TOTAL RECALL is all about memory, how we create it, how we handle it. The documentation of events is a big part of our global memory, this is also a focus of this year’s Festival Ars Electronica. This is why Ars Electronica wants to try out new ways of documentating a festival, mainly introducing many contributors and embracing the possibilities of having a lot of different views on the same subject, not just the one from the person in charge. Check out the possibilties below to join in.

Bienenstock / BeeHive

One project that utilizes a somewhat similar approach is the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s brainchild that’s buzzing around under the name Bienenschwarm. The idea is that dozens of people equipped with Actioncams busily swarm about like bees and produce lots of different videos about TOTAL RECALL from many and varied points of view. The videos are then collected and displayed on an online platform, where users can upload their own material captured via cell, camera or whatever, and then edit (and repeatedly re-edit) footage of multifarious provenance into new narrative sequences. In this way, the video documentation process is torn loose from the perspective of a single director—after all, it stands to reason that a documentary produced by one person, always and above all, reflects his/her personality. Which is all well and good, of course, but it isn’t always an account of the whole story.

At the same time, the Bienenschwarm will also be a video installation on Linz’s Main Square, where screens installed in a honeycomb-like arrangement make it easy for visitors to dart about wide-ranging video worlds and discover new facets and aspects of the festival they might have missed while foraging about on their own.

ars.electronica.art/bienenstock

PIXXERS – The Photo Network

PIXXERS is an innovative app and photo platform with the intention of turning the way upside down to get photos. PIXXERS focuses on crowd-sourcing: You don’t need to browse through thousands of stock photos any longer – you ask a global community to shoot exactly the photo you want! Even in realtime if necessary! The source of the pictures isn’t a plain old database – photos are provided by the biggest “database” ever – the global crowd.

During the Ars Electronica Festival visitors are invited to take part in PIXXERS Challenges!
The PIXXERS App for iPhone and Android can be downloaded here: www.pixxers.com

RUZO – Discover, Explore, Report

Another app that aims to create a collective experience is RUZO, and it is on display as part of IL(L) Machine. The idea is simple and powerful: You walk about from installation to installation (from the entire Festival Ars Electronica!) and tell the app what you feel. The information is mapped out (anonymously, of course) and presented in the exhibition. A great way to visualize what’s going on at the festival. RUZO