MON September 8, 2014, 11 AM-9 PM
Central Linz

The Ars Electronica Animation Festival showcases 140 works submitted for prize consideration to 2014 Prix Ars Electronica. They’re divided into 10 programs that offer a cross-section of the outstanding creative work animated filmmakers are currently doing in very diverse areas in this field—applications in art, science, R&D and industry.

New Standards

For years, it seemed impossible to keep pace with the impressive new developments coming out of VFX studios serving the movie business giants. In competition with them, films produced by artists and indie filmmakers usually didn’t stand a chance. But the rapid development of hardware and the price reductions that went along with it as well as the growing professionalism of the training that was available brought about a decisive change. Now, VFX has become an essential element of computer animation, a standard of everyday life in this field.

Increasingly Permeable Borders

Generative and interactive works, projections in an exhibition context or open-air setting, innovative hybrids of analog and digital animation that deliver totally new visual experiences, and found footage—all these developments attest to how this genre’s boundaries have steadily shifted outward and dissolved altogether.

Added Attractions …

The Animation Festival’s themed programs are supplemented by Young Animations, a selection of prizewinning films from last year’s Japan Media Arts Festival and a Campus Genius Awards-program also from Japan.

Folder

Download “Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2014” folder as PDF file

Trailer

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FILgqurFUo]

Trailer & graphics by Johannes Poell and Orihaus, Trailer sound & audiodesign by Markus Koenig

The Themed Programs

Expanded Animation

In this program, animation takes leave of its usual screening rooms for venues that include gallery spaces, cathedrals, façades and landscapes, and reconfigures these settings in the process.

Box 05:25 | Bot & Dolly (US)

THE ARK 05:16 | Romain Tardy (FR)

A million times 01:21 | Humans since 1982 (SE/GE)

Lighthouse 3D Mapping. 01:34 | Yury Pelin (RU)

The Colony – A tale on Textile 03:25 | Joshuah Brindin Howard (US), Lorenz Potthast (DE), Jonas Wiese (DE) (Urbanscreen) with Svenja Keune (DE)

ESCAPE 06:11 | Laszlo Zsolt Bordos (HU)

O (Omicron) 04:27 | Romain Tardy (FR)

advection 04:02 | Robert Seidel, David Kamp (DE)

Light Leaks 01:22 | Kyle McDonald (US), Jonas Jongejan (DK)

the impenetrable 05:21 | mihai grecu (RO)

The Flood Panels 09:08 | DEPART (AT)

Khôra I. 06:18 | The Macula (CZ)

Experimental

Tests conducted amidst semi-abstract proving grounds and impressive technological experiments—a completely new way to deploy stereoscopy, for instance, or the use of found footage—produce new visual experiences of space and time.

Recycled 05:32 | Lei Lei (CN)

Spherical Harmonics 05:08 | Alan Warburton (GB)

Sliced 02:38 | Dxmiq (Maxim Meshkov) (RU)

SALIENCE Short Film 05:29 | Paul Trillo (US)

Hybrida 03:01 | Hans-Peter Minihuber, Dominik Pfeffer, Georg Wurz / University of Applied Sciences, Campus Hagenberg (AT)

Error de Formato 05:25 | Nicolás Rupcich (CL)

Thing 17:50 | Anouk De Clercq (BE)

abbau 05:02 | Masahiro Ohsuka (JP)

Plastic Infinite 05:26 | Dan Hayhurst, Reuben Sutherland (GB)

Mental States

Psychological states of emergency; fears; the ego’s dark sides—the quintessentially human perceptions that surface in Mental States call upon us to consider our own self.

