmission and, together with the Retro/per/spektiven exhibition, lodges the claim that this mission is beyond the purview of conventional institutions of commemoration and preservation.

Tabakfabrik
Thu 5. 9. 12:00 – 24:00
Fri 6. – Mon 9. 9. 10:00 – 21:00

Like the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival itself, a long gestation period has also preceded Wir sind hier (We Are Here), the live performance in Linz’s Tabakfabrik that will kick off this year’s conclave. Since mid-July, the website www.wir-sind-hier.org has been the hub of the cross-medial art project launched by artist, university instructor and software entrepreneur Salvatore Vanasco (IT/DE).

Opposition to Surveillance

Here, Vanasco and his numerous cohorts have been publishing the project’s themes, putting them up for discussion and providing updates about ongoing actions. The target audience of Wir sind hier is people who oppose the government’s data retention efforts, PRISM and the many other forms of digital surveillance and censorship, and people who refuse to yield to the sense of hopelessness and the indifference that come with this territory.

A Feeling of Uneasiness

The festival’s opening ceremony will also call to mind what surveillance and censorship can lead to. Attendees will quickly be overcome by a vague feeling of apprehension—and this is utterly intentional. Surveillance cameras keeping an eye on everyone present dot the perimeter. Other details also strongly suggest that these proceedings are under total surveillance. And in the middle of the courtyard: a statue made of data storage media. What’s up with this?

80 Years after the First Nazi Book Burnings

Suddenly, masked figures intrude into the assembled throng and begin dividing people up into groups. The music, familiar oldies at first, turns into earsplitting noise. A little girl, her face displayed on a jumbo-format screen, begins reading a text aloud. We are reminded of the book burning on May 10, 1933, when an estimated 20,000 volumes went up in flames in the middle of Berlin. And over the course of the performance—including a fly-by of the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s quadcopter swarm—we are made cognizant in no uncertain terms of dangerous tendencies in today’s control-oriented society.

GET LOUD

Another way to get involved is by joining the Wir-sind-hier chorus. All are invited to read a short excerpt from Bertolt Brecht’s 1925 poem “Gegen Verführung” (Against Seduction) and upload their words in the form of a short video to the project website. Together, these many voices will form a chorus whose debut will also be part of the show at the Tabakfabrik.
The project producers are also endeavoring to capture the sounds of the destruction of a culture—from the impact of a wrecking ball to the crackling of burning paper and the electronic beep of an error message. Composer FM Einheit (DE) will use them as part of the soundtrack of the live show in Linz.

With Jovica Aleksis (DE), Gözen Atila (TR), Ulé Barcelos (PT), Dominik Berg (DE), Matti Casper Blunck (DE), Rica Blunck (DE), Yoko Gretel Blunck (DE), Claudius Brodmann (DE), Matthias David (DE), Elisa de Paolis (IT), Daniela Dibelius (DE), FM Einheit (DE), Stephanie Geiger (DE), Marcus Jäger (DE), Craig Johnson (NZ), Johannes Kirchner (DE), Francesca Kühlers (USA), Traute Kühlers (DE), Jan Lachenmayer (DE), Sybille Luhmann (NL), Andy Müller-Maguhn (DE), Timo Maier (DE), Jürgen Mertens (DE), Steffen Neubauer (DE), Kien Nguyen (DE), Felix Ostrowski (DE), Bilgehan Öziş (TR), Laszlo Puskas (DE), Rafa Quinonero (ES), Ludwig Seyfarth (DE), Rolf Wolkenstein (DE), Cornelia Wunderlich (DE), Laura Zidda (IT).

Do 5.9. 20:30
Tabakfabrik Linz

Ein Wiedersehen mit echten Arcade-Automaten und Klassikern aus 40 Jahren Computerspielgeschichte à la Pong ermöglichen die Ausstellungen retro/per/spektiven und Ludic Memento in der Tabakfabrik. Auf der Zeitreise von den Anfängen des elektronischen Spiels bis in die Gegenwart darf nach Herzenslust gespielt werden!

