Connecting Cities – Post City

Ars Electronica Futurelab @ Festival Ars Electronica

Martin Hieslmair — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 06:58:11 +0000

Here’s a brief overview of where and how the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s latest accomplishments are being showcased at this year’s Festival. Progress reports on the Lab’s projects, presentation of R&D joint ventures with clients in the private and public sectors, leading-edge developments such as DeepSpace 8K, Spaxels demonstration in association with Future Mobility, concepts for and contributions to conferences … are some of the highlights on the Lab’s Festival lineup.

Future Mobility

How we’ll be getting from Point A to Point B in the future are matters with a high degree of potential to change our culture. Discussions of this and related issues, artistic collaborations as well as the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s R&D joint venture with Mercedes-Benz provide an excellent occasion to devote a whole sector of the POST CITY exhibition to the prospects for Future Mobility. More…

Connecting Cities

The Ars Electronica Futurelab has been working since 2012 in the Connecting Cities Network, a global alliance of cities and media art organizations. In conjunction with a four-year artistic research program, the associates are convening to share interim results and to consider diverse artistic activities that have the right stuff to take advantage of the creative potential of media façades. More…

Future Catalyst Program – Ars Electronica 2015 for the Development of the Post City Kit

Following up on the successful launch at Ars Electronica 2014, the Future Catalysts Program this year will again be creating new modes of collective brainstorming and creative prototyping. The Future Innovators Summit was developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab and Hakuhodo to bring together artists, researchers, activists and entrepreneurs from all over the world. More…

Deep Space 8K

In the wake of a complete technical makeover by Ars Electronica Futurelab engineers, the screening venue now known as Deep Space 8K has redefined state-of-the-art viewing. This unprecedented next level features 8K resolution! Full HD and 4K are yesterday’s news; 8K is the new standard. Visit the updated Deep Space in the Ars Electronica Center and see what breathtaking means now. More…

Ars Electronica Residency Network

The Ars Electronica Residency Network and its constituent programs target a broad spectrum of artists and scientists. Some of the residencies the network offers provide substantive focal points and working situations custom-tailored to artists who have already achieved a high level of mastery and renown; other residencies are especially designed to nurture the prodigious potential of up-and-coming young talents. More…

Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy

We are delighted to announce the beginning of intensive collaboration between the Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy and one of Japan’s finest institutions of higher learning, University of Tsukuba, a leading research facility with a visionary program focusing on cybernetics and human-machine interaction. The school has established a new Ph.D. program in Empowerment Informatics (EMP) that is being headed by none other than Device Art pioneer Hiroo Iwata. Here, the first results of this year’s Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy entitled LAB-X will make their public debut. More…

All at a glance

POST CITY Symposium I: Future Mobility – A Challenge for Art & Science

The concept of mobility used in this POST CITY Symposium is very broadly defined. It encompasses a spectacular R&D prototype of a self-driving car, a survey of urban mobility worldwide as well as the mobility of data, and all the millions of people who are now migrating to cities.

Future Catalyst Program for the Development of the POST CITY Kit

Two programs will occupy the focal point of the Post City Kit activities in the context of the Future Catalyst Program – a toolkit of ideas, strategies, devices and prototypes for the city of the future: The Future Innovators Summit and the Connected Intelligence Atelier.

Prix Forum V – Residency Artists

The Prix Forum VI gatheres with Ryoji Ikeda, Irene Agrivina, Maria Ignacia Edwards and Semiconductor several Residency Artists.

Deep Space 8K

Now, in 2015, Deep Space has been taken to the next level.

F 015 Luxury in Motion

The F 015 not only represents the technical realization of autonomous driving. It also shows how self-driving cars are going to change our society as the automobile moves beyond its role as a means of transportation to become a mobile living space.

Rethinking the Shared Space

Alexander Mankowsky and Christopher Lindinger provide insight into the ongoing research partnership between Ars Electronica Futurelab and Mercedes-Benz.

Shared Space Spaxels

Shared Space Spaxels lets people experience robotic mobility with the help of three quadcopters.

