Interface Culture students and researchers propose and experience that seeks to challenge the traditional human-machine interaction with a new sensory and perceptual repertoire of electronic music. An immersive experience with tangible scores, edible synthesizers, noisy jelly circuits and parametric sound compositions.

In keeping with Interface Culture’s openness and constant search for new topics and culturally relevant issues, Bring Your Own Art is an open invitation to artists, international partner university students, guest researchers and any potential students who are interested in the program to bring along their own art projects in the form of short presentations. These will be projected or demonstrated and discussed by the Interface Cultures faculty.

At the Alumni Meeting Interface Cultures’ graduates speak briefly about themselves and their current work place and job, revealing how their studies influenced their professional careers. This Pecha Kucha presentation style aims to facilitate networking between our current students and the Interface Cultures alumni and to enlarge the Interface Cultures family.

The Interface Cultures program has a strong international network of universities and institutions. Students are encouraged to spend time at one of Interface Culture’s partner universities in Europe, South America, Asia or Australia. Over the years the network has grown and many international guests from Japan, Europe and South America come to the Interface Cultures department at the Arts University Linz to carry out research and stay for anything from a month up to a whole year.

Lecturers from all over the world

The Network Talks feature lectures by professors from the international partner universities of the Interface Cultures program, who promote and provoke reflection on past and future trends in interactive art, interface design and education.

Lectures

Istek Cihangir(Istanbul Bilgi University / TR)
Philip Dean (Aalto University Helsinki /FI)
Masahiro Miwa (IAMAS Institute of Media Arts and Sciences, Ogaki Gifu / JP)
Maria José Martinez de Pison (Valencia Polytechnical University / ES)
Stahl Stenslie (Aalborg University / DK)
Marie Hélène Tramus (Université Paris 8 /FR)
Ying-Qing Xu (Tshinghua University Bejing / CN)

Program

2 PM-2:05 PM
Welcome address
by Univ. Prof. Dr. Reinhard Kannonier, Head of the University of Art and Design Linz, Austria

2:05 PM-2:25 PM
“10 years of Interface Cultures – development, trends and outlook”
Prof. Dr. Christa Sommerer, Head of the Interface Culture program, University of Art and design Linz, Austria

2:25 PM-2:45 PM
“20 years of new media at the Media Lab in Helsinki”
Prof. Philip Dean, Head of the Department of Media, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland

2:45 PM-3:05 PM
“A brief survey of light lab projects and interactive artworks of AVM master students”
Prof. Maria José Martinez de Pison, Director of Máster Artes Visuales y Multimedia UPV Program at Departamento de Escultura, Facultad de Bellas Artes, Valencia Polytechnical University, Spain

3:05 PM-3:25 PM
“IAMAS 2014 to the next stage”
Prof. Masahiro Miwa, Professor of IAMAS Institute of Media Arts and Sciences, Ogaki Gifu, Japan

3:25 PM-3:40 PM
Coffee Break

3:40 PM-4 PM
“The interdisciplinary design program at Tsinghua University”
Prof. Ying-Qing Xu, Cheung Kong Scholar Chair Professor, Head of Information Art & Design Department, Academy of Art & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

4 PM-4:20 PM
“Education and research in the arts and technologies of the virtual image”
Prof. Dr. Hélène Tramus, Professeure en Arts et Technologie, Image Numérique et Réalité Virtuelle (INREV), Dép. Arts & Technologies de l’Image, Université Paris 8, France

4:20 PM-4:40 PM
“Abject Aesthetics”
Prof. Dr. Stahl Stenslie, Head of the Art and Technology Program at Aalborg University, Denmark

4:40 PM-5 PM
“Insights into the visual communication design program of Bilgi University in Istanbul”
Prof. Dr. Istek Cihangir, Chair and Director of the Visual Communication Design Graduate Program, Bilgi University, Instanbul, Turkey

5 PM-5:30 PM
Discussion

5:30 PM-6:15 PM
Buffet and Networking

It’s been 10 years since Christa Sommerer (AT) and Laurent Mignonneau (FR) established the Interface Cultures program at Linz Art University. Interactive art and innovative interface design at the nexus of art, design and research are the core elements of this course of study in theory and practice.