In der Game Jam in der Tabakfabrik (Achtung: Anmeldung notwendig!) schaffen Profi-EntwicklerInnen im Wettlauf gegeneinander und gegen die Zeit innerhalb von 48 Stunden spielbare Game-Prototypen;

ein ambitioniertes internationales Nachwuchsteam erarbeitet im GameLab des u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD Zukunftsfestival der nächsten Generation ein anspruchsvolles Game.

Bildschirmsprünge (AT), Fachhochschule Hagenberg (AT), GameStage (AT)

Over the 40 years of its digital existence, the computer game medium has undergone a substantive metamorphosis from the hunt for moving pixel clusters as an entertaining test of dexterity to complex interactive productions of high artistic quality, and has embedded itself deep in the culture’s collective memory. Part of this process is the constant demand for higher-performance hardware in order to continuously redefine the limits of what is possible. Thus, yesterday’s devices inexorably become obsolete but remain unforgotten and continue to constitute the breeding ground for today’s game culture.

Arcade-type Games and Old Consoles

As the historic counterpart of the Ludic Memento exhibition, Retro/per/spektiven is dedicated to the 40-year history of the development of computer games and the appurtenant hardware. The exhibited items arrayed along a timeline include classics like Pong, genuine arcade-type games, and the first networked home consoles. A hands-on play experience is expressly encouraged!

Emulation or Original?

In a few cases, the authentic experience playing on the original device is augmented by an emulated version for play on a modern processor. Visitors can decide for themselves to what extent a digital emulation retains the significance of the original, or whether digital knock-offs are simply decontextualized relics.

Team: Jeremiah Diephuis (US/AT), Andranik Ghalustians (AT), Stefan Schraml (AT)

Tabakfabrik
Thu 5. 9. 12:00 – 24:00
Fri 6. – Mon 9. 9. 10:00 – 21:00

Game Jam

Verein für Innovative Unterhaltungssoftware (AT)

Game Jam is a compact demonstration of how digital games are produced and what steps developers go through on the way from concept to playable prototype. Creative work within prescribed limitations, spontaneity and teamwork are the characteristics of joint improvisation in the computer game medium. Participants come from various disciplines: visual arts, the audio field, interaction design and software development.

Only 48 Hours

The Jam’s creative impulse is the theme, which remains a secret until kick-off. In the case of Game Jam at Ars Electronica, though, it will definitely have to do with the festival theme, TOTAL RECALL.
Once it’s announced, jammers have 48 hours to translate it into a game prototype. The point of departure is a brainstorming session, the immediate result of which is the formation of crews.
During the Jam, festivalgoers are invited to drop in to get a glimpse at game development, see how things are coming along, and try out the final products.

Sign-Up For Game Jam

Sign-Up

Game Jam – Program in Detail

Friday, 6.9.2013

15:00 – 21:00: Registration
16:00 – 18:00: Talks
16:00: Raimund Schumacher – “rapid creative strategies for finding game settings by neiche interactive artificial”
16:30: Michael Lankes – “A Game Jam Survival Guide for Artists”
17:00: Lev Ledit – “Craziness, Insanity and the Imaginary Unit”
17:30: Zuraida Buter – tba.
18:00: Opening ceremony, beginning of the game jam, announcing the theme.
18:15: Brainstorming, team building and start of the game development.
(01:30: Doors closed)

Saturday, 7.9.2013

09:00: Doors open
All day: Working on the games.
15:00 – 19:00: “Public Hour”: We open our doors to the public and invite everyone to come by and take a look behind the scene. See for yourself how games are made.
(01:30: Doors closed)

Sunday, 8.9.2013

09:00: Doors open
Till 15:00: Working on the Games
15:00: Hand in the games
16:00: Presentation of all games and closing ceremony
21:00: Official end of the Game Jam