LONELY BONES 10:00 | ROSTO (NL)

Defragmentation 14:02 | Saebyul Hwangbo (KP)

Futon 06:02 | Yoriko Mizushiri (JP)

ENCORE DES CHANGEMENTS 10:00 | Benoît Guillaume, Barbara Malleville (FR)

Portrait 02:51 | Donato Sansone (IT)

The Great Rabbit 07:12 | Atsushi Wada (Sacrebleu Productions, CaRTe bLaNChe) (FR)

Out of Bounds 6:36 | Viktoria Piechowitz (The Animation Workshop) (DE)

Myosis 02:22 | Emmanuel Asquier-Brassart, Ricky Cometa, Guillaume Dousse, Adrien Gromelle, Thibaud Petitpas (FR)

Narration

From lovingly poetic to coarsely comic, biting satire to loud-and-clear political statements—today’s filmmakers don’t shy away from any issue at all in the digital narratives they confront us with, and demonstrate yet again that there are no limits to computer animation’s storytelling capabilities.

Mr Hublot 11:48 | Alexandre Espigares (LU), Laurent Witz (FR) (ZEILT productions)

Chipotle Scarecrow 03:33 | Moonbot Studios (US)

Interview 05:17 | Mikkel Okholm (The Animation Workshop) (DK)

Hollow land 13:56 | Michelle and Uri Kranot (DK)

Kangaroos can’t jump backwards 02:24 | Rafael Mayrhofer (motiphe) (AT)

Once Upon a Candle 06:22 | Humphrey Erm (The Animation Workshop) (SE)

Silent 03:19 | Moonbot Studios (US)

Home sweet home 08:31 | Pierre Clenet, Alejandro Diaz, Romain Mazenet, Stéphane Paccolat (FR)

Escarface 04:52 | Lionel Arnold, Vincent Meunier, Eva Navaux, Pierre Plouzeau, Dario Sabato, Burcu Sankur (FR)

Comedy

When filmmakers start making up stories, abstruse, hilarious narratives are often the outcome. Giraffes mutate into high-divers; a silent community discovers language …

Fugu and Tako 08:00 | Ben West (AU)

Mute 04:22 | Job, Joris & Marieke (NL)

Mac ‘N’ Cheese – Supermarket 02:43 | Colorbleed Animation Studios, il Luster Films (NL)

Cock of the Walk 00:36 | Donavon Brutus, Matthew Jimenez (US)

Plot-O-Mat 02:49 | Iring Freytag, Florian Werzinski (Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg) (DE)

GUNTHER 06:32 | Erick Oh (US)

Birds 01:20 | Zeitguised (DE)

Supermoine Holypop 02:20 | Julien Bagnol (Supamonks) (FR)

Shave It 04:14 | Fernando Maldonado, Jorge Tereso (3dar) (AR)

Wedding Cake 08:14 | Viola Baier (DE), Iris Frisch (AT)

5 METRES 80 05:23 | Nicolas Deveaux (CUBE CREATIVE PRODUCTIONS) (FR)

WISH LIST 03:00 | WISH LIST 03:00 | Griff & Scott Garrett (GB)

Sun of a beach 05:51 | Arnaud Crillon, Alexandre Rey, Jinfeng Lin, Valentin Gasarian (FR)

Inner Worlds

Minute organic worlds emerge in breathtaking detail. Microcosms and macrocosms reveal themselves. In the alliance of art and science, computer animation lets one behold what used to be invisible.

MITE 03:38 | Walter Volbers (DE)

The Rise and Fall of Globosome 05:45 | Sascha Geddert, Philipp Wolf (Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg) (DE)

Cellular Forms 04:43 | Andy Lomas (GB)

Comme des Organismes 02:10 | Zeitguised (DE)

Impermanence Trajectory: the limbic nest. 07:00 | Stefan Larsson (AUJIK)

Rugbybugs 01:35 | Matthias Bäuerle, Fabian Fricke, Emanuel Fuchs, Martin Lapp, Carl Schröter (DE)

The incredible Water Bear 04:34 | Reinhold Fragner, Martina Fröschl (Industrial Motion Art Filmproduktion GmbH) (AT)

PROXIMITY 02:50 | Peter Affenzeller (AT), Kristin Müller (DE), Manuel Preuß (DE)

Endtrip 05:10 | Olivier Ballast, Koen de Mol, Rick Franssen (The Outpost) (NL)

From the Pentagon Inequality to the Poincaré Universe 03:02 | Renate Quehenberger (Quantum Cinema) (AT)

Terra Incognita 10:00 | Rachel Clarke (US)

Motion

Motion was one of the foremost areas of exploration during computer animation’s formative years. Current examples range from poetic-artistic elaborations to funny stuff.

