The video installation “Realm of Reverberation” by Chieh-Jen Chen (TW) is part of the exhibition “Buddha on the Beach“: The elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poor and the unemployed are the primary victims of urban development devised by experts, politicians and financiers. But dignity remains intact on the victims’ side. A tour with the curators through the exhibition at the LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz.

Video installation

As is evident from the title, this symphony was composed as a homage to Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki.
Gorecki’s 3rd symphony adds a soprano voice to slow orchestral music while my slow symphony removes a soprano voice from my song cycle I sonetti lussuriosi for soprano and orchestra (2007) and redisposes the vocal part orchestrally.
The texts were taken from a collection of erotic poetry by Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) and I found it curious that Gorecki was happy to have his music, even the ‘sacred’ 3rd symphony, used as film scores – as long as it was not used in sex scenes. As a film composer myself, working with Peter Greenaway, Patrice Leconte, Neil Jordan and Jane Campion, amongst others, it was always a certainty that my music would ONLY be used in sex scenes!
I first met Gorecki at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1985, after he heard the Arditti Quartet perform my String Quartet No.1. I gave him a copy of my most recently-released album – The Kiss and Other Movements – and some weeks later he wrote asking me to send him the score of The Kiss. What he did with it I do not know but in the 38 years I have been writing music, he is the only composer who has ever had the curiosity to want to look at my scores.
My film The Art of Fugue which consists of a single 28 minute sequence shot in May 2012 in Plaza Luis Cabrera, a square near my house in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, will be screened simultaneously with the symphony.

Michael Nyman

Planets is a participatory performance that explores relationships between people, places and objects through a fusion of dance and interactive art practice. Each performance features a cluster of illuminated spheres as the catalyst, leading to a public spectacle of light that transforms and ripples across urban landscapes.

Stars with a personality

A cluster of interactive orbs named stars act as anchors, connecting the participants and performer. Each star has a unique personality and responds to participants through touch and light interaction. Throughout the performance an unspoken dialogue begins to unfold as the stars, participants and dancer connect to transform the space around them.

The only spectacle still possible seems to be the military destruction of the world.
Buddha on the Beach

(In)Sights interlinks real objects and digital information in a way that’s fun to use. It enhances the use of the object by adding an interactive level. Coded postcards enable installation visitors to access multimedia content that appears as texts, images or films on adjacent screens.

Leading an environmentally friendly lifestyle can be so simple. If you’re going to leave a room for more than three minutes in the evening, it pays to turn off the light. Or: regularly checking your tire pressure increases driving safety and saves gas. These are only two of the 40 solutions in the areas of mobility, energy, everyday habits and retail consumption that are easy to put into practice immediately, 40 suggestions that you can playfully explore on a Touch Table. Users can also ascertain their own CO₂ footprint. The original version of this installation is part of an exhibition entitled L’Oracle du Papillon in Fribourg, Switzerland.

ZeitRaum [TimeSpace] is an interactive art installation Ars Electronica Futurelab developed for Vienna International Airport’s new Skylink terminal. It interprets arriving and departing flights in real time. ZeitRaum consists of several individual stations that accompany passengers on the way to their gate. Ars Electronica Solutions recently added From Austria to the World and Drei – Es geht auch anders—gigapixel images of New York alternating with textscapes and visuals that react to passengers’ presence. The Airport Wall on display in Future Playground not only links the respective presentation spaces of the Futurelab and Solutions; it also symbolizes Ars Electronica’s successful competence network.

This exhibit developed in cooperation with the MED-EL company stages a virtual journey through the human ear. Installation visitors produce a sound that they can then follow in a virtual 3-D depiction as it makes its way from the ear to the brain. The original version of this exhibit is on display at the Audioversum in Innsbruck, Austria.

Laser Game, an installation designed for an upcoming exhibition in Berlin, sets up a scenario à la “Mission: Impossible” for users to test their agility. Have you got what it takes to go all the way without getting zapped by a laser beam?

In cooperation with Umdasch Shopfitting, Europe’s leading shop design firm, fashion retailer RAG and electronics giant Samsung, Ars Electronica Solutions developed this interactive Shopping Wall that lets customers browse a product portfolio in a variety of ways. They can interact with the Wall via RFID codes on physical objects, and an entire line of merchandise can be examined close-up via an intuitive interface.

The Festival version of this product presents a broad spectrum of content—for instance, a “best of Ars Electronica Solutions” – and there are various versions to illustrate the product’s scalability and modularity.