Shared Space Bots

In Shared Space Bots, specially developed robots are the protagonists of experiments in human-automobile interaction.

Soya C(o)u(l)ture-Workshops

(Deutsch) Bei drei Workshops in der Soya C(o)u(l)ture-Schauküche haben die FestivalbesucherInnen selbst Gelegenheit, sich im Upcycling der Abwässer aus der Sojaherstellung zu versuchen.

Connecting Cities Conference

European urban identities, social changes and citizen participation occupy the focal point of the first symposium at the 2015 Festival.

Soya C(o)u(l)ture

(Deutsch) Mit dem künstlerischen Forschungsprojekt Soya C(o)u(l)ture hat XXlab (ID) ein Verfahren entwickelt, Nützliches aus dem bei der Sojaherstellung anfallenden Flüssigabfall zu gewinnen.

Connecting Cities: False Positive

False Positive deploys text messaging, stealth infrastructure, street intervention, and data visualization to enact a surveillance conspiracy engaging the public in an intimate, techno-political conversation with the mobile technologies on which they depend

Connecting Cities: ESEL-Complain

ESEL-Complain shows opportunities and the potential provided by the use of bicycles in public spaces.

FOCUS

The FOCUS application for mobile devices is a camera function with a fun new wrinkle.

KURUMA-IKU Lab

The Kuruma-Iku Lab is a research and development initiative that focuses on the relationships between people and cars and invites children and creators to join the investigation into sustainable roles for cars in our future society.

Connecting Cities: Deep City

Deep City is a data visualization experiment investigating the collective information that defines a city’s present and future.

Connecting Cities: Urban Entropy

Urban Entropy is a public display of complaining and repair, a drama of maintenance and things that do not work.

Post-City Kits from the University of Tsukuba (JP)

During the 2015 Futurelab Academy programme with the Empowerment Informatics PhD programme at Japan’s University of Tsukuba, a leading research university with a visionary focus in human-centred cybernetics, two student teams have produced experimental projects

Connecting Cities: blindage.

blindage. is the french word for a wall, a shield or an envelope, which protects what’s inside. The project focuses on the use of digital masks by contemporary human beings.

Connecting Cities: Flame

Flame wants to give the fire back to the people, to help them forge the tools of the new century, and to burn to the ground the institutions that restrain them, if necessary.

SOYA C(O)U(L)TURE

The Indonesian female art collective XXLab works on a program to create fashion while dealing with environmental problems.

Connecting Cities

The projects by Connecting Cities Network aim to establish urban media façades as open platforms for citizens to engage in participatory city-making processes.

Deep Space 8K: The Soul of the Cube

The Soul of the Cube (SOTC) is a virtual being, an abstract creature that is visible in between applications, it is both a “host” and the inner self of its complex infrastructure.

Deep Space 8K: Inside Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design

New mobility concepts, trailblazing interfaces, the language of forms and the future of brand identity will be the subjects of talks by Vera Schmidt (DE) and Holger Hutzenlaub (DE).

Deep Space 8K: The Universe Within – In the Virtual Anatomy Theater of the Future

An application developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab transforms Deep Space 8K into a virtual anatomy theater in which viewers can observe the human body in 3-D.

Deep Space 8K: Cultural Heritage: The Scottish Ten, Rome´s Invisible City in 3D: A BBC Film, CyArk

Deep Space 8K now lets visitors behold virtual reconstructions of historical sites in 3-D and walk through them in the truest sense of the word.

Deep Space 8K: GameSpace

GameSpace turns the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K into an interactive multiplayer gaming arena.

Deep Space 8K: Timelapse

Combining highly detailed, fast-forward motion pictures with the extraordinarily high degree of resolution in Deep Space 8K opens our eyes to everyday events that we’ve never seen in this form before.

Deep Space 8K: IN2WHITE – MONT BLANC LARGEST PANORAMIC IMAGE and Wide Angles – Vast Land

In2White is a personal homage by photographer Filippo Blengini (IT) to the glacier-and-snow-covered realm of the white mountain: Mont Blanc.