Walking City 07:49 | Matt Pyke (Universal Everything) (GB)

Cycles 720 02:32 | Craig Ritchie Allan (Numbercult) (GB)

Linear 02:54 | Julia M. Müller (DE)

SONATA 11:00 | Nadia Micault (FR)

y2o {distillé} 11:11 | dominique T Skoltz (SKOLTZ inc) (CA)

Land 03:30 | Masanobu Hiraoka (JP)

Buzzard 03:30 | Gero Doll aka Limbicnation (NA), Olivier Girardot (FR)

Nike Hyperfeel 04:00 | FIELD (GB)

Columbos 09:15 | Kawai+Okamura (FR)

Late for meeting 02:00 | David Lewandowski (US) 

Visual Music

This program features a diverse mix of works and genres that demonstrate how images and music can jam.

Light Motif 04:15 | Frédéric Bonpapa (FR)

Magma 01:28 | Dvein (ES)

Ghost Are Dancing 03:19 | Maxime Causeret, Gilles-Alexandre Deschaud (FR)

Heimcomputer 07:30 | Sophie Clements (GB), Toby Cornish (DE) (jutojo)

Beatcam 01:32 | Oscar Gonzalez Diez (Plastic Science) (UK)

Katachi 03:02 | Przemyslaw Adamski, Katarzyna Kijek (Kijek/Adamski) (PL)

Anatomy of a Poem 03:31 | Rebecca Ruige Xu (Syracuse University), Sean Hongsheng Zhai (Red Dot Blue Square LLC) (US)

Pop Psychology, messages from synapse 27 03:15 | Paul Fletcher (digital compost) (AU)

Le Peuple de l’Herbe – Parler le Fracas 04:26 | thomas / wasaru Fourniret (wasaru) (FR)

megu & patron “pari pari pa-ri-” 03:40 | Takashi Ohashi (JP)

Stop the Show 01:00 | Max Hattler (GB, DE, ES)

Xenas 05:15 | Arístides Job García Hernández (ES)

Mouse On Mars – Cream Theme 02:45 | Zeitguised (DE)

Young Animations

Animated work produced by young filmmakers: Every year, gifted young filmmakers submit their movies to u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD (Austria), bugnplay (Switzerland), MB21 (Germany) and C3

Schenk ein Lächeln 03:02 | u19 | Melanie Bauer, Tanja Griesser | 17-18 Jahre

Ve geldik – Und wir sind angekommen 03:34 | mb21 | Kooperation des Kinderinsel e.V. und des Türkischen Volkshaus e.V. in Frankfurt am Main | 11 Jahre

Not another brick in the wall – Ein Stein, der seine Wichtigkeit erfuhr. 03:21 | u19 | Marcel Klinger, David Lang, Johannes Lederer, Tobias Regier | 13 Jahre

Accidental Discovery 04:44 | c3 | Peter Vecsei | 17 Jahre

Femme Chanel – Amme Fenchel 04:06 | u19 | Sarah Oos | 19 Jahre

Das Kind 01:17 | u19 | Ju Hee Park | 17-18 Jahre

Verschöpft 4:42 | mb21 | Arne Hain, Dominik Erl, Toni Wunder | 18 Jahre

A Never Ending Friendship 02:49 | u19 | Anna Haslinger, Sophia Warbanoff |16 Jahre

Max’s Idea 02:36 | bugnplay | Tim Winkelmann | 14 Jahre

Das Geld macht den Unterschied 01:03 | u19 | Alexander Schneidermayer, Franz Ilmer, Chedi Chasanova, Sonja Widauer, Jacqueline Kohler | 14 Jahre