Public Hours
Sat 7. 9. 15:00 – 19:00
Sun 8. 9. 16:00: final presentation

In Taiwan, opposites coexist: the most advanced technology and traditional culture, the ubiquitous Chinese and 17 Austronesian tribes, democracy and corruption, a relatively small country (1/15 of the size of France) and an economic powerhouse for global high-tech industry. The conflict between Taiwan’s strong sense of national identity and its ambivalent national status in relation to China hovers in the air, charging it with a tension that can best be described as ‘Taiwan’s schizophrenia’.

Permanent digital Revolution

Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0 also sketches the Taiwan Machine, which is based on Heiner Müller’s postmodernist drama, Hamlet Machine (1997). Technology revolutionizes the world by breaking down the traditional narrative structure and placing media at the center of the economy. Machinery is omnipresent and omnipotent for Müller, but also a universal and permanent revolution. We zoom in and focus on such digital revolution in the works of young Taiwanese new media artists, born between the eras of color television and smart phones in a country that manufactures 80% of the world’s electronic goods. These artists are fully aware of the risks and of the potential of globalization and cybernetics and their works reflect the challenges facing Taiwan and the world as a whole.

With Works by Li-Ren Chang, I-Chun Chen, Liang-Hsuan Chen, Wan-Jen Chen, Chao-Tsai Chiu, Yen-Yin Huang, Yen-Chu Lin, Yu-Hsien Su, Yu-Chin Tesng, Pei-Shih Tu, Jun-Jieh Wang, Chi-Yu Wu, Goang-Ming Yuan (all TW)

Curators: I-Wei Li (DE/TW/CA), Pierre Bongiovanni (FR), Ching-Wen Chang (TW), Chien-hung Huang (TW).

Interview with the curators at the Ars Electronica Blog.
http://www.schizotaiwan.net/

Tabakfabrik
Opening: Thu 5.9. 17:00
Thu 5. 9. 12:00 – 24:00
Fri 6. – Mon 9. 9. 10:00 – 21:00

Pursuant to its traditional commitment to electronic music, Ars Electronica dedicates a full program to this genre of such tremendous importance to media art. Ars Electronica Music Day staged in and around the Brucknerhaus is a platform for sound art, radio art, sound sculptures and sound installations. The concert halls and Linz’s riverside Donaupark become sound & action spaces for listening sessions, performances, speeches and conversations.

Electronic All-Request Concert

The Listening Post gets the music started in the AM. Their motto: Your wish is our command! This extravagant all-request show serves up a potpourri from the Digital Musics & Sound Art archive of Prix-Ars Electronica.

Prix Forum V – Digital Musics & Sound Art

Kicking off this live performance are 2013 prizewinners in Prix Ars Electronica’s Digital Musics & Sound Art category. Artists Nicolas Bernier (CA), Chris Carlson (US) and SjQ++ (JP) will present their works in talks and discuss current trends and developments with Prix juror Electric Indigo (AT).
Next up is Werner Jauk (AT), a prominent musical theoretician and practitioner in Graz, who will deliver a special lecture entitled Music and Media Arts on the mediatizing of music and sound.

TOTAL RECALL: Special Perfomances

Ars Electronica Music Day will also feature several objects of a musical nature that are part of the TOTAL RECALL exhibition. Artists Brian House (US), Yuri Suzuki (JP) and Michelle Ngai (JP) awill personally present their works and play installations including The Sound of the Earth, Device Playing: Cassette Recorder II, and Quotidian Record.

Sound Is the Memory of Space

Now hear this: the Klangwolke’s high-performance sound system is being put in the service of sound art and its fine tonal and musical fabrics. Sound is the Memory of Space is a “sonic memory sculpture” that the German-Austrian label MF.Redman will acoustically erect in Donaupark. The construction components include sound & music collages containing material from international historical sound archives.