Jangdna

Hyungjoong Kim created Jangdna (Korean: rhythm), an interface that not only analyses and visualizes an audible piece of music, but also makes it modifiable in a very simple way.

the sixth wave of mass extinction

the sixth wave of mass extinction aims at the amygdala of our post-modern societies both sonically and visually to unearth the potentially hidden unease, we all might harbor faced by the sixth wave of mass extinction.

POST CITY Cinema

You won’t find popcorn or a big silver screen in POST CITY Kino. What it does have is high-tech. The Zeiss VR One is the first and, at present, only virtual reality headset to combine a stylish contemporary design with world-class precision optics by Zeiss (DE).

Encounters

The recipient of the Residency staged under the auspices of the Art & Science Network has been announced. Maria Ignacia Edwards was selected from among the 140+ applicants from 40 countries who responded to the open call.

Connecting Cities: False Positive

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 11:42:02 +0000

It is not just the trust we place in network infrastructure but also our willingness to trade bits of personal data for access to online services that render us vulnerable. Caught between ruse and exploit, we find ourselves subject to ever more sophisticated forms of profiling, both online and off. Yet if algorithmically generated data bodies are our future, they are also prone to error.

A conspiracy

False Positive by Mark Shepard (US), Julian Oliver (NZ) and Moritz Stefaner (DE)deploys text messaging, stealth infrastructure, street intervention, and data visualization to enact a surveillance conspiracy engaging the public in an intimate, techno-political conversation with the mobile technologies on which they depend.

Connecting Cities is initiated by Public Art Lab in cooperation with Ars Electronica Futurelab Linz, Medialab-Prado Madrid, FACT Liverpool, Videospread Marseille, iMAL Brussels, Riga 2014, BIS Istanbul, m-cult Helsinki, Media Architecture Institute Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, in association with Aarhus University, Marseille-Provence 2013, MUTEK Montreal, Quartier des Spectacles Montreal, Foundation Bauhaus Dessau, Verve Cultural Sao Paulo, Federation Square Melbourne, xm:lab Saarbrücken, Sapporo Media Arts Lab, ETOPIA Zaragoza, The Concourse Sydney and 403 International Arts Center Wuhan.
With support of the Culture Programme 2007-2013 of the European Union.

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities: ESEL-Complain

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 11:29:58 +0000

There is a close connection between urban mobility and the quality of public spaces in cities. ESEL-Complain by Christoph Fraundorfer (AT) and Florian Born (DE) shows opportunities and the potential provided by the use of bicycles in public spaces. It connects two projects that try to make riding your bike in a city as pleasant as possible. Auto-Complain detects potholes by mounting your smartphone on the handlebar of your bike. These potholes are entered into an online database and marked with a spray can. myESEL develops bikes that can be adjusted to meet individual needs in the manufacturing process. This flexibility is the perfect opportunity to integrate the auto-complain system into a bike.

The Connecting Cities Research Residencies have been realized at the Ars Electronica Futurelab with the support of the Ars Electronica Residency Network.

Ars Electronica Blog

“What we have in common is that we regard cycling as a philosophy. Our mission with this project is to get people to realize how great cycling is.” Read more on the Ars Electronica Blog!

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities: Deep City

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 11:18:17 +0000

Deep City is a data visualization experiment investigating the collective information that defines a city’s present and future. Findings from Linz, Vienna, Berlin, and New York are represented as visualized data layers and displayed on the four sides of the Ars Electronica Center building. 8 data sets that explore the tension between individuals, spaces, and resources were chosen and grouped into pairs: Growth / Diversity, Green Spaces / Bike Paths, Water Usage / Waste, and Density / Noise Exposure. By comparing the data sets, assumptions about individual behaviors and social customs can be explored and challenged.

Returning information

Ursula Feuersinger (AT) designed and constructed an interactive terminal to return the data to its source, the urban population, for reconsideration and evaluation. Observers of the project become participants, extracting hidden artifacts from the deep and bringing them to the surface. A crank allows participants to browse through color-coded topologic layers. When users pause on a given color, animated content is revealed, both on the Ars Electronica Center façade and on the terminal’s screen. The second interaction element is a 3D printed cube, a hand-sized, miniature model of the AEC building. By rotating the cube on the interface terminal, users can switch from one city to another and view the respective city’s content.