Hungry Fish 01:16 | u19 | Marvin Schürz | 15 Jahre

Motorist goes for chips 02:55 | c3 | Ágnes Király | 13 Jahre

no risk no fun 00:55 | mb21 | Richard Forstmann | 15 Jahre

Robob 01:38 | mb21 | Ronny Günt | 16 Jahre

Over the hills and far away! 01:51 | c3 | Bojaisokk (team) | 17 Jahre

Slow and steady wins the race! 03:29 | c3 | Mátyás Eckl | 17 Jahre

Get The Egg 02:32 | mb21 | Florian Tappeser, Dastin Luis Rauch, Lukas Schnorfell | 24 Jahre

BatRace 02:56 | bugnplay | Chris Leisi, Michael Stampfli | 21 Jahre

von KLEEblatt zu KLEEblatt 02:56 | bugnplay | Lea Hofer | 19 Jahre

HIHO 02:00 | u19 | Workshop mit Roland Schütz am Bundesschülerheim “Am Himmelhof”; BRG Diefenbachgasse; Proejktkoordinator Mag. Erich Wohlfahrter; Klasse 4hb | 13-15 Jahre

Reverie 03:36 | mb21 | Valentin Gagarin, Shujun Wong, Robert Wincierz und Manuel Senfft | 26 Jahre

Japan Media Arts Festival Selection

The Japan Media Arts Festival honors outstanding works from a wide range of media in four award categories: Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga.

Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989 | 01:30 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Kaoru Sugano, Sotaro Yasumochi, Yu Orai, Nadya Kirillova, Kyoko Yonezawa, Kosai Sekine, Taeji Sawai, Daito Manabe (JP, RU)

minicar music player. | 01:36 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Kensaku Kakimoto (JP)

YAKENOHARA “RELAXIN’ | 05:10 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Saigo No Shudan (Ayumu Arisaka, Mai Oita, Ren Kohata) (JP)

salyu × salyu “hanashitaianatato” | 03:37 | 16th Japan Media Arts Festival | Koichiro Tsujikawa (JP)

ballet rotoscope | 03:15 | 15th Japan Media Arts Festival | Masahiko Sato + EUPHRATES (JP)

Strata #4 | 01:54 | 16th Japan Media Arts Festival | Quayola (IT)

TOKYO CITY SYMPHONY | 03:13 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Tsubasa Oyagi, Kampei Baba, Koshi Takcom/Miura, Takayuki Watanabe, Sadanori Maeda, Toshiyuki Hashimoto, Hironori Terai, Takahiko Kajima (JP)

Haisuinonasa “Dynamics of the Subway” | 04:22 | 16th Japan Media Arts Festival | Keita Onishi (JP)

Travis “Moving” | 04:28 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Tom Wrigglesworth, Matt Robinson (UK)

Z-MACHINES | 05:20 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Z-MACHINES Project (JP)

Suidobashi Heavy Industry “KURATAS” | 03:05 | 16th Japan Media Arts Festival | Kogoro Kurata / Wataru Yoshizaki (JP)

Professor Kliq “Wire & Flashing Lights” | 01:39 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Victor Haegelin (FR)

WORLD ORDER in BUDOKAN | 02:21 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival |WORLD ORDER (JP)

Roy Tamaki “Wonderful” | 03:51 | 17th Japan Media Arts Festival | Roy Tamaki (JP)

Campus Genius Award

The Campus Genius Award (Gakusei CG Contest) honors digital artworks created by students. This year, it celebrates its 20th anniversary and by this verifies its important role in the history of Japanese Media Arts. In this year’s Ars Electronica, a series of animated short films is being screened.