10 Years, 150 Projects

Over the past decade, students have completed approximately 150 projects and written 30 master’s theses. Many of these works have been on display in “Interface Cultures,” an exhibition that has come to be an Ars Electronica Festival fixture. And so it is this year as well.

Schauplatz Raumschiff

This year’s exhibition venue is Raumschiff [Spaceship], a former retail space right on Linz’s Main Square. Launched in early 2014 by Linz Art University undergrads and alumni, Raumschiff contains spaces for events, exhibitions and workshops, a shop selling art & design products, and a café. It’s conceived as a setting for interdisciplinary exchange among young artists and their interaction with the general public.

Anniversary Celebration

The curators are marking the program’s 10th anniversary by augmenting the annual exhibition of works by students with network talks, an alumni meeting, Live Performances and a meet & greet event entitled Bring Your Own Art. This year’s Campus Exhibition is especially extensive—it features 17 works by 40 students from 13 countries.

Arbeiten

Senseparation

Collaborative project by students at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (DE) and Linz Art University (AT) in cooperation with the Leibnitz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (DE)

Virtual-Reality-Project

Ursuppe

Davide Bevilacqua, Alberto Boem (IT)

Sound performance that involves jelly made out of the seaweed agar and analogue oscillators.

A Tangible Score

Enrique Tomas (ES)

Tactile interface for musical expression that interprets a score on the basis of its physical shape, surface structure and spatial configuration.

Mattresspipe

Ivan Petkov (BG)

A double airbed which is transformed into a collaborative musical instrument, based on the traditional Bulgarian bagpipe Kaba Gaida.

Data Auditorio

Daichi Misawa (JP)

An interactive sound device in a defined space that enables audiences to participate in the game of performance play.

Tapebook

Cesar Escudero Andaluz (ES)

An exercise in media archaeology, consisting of text sonifications of data that are extracted from social networks and recorded on cassettes.

Memory Wheel

Davide Bevilacqua (IT)

A mnemonic device (memory storage) which is used to store and manipulate data by means of a magical kinetic process. So bring your own USB stick and you will be amazed to see what happens!

Kurzschluss

Veronika Krenn (AT)

An electronic decision-making circuit is constructed in the shape of a labyrinth.

Trāṭaka

Alessio Chierico (IT)

An interactive installation based on a brain-computer interface. When a visitor totally relaxes, the candle he is holding is extinguished.

Hacking Meditation—when stillness interacts

Mihaela Kavdanska (BG)

Visitors are invited to sit on a meditation cushion in front of a screen. The interaction with the video is based on the still presence of the viewer.

Greetings from Eastern Europe

Ioan-Ovidiu Cernei (RO), Tiina Sööt (EE)

A multi-part installation about their personal situation and experience that attempts to share these with the participant. As Eastern Europeans living in Central Europe, they are often confronted with lingering connections to their countries of origin.

Root Node

Nathan Guo (CN)

An interactive installation that involves stacked layers of disassembled remote controllers, strung together by conductive rods and planted in the ground.

60 flavours

Ulrich Lantzberg (AT)

A reflexion of the world’s corruption in a tasty way. Data is transformed into taste, altering the flavour of the chocolates.

Money Never Sleeps

Martin Nadal (ES)

A tangible interface for buying and selling equities on the London, New York, Tokyo and Frankfurt stock markets. The visitors make their purchases in an unconventional manner—by inhaling a line of “cocaine” (i. e. pure sugar).

That Way

İdil Kızoğl (TR)

Web mapping applications gather information on the infrastructure of cities and add a virtual layer by making recommendations. İdil Kızoğl deals with the idea of strictly following given routes and questions whether applications that encourage us to do so affect the way we experience cities.

My Haptic Diary

Jure Fingušt (SI)

Visitors form a piece of clay and place it on a sketchbook. The interaction is recorded and projected on the floor in the video mosaic

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Translation III / Strafsachen

Cristian Villavicencio (EC)

A re-contextualization of the exhibition space by describing its own surroundings in real time from the point of view of a continuously rotating or moving camera. The recording device is installed on the ceiling in a place inaccessible to the public and follows the movements of spectators through the exhibition space.

Interface Cultures: Christa Sommerer (AT), Laurent Mignonneau (AT), Martin Kaltenbrunner (AT), Michaela Ortner (AT), Reinhard Gupfinger (AT)

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!