Deep City Video
Camera: Benjamin Skalet (DE), Claudia Schnugg (AT), Veronika Pauser (AT), Sigrid Nagele (AT)
Editing: Christian Haas (AT), Ursula Feuersinger (AT)

Design, Animation: Ursula Feuersinger (AT)
Sound: Richard Eigner, Roman Gerold (Ritornell/AT)
Technical Support: Leonard Pokropek (AT)

The Connecting Cities Research Residencies have been realized at the Ars Electronica Futurelab with the support of the Ars Electronica Residency Network.

Ars Electronica Blog

“Beneath the city, there are various layers that you can’t immediately see at first glance. These strata contain information that provides detailed and comprehensive descriptions of our coexistence and its framework circumstances.” Read more on the Ars Electronica Blog!

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities: Urban Entropy

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 11:01:32 +0000

Is complaining an act of civic participation? Urban Entropy by Dietmar Offenhuber (AT) is a public display of complaining and repair, a drama of maintenance and things that do not work. The façade of the Ars Electronica Center visualizes the work queue of the city of Linz public works department and reads the litany of citizen complaints to pedestrians passing by the building, which is conveniently located across the street from the City Hall.

Inside a filter bubble

By bringing complaints from the city’s website into the physical space of the city, Urban Entropy makes a point about an important difference between these two spaces. While civic participation increasingly takes place online, we stay inside a filter bubble and only find what we are looking for. IRL (“In Real Life”), the public space of the city, we cannot foresee or choose whom we might run into, for better or worse, just like the involuntary listeners to the chorus of Urban Entropy’s complaints.

Urban Entropy video
Camera: Benjamin Skalet (DE), Claudia Schnugg (AT), Veronika Pauser (AT)
Editing: Michael Mayr (AT), Veronika Pauser (AT)

The Connecting Cities Research Residencies have been realized at the Ars Electronica Futurelab with the support of the Ars Electronica Residency Network.

Ars Electronica Blog

““Urban Entropy” is an effort to visually portray common, everyday urban “griping”—i.e. complaints submitted by individual citizens to the powers that be.” Read more on the Ars Electronica Blog!

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities: blindage.

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:20:06 +0000

blindage. is the french word for a wall, a shield or an envelope, which protects what’s inside. The project by nita. (AT) focuses on the use of digital masks by contemporary human beings. It is divided into three chapters: fleurêve, synanthrope, and abîme. Each one translates metaphors into visual art by using dance, taxidermy and handmade organic masks – a mélange of analogue and digital techniques: overhead projection, microscoped organic footage, and digital intervention focusing on ways to camouflage reality. As façades are also masks, the project invites the audience to peek beyond the Ars Electronica Center façade.

Idea, masks, visuals: Anita Brunnauer (nita.) (AT)
Camera, edit: Benjamin Skalet (simp) (DE)
Audio: simp (DE) & STSK (DE)
Technical support: Leonard Prokropek (AT)
Postproduction, motion graphics: Ludwig Tomaschko (AT), Benjamin Skalet (DE), Anita Brunnauer (AT)
Vocals, protagonist chapter nº1 “fleurêve”: Sophia Hagen (soia) (AT)
Dancer chapter nº2 “synanthrope”: Paz Katrina Jimenez (cat) (AT)
Protagonist chapter nº3 “abîme.”: Emily M. Dominguez Castillo (soulcat e-phife) (AT)

The Connecting Cities Research Residencies have been realized at the Ars Electronica Futurelab with the support of the Ars Electronica Residency Network.

Ars Electronica Blog

“I have the feeling that we don masks on a daily basis—for example, on social media sites. That which we expose to the outside world rarely reflects the way we really feel. I also think that the Ars Electronica Center’s LED façade can be a sort of mask in that this stylish outer shell effectively veils how the people inside feel.” Read more on the Ars Electronica Blog!