Airy Me 05:39 | 2013 | YOKO Kuno

sweet picnic 03:19 | 2011 | koya

1912-2012 vol.1 02:07 | 2013 | Nakamura Masashi

Otaku Dash!! 01:03 | 2013 | Nakamura Masashi

Karakuri Canon 03:30 | 2013 | Iwamoto Yushi

Wild Wild Ham 04:46 | 2013 | Kawaguchi Eri

Usalullaby 05:33 | 2013 | Ike Asami

ANAL JUKE – anal juice – 02:57 | 2013 | Kabuki Sawako

Natural Incubation 10:02 | 2013 | Aoyagi Natsumi

CYCLOID 03:27 | 2013 | Kurogi Tomoki

Daily lives at Daisy Lodge 08:22 | 2013 | Wakai Manami

Daily program

THU September 4, 2014

11 AM Experimental

12 PM Mental States

1 PM Narration

2 PM Visual Music

3 PM Japan Media Arts Festival Selection

4 PM Comedy

5 PM Inner Worlds

6 PM Campus Genius Award

7 PM Motion

8 PM Expanded Animation

FRI September 5, 2014

11 AM Mental States

12 PM Visual Music

1 PM Motion

2 PM Japan Media Arts Festival Selection

3 PM Young Animations

4 PM Campus Genius Award

5 PM Narration

6 PM Comedy

7 PM Experimental

8 PM Inner Worlds

SAT September 6, 2014

11 AM Inner Worlds

12 PM Comedy

1 PM Expanded Animation

2 PM Motion

3 PM Experimental

4 PM Mental States

5 PM Pixels & Piano: Music Visualisations

SUN September 7, 2014

11 AM Young Animations

12 PM Visual Music

1 PM Pixels & Piano: Music Visualisations

MON September 8, 2014

11 AM Narration

12 PM Expanded Animation

1 PM Young Animations

2 PM Mental States

3 PM Campus Genius Award

4 PM Motion

5 PM Japan Media Arts Festival Selection

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

6 PM Comedy

7 PM Inner Worlds

8 PM Experimental

Presentation of all the prizewinning works in the 2014 Prix Ars Electronica’s Computer Animation / Film / VFX category. 
Filming and photographing during the Electronic Theatre screenings is prohibited.

Program

Walking City

Universal Everything (UK): Matt Pyke

Golden Nica

Columbos

Kawai+Okamura (FR)

Honorary Mention

Recycled

Lei Lei (CN)

Honorary Mention

Light Motif

Frédéric Bonpapa (FR)

Honorary Mention

Birds

Zeitguised (DE)

Honorary Mention

5 METRES 80

Cube Creative productions (FR): Nicolas Deveaux

Honorary Mention

The Rise and Fall of Globosome

Sascha Geddert, Philipp Wolf (DE)

Honorary Mention

Box

Bot & Dolly (US)

Award of Distinction

Land

Masanobu Hiraoka (JP)

Honorary Mention

Futon

Yoriko Mizushiri (JP)

Honorary Mention

Late for meeting

David Lewandowski (US)

Honorary Mention 

Film is the theme of the 2014 u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD Future Festival of the Next Generation. And that’s a happy happenstance, since this year’s Golden Nica winner in the Prix Ars Electronica’s u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD category, Sarah Oos, is being honored for “Femme Chanel – Emma Fenchel”, a film montage that makes use of found footage.

15 Great Works

You can take in a screening of Sarah Oos’ outstanding film and check out 14 other works by some very talented young people in this year’s u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD Exhibit, a showcase of fascinating, surprising, offbeat and witty submissions to the Prix Ars Electronica’s u19 category.

Melodious Mirror

(e)motion-mirror by Richard Sadek features an unforeseen mirror that translates facial expressions into sounds. Jonas Bodingbauer’s Smart Clock doubles as a clock and appointment calendar. Plus, there are funny animated films with surprising endings, exciting adventure games, practical robots that can plan interior layouts, and lots more.

Up, up and away!

The youngest prizewinner takes visitors on a trip in her Balloon Hotel. Another project deals with how to make life easier for asylum seekers in Austria. And one project was actually implemented in conjunction with a development aid project in Africa.