Listen and Play

The superb acoustics of the Main Hall will provide a very special setting for Listen and Play, presentations, performances and demos by Daito Manabe (JP) and Satoru Higa (JP), Roberto Paci Dalò (IT) and Wolfgang Fadi Dorninger (AT). They’ll deliver audible impressions of their work with music and sound.

Digital Musics in Concert

Taking the stage for the evening program entitled Digital Musics in Concert are Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners Nicolas Bernier (CA), Chris Carlson (US) and SjQ++ (JP). A presentation of the games developed in the Game Jam and a performance by Station Rose (AT) in the Tabakfabrik conclude the evening and the festival.

Mon 9. 9. 10:30 – 21:00
Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal, Großer Saal, Donaupark, Tabakfabrik

Brucknerhaus, Mittlerer Saal

10:30 – 17:00 Listening Post: Sie wünschen, wir spielen – Wunschkonzert aus dem Archiv des Prix Ars Electronica

Klangpark am Donauufer

10:30 – 19:00 “Sound is the Memory of Space” – a sonic memory sculpture von MFRedman (A/D)

Brucknerhaus, Großer Saal

11:30 – 13:00 Prix Forum Digital Musics & Sound Art
14:00 – 15:00 Special Lecture Werner Jauk – “Music and Media Arts“
15:00 – 17:00 Listen and Play – Präsentationen, Performances, Demos von Wolfgang “Fadi” Dorninger, Roberto Paci Dalo, Daito Manabe, TOTAL RECALL: Performances
19:30 – 21:00 Digital Musics in Concert – Prix Ars Electronica PreisträgerInnen-Konzert

Tabakfabrik

21:30 Station Rose

Station Rose (AT)

Station Rose, founded 25 years ago by visual artist Elisa Rose (AT) and musician/composer Gary Danner (AT) 25 years ago as Vienna’s first address of the open digital leading edge, has reached in 2013 the Digital Quarter Century mark/DQC. DQC is a current project designed to conserve cultural heritage as viewed from the perspective of artists, the pioneers of digital culture.

A Playhouse

STR has now created DQC_ShelTeR as a playable installation, an A/V sculpture, a digital archive, a playhouse for grownups, an effort to avoid losing an overview of the data. Elisa Rose & Gary Danner perform live in audiovisual sessions. DQC data are looped into new A/V material composed especially for the Festival. The world premiere of the DQC_ShelTeR performance will, in turn, be recorded.

Performances

5.9. 14:00
6.9. 16:30
7.9. 13:00, 22:00
8.9. 15:00, 22:00

Opening Hours installation

Thu 5. 9. 12:00 – 24:00
Fri 6. – Mon 9. 9. 10:00 – 21:00
Tabakfabrik

Sat 7.9. 17:30-18:30
Tabakfabrik

Sun 8.9. 18:00-19:00
Tabakfabrik

Ever since he was young, dancer, choreographer and inventor Huang Yi (TW) has been interested in the relationship—you could even say partnership—between humans and robots. He integrates photography, videos and mechanical elements into his pieces, which blend dance, a diversified visual world, technology and machines into choreographies in which both form and content go far beyond the conventional repertoire of the performing arts. Huang Yi thinks of himself as a dancing instrument. The continuous movements in his pieces correspond to the flow of data.

Dancing like a Machine

In the prizewinning three-minute performance entitled Huang Yi & KUKA, Huang Yi’s dance partner is a robot produced by the German manufacturer KUKA:.
“Dancing face to face with a KUKA robot is like looking at my face in a mirror. I make KUKA mimic my movements, and I learn from him, I make myself dance like a machine.”

Festival Opening
Thu 5.9. 23:00-23:30
Tabakfabrik

Sat 7.9. 17:30-18:30
Tabakfabrik

Sun 8.9. 18:00-19:00
Tabakfabrik

Supported by KUKA
In cooperaton with Quanta Arts Foundation