We say: If you’re gonna stage an awards ceremony, then do it right! The 2014 winners in the Prix Ars Electronica’s category for young people won’t be receiving only trophies and certificates. For the first time this year, they’ll also be immortalized on a Walk of Fame.

On the Walk of Fame

Excellent work is being singled out for recognition with a Golden Nica, two Awards of Distinction, Merchandise Prizes in the u10 and u14 age groups, and Honorary Mentions. The grand prize goes to Sarah Oos (AT) for Femme Chanel – Emma Fenchel. The runners-up are Richard Sadek (AT) for (e)motion-mirror and Jonas Bodingbauer (AT) for Smart Clock.

THU September 4-MON September 8, 2014, 10 AM-9 PM, SAT 10 AM-11 PM,
the exhibition will be opened until September 14, 2014!
OK im OÖ Kulturquartier

The CyberArts exhibition is a centerpiece of the Ars Electronica Festival. It showcases works honored by the Prix Ars Electronica in 2014.

Balance From Within

Jacob Tonski (US)

Award of Distinction Interactive Art

Equilibrium is a fragile state. In interpersonal relationships too, the risk of losing one’s balance is always present. Starting with a 170-year-old sofa, Jacob Tonski created a sculpture that metaphorically represents the delicate equilibrium in situations played out on and around such a sofa—a get-acquainted chat, sex, or just couch potatoes watching TV. A sophisticated, computer-controlled mechanism enables this fine old piece of furniture to balance on only one of its four legs.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

There is the sun

Ief Spincemaille (BE)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Sint-Maartensdal was supposed to be a model low-income housing project in the Belgian city of Leuwen in the 1960s. Unfortunately, however, the architects failed to take into account the fact that only about half the apartments ever receive sunlight. Or actually: received. In conjunction with a large-scale renovation, Ief Spincemaille provided relief with an installation consisting of a motorized mirror that can reflect light onto any desired point. And which shady flat gets the light on any particular day is determined by the residents themselves via an online reservation calendar.

Project Fumbaro Eastern Japan

Golden Nica Digital Communities

Fumbaro is an autonomous online platform that was set up immediately after the catastrophic earthquake that rocked Japan in 2011. Based on Takeo Saijo’s philosophy of structural constructivism, it functions according to the principle of social media and interlinks groups of victims and helpers—with each other and amongst themselves. This speeds up the process of finding out specifically what kinds of help are needed as well as delivering aid precisely where, when and to whom it’s needed.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

Freemuse

Award of Distinction Digital Communities

Freemuse is the world’s largest database about censored music. Set up in 1998, it documents violations of the right of free musical expression. Freemuse also supports musicians threatened by censorship and enables them to speak their piece online.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

Goteo

Award of Distinction Digital Communities

Since the Goteo crowd funding and crowd sourcing platform was established by the Fuentes Abiertas Foundation in late 2011, it has raised over $1.5 million in capital for open source, copyleft and commons projects. Plus, the Goteo network has established itself as a community of communities and, to date, trained approximately 1,000 activists in collective fundraising.

Captives

Quayola (IT/UK)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Captives is an ongoing series of sculptures—some digital, some three-dimensional—that constitute a continuation and contemporary reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s unfinished Prigioni series and his famous non finito technique. The works explore the tension and balance between form and content on one hand, and between manmade perfection and the complex, chaotic forms of nature on the other.

Box

Bot & Dolly (US), Julia Gottlieb (US)

Award of Distinction Computer Animation/Film/VFX

Box confronts the interrelationship between real and digital space in the medium of film. Gottlieb’s work blends animation, robotics and projection mapping into a hybrid of art, technology and experimental film design. Video on Vimeo.

Walking City

Universal Everything (GB): Matt Pyke (GB)

Golden Nica Computer Animation/Film/VFX

Matt Pyke’s prizewinning work Walking City evokes utopian architectural visions of the 1960s. What initially appears to be a 3-D figure in a digital outer shell turns out to be a gradually morphing video sculpture endlessly striding through a nomadic city. As it progresses, Pyke’s hard-charging walker spans a stylistic arc interconnecting Buckminster Fuller, Richard Rogers, Daniel Liebeskind and biomorphic spatial structures.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

Loophole for All

Paolo Cirio (IT/US)

Golden Nica Interactive Art

Loophole4All is the outcome of a bold tour de force by Paolo Cirio. He hacked the government website of the Cayman Islands, a Caribbean tax haven, and found out the true identities of 200,000 anonymous offshore letter-box companies there. Cirio followed up his big score as a corporate identity thief by selling shares in these secretive enterprises for as low as 99¢ as a way of collectively hijacking them. The upshot: immediate, massive legal threats from the unmasked tax dodgers and lots of media coverage worldwide.

Disarming Corruptor

Matthew Plummer-Fernandez (UK)

Award of Distinction Interactive Art

To protect the creative community’s sensitive documents from the prying eyes of law enforcement agencies and patent attorneys, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez developed Disarming Corruptor. This encryption software intentionally inflicts reversible damage on STL mesh files—for instance, schematic drawings of a 3-D printer—and thereby makes them illegible by third parties. Insiders, on the other hand, have no trouble restoring their files.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

Das Vergerät

Boris Petrovsky (DE)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

As part of the Vergerät, even the most banal novelties become adventures again. It makes software available to its users to input information for each other, though it’s translated and conveyed in highly unconventional fashion. The nodes of this communications network are electrical appliances: coffee grinders, espresso machines, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, toothbrushes, massage devices, leaf blowers, epilators, etc.—in short, all the high-tech crap that makes everyday life paradise on Earth.

Transfigurations

Agi Haines (UK)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

The human body consists of numerous components that, at this point in humankind’s ascent to technical mastery, could easily be optimized. So what actually prevents people from surgically improving their efficiency? How the optimization of the human body might work in actual practice is illustrated by Transfigurations in the form of five animated mechatronic babies. Each one stands out with a particular souped-up body part and its correspondingly upgraded capabilities.

The Machine to Be Another

BeAnotherLab (Transnational): Philippe Bertrand (BR), Christian Cherene (GB), Daniel Gonzalez-Franco (CO), Daanish Masood (SA), Marte Roel (MX), Arthur Tres (FR)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

The exhilarating experience of existing inside another person’s body isn’t just a pipedream anymore; The Machine to Be Another now makes it come true. This interaction system combines human actions with tele-presence capabilities and neurological knowhow, and has already been employed in experiments and performances having to do with an astoundingly wide array of topics—for example, xenophobia, mother-daughter relationships, sensitivity to pain, and gender identities.

Sports Time Machine

Ryoko Ando (JP), Hiroshi Inukai (JP)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

The advent of Sports Time Machine means the dawn of a new age for ambitious runners. Even when they’re dashing along by themselves on a treadmill, they can compete in realistic race situations against virtual opponents projected onto the surrounding walls.

Avena+ Test Bed – Agricultural Printing and Altered Landscapes

Benedikt Groß (DE)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Mechanical harvesters precisely steered via satellite navigation on optimal routes across fields mapped with digital precision have long since become a reality—and the first harbingers of the next European agricultural revolution. Over the coming years, this will further intensify as part of a digitized sector of production in which a reorientation is looming: cutting back cultivation of foodstuffs; increasing production of biogas. This has substantial consequences for land use. In a pilot project, Benedikt Gross experimentally applied the principles of digital manufacturing to agriculture in an effort to make this upcoming structural shift as ecologically tolerable as possible.

Peace Can Be Realized Even Without Order

teamLab (JP, CN, ROC)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

This interactive installation features a seemingly endless series of music-making and dancing holograms. Each one marches to the beat of a different drummer, but nevertheless reacts to the sounds and movements of its neighbors. Although externalities like the sudden presence of installation visitors briefly disrupt their harmonious coexistence, the accord within the ensemble is quickly reestablished.

Epiphyte Chamber

Philip Beesley (CA)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Visitors experience Epiphyte Chamber as an extremely sensual, intimate space in which a wide variety of tiny domains bustling with activity are connected with more spacious zones of encounter, a network of floating islands full of sprightly, digitally rendered components that breathe and whisper to one another almost synchronously, and whose coordinated movements imitate human feelings.

Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989

Kaoru Sugano (JP), Sotaro Yasumochi (JP), Yu Orai (JP), Nadya Kirillova (RU/JP), Kyoko Yonezawa (JP), Kosai Sekine (JP), Taeji Sawai (JP), Daito Manabe (JP)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989 is based on Formula 1 data that’s now 24 years old. Available as a website and a smartphone app, this work recreates the sounds and images of a now-legendary lap around the 5,807-meter-long Suzuka Circuit race course that Ayrton Senna turned in to qualify for the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix. His time of 1:38:041 has never been equaled.

Clouds

James George (US), Jonathan Minard (US)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

Filmed in a new 3-D cinematic format and produced exclusively with open-source software, Clouds is an interactive documentary film about the broad zone at the nexus of code and culture. It consists of interviews with over 40 artists, intellectuals, hackers and designers about new forms of artistic expression. A data-fed story engine moves this vehicle that’s constantly re-editing itself and its endlessly reconfigured sequence of conversations among leading-edge thinkers.

Swarm

James Coupe (UK)

Honorary Mention Interactive Art

James Coupe was inspired to create Swarm by J. G. Ballard’s novel “High Rise” set in an apartment building in which thousands of people live crowded together. Coupe used four rows of monitors screening panorama representations of various human subgroups to produce a visualization of the logic behind social media. It’s based on communities that are organized according to demographic criteria having to do with markets, habits and interests. “Swarm” portrays these agglomerations of people with shared interests as gallery visitors: men in their 20s, women in their 50s, ethnic Asians, people wearing black, et al. These and other demographic groups aggressively assert themselves in the installation’s virtual gallery space and propagate an atmosphere of mutual hostility somewhere between rivalry and utter indifference.

Roy Ascott (UK)

Golden Nica Visionary Pioneers of Media Art

British artist Roy Ascott was awarded the first Golden Nica in this category for his life’s work. Over 55 year, he has envisioned cybernetic, telematic, technoetic art and brought this vision to fruition. Since 1961, he has exhibited his works at biennials and major shows in Venice, Shanghai, Seoul, Amsterdam, Paris and London. His contribution to the 1989 Ars Electronica Festival was “Aspects of Gaia,” a work that juxtaposed the experience of telematic disembodiment to presence in physical space, and thereby constituted a milestone in hybrid media art.

Femme Chanel – Emma Fenchel

Sarah Oos (AT)

Golden Nica u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD

“Femme Chanel – Emma Fenchel” is a video that very elegantly sequentializes and recontextualizes found footage—that is, elements of previously existing films. The points of departure were “Night Train,” a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume, and feature films starring actress Audrey Tautou. “Emma Fenchel” consists primarily of cuts interconnecting formally well-matched sequences from other motion pictures. This revision of the sequence of the cuts as well as the insertion of other material modifies the message of the fragrance commercial, whereby the initially demure Audrey Tautou—playing a stereotyped female image propagated by advertising—mutates into a man-eating femme fatale.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!

BlindMaps

Markus Schmeiduch (AT), Andrew Spitz (FR), Ruben van der Vleuten (NL)

Winner [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant

BlindMaps is an R&D project investigating what sorts of navigation aids could make life easier and safer for blind people trying to get around in a strange city. The answer: not one that issues verbal/audible directions, but rather one that features a Braille-capable touchscreen that’s based on popular online maps and takes advantage of the possibilities afforded by a smartphone.

Read more about this on our Ars Electronica Blog!