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities: Flame

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:04:23 +0000

Fire has been strongly associated with human society since early civilization. For the first hunters and gatherers, and even more for settled societies, fire defined the central gathering point and meeting place. As civilizations became more complex and villages evolved more and more into cities, fire started to become the power that forged the tools and weapons of this complexity, and hence initiated the progress of technology. Its symbolic representation rose to its highest form with the industrial revolution, where steam engines converted this power directly into usable energy, which eventually became the main driving force of the cities.

Forgotten fire

At the same time, however, this power was taken from the hands of the public and placed under the control of a few. When fire and its accompanying customs and traditions started to disappear from the cities, the people lost their say in the rules that governed them and their cities. Both fire and the mechanisms of the city became invisible, disappearing from sight and becoming incomprehensible to its citizens. Flame by Tamer Aslan (TR) und Onur Sönmez (TR) wants to give the fire back to the people, to help them forge the tools of the new century, and to burn to the ground the institutions that restrain them, if necessary.

Metal work, fire sculpture: Bernhard Ranner (AT)
Fire hardware: TBFpyrotec (AT)

Supporting Music

10:15-10:45 PM
Songs about Fire by Tracy Redhead (AU) and Michael Mayr (AT), two musicians from opposite parts off the world team up to reinterpret and resurrect songs from the past and present. With their minimalist setup of acoustic guitars and vocals, they don’t want to set the world on fire but start a little flame in the hearts.
10:45-10:55 PM
Die Kreativbeamten (Creative Clerks / AT): Brutal Germanization of tragic English love songs from the former lost century full of war and anger. Singing and Banjo – Guaranteed without emotion!
10:55-11:00 PM
Tragic romantic danube tune interpreted on the accordion by Stefan Mittlböck-Jungwirth-Fohringer (AT).

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

Connecting Cities

raphaelgi — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 09:35:49 +0000

Connecting Cities-Projekte bei Ars Electronica 2015

The Connecting Cities Network (CCN) is a worldwide initiative of cities and institutions in the field of media art and new media. Within the framework of a 4-year artistic research program, the CCN partners link their research and diverse artistic activities since 2012 to investigate the creative potential of urban screens and media façades.

Connecting Cities Conference

European urban identities, social changes and citizen participation occupy the focal point of the first symposium at the 2015 Festival.

Connecting Cities: False Positive

Connecting Cities: ESEL-Complain

ESEL-Complain shows opportunities and the potential provided by the use of bicycles in public spaces.

Connecting Cities: Deep City

Deep City is a data visualization experiment investigating the collective information that defines a city’s present and future.

Connecting Cities: Urban Entropy

Urban Entropy is a public display of complaining and repair, a drama of maintenance and things that do not work.

Connecting Cities: blindage.

blindage. is the french word for a wall, a shield or an envelope, which protects what’s inside. The project focuses on the use of digital masks by contemporary human beings.

Connecting Cities: Flame

Flame wants to give the fire back to the people, to help them forge the tools of the new century, and to burn to the ground the institutions that restrain them, if necessary.

POST CITY Cinema

Media façades as platforms

In practice, the projects aim to establish urban media façades as open platforms for citizens to engage in participatory city-making processes, to exchange data and experiences, and to create cultural hubs that reach out to others beyond the border of a single city.

In/Visible City

In 2015 within the framework of the In/Visible City topic three partner institutions, Ars Electronica in Linz (AT), FACT in Liverpool (UK) and PAL in Berlin (DE), could host research residencies. In the course of these residencies Ars Electronica Futurelab worked with the residents on generating artistic perspectives on hidden information and interaction. The main topic In/Visible City in 2015 led to exploring the visualization of invisible data streams and open data generated through sensor and data networks on urban media environments. As a result, invisibly generated data becomes visible through artistic scenarios and creates an awareness of the digitalization of our society.

Connecting Cities Events

Above research and artistic production the CCN also aims for exchange and circulation of artistic and socially relevant contents. This mainly happens in form of the Connecting Cities Events where a broad public audience can interact with the commissioned artworks and can experience the artistic research results.

Around the globe

Currently the following cities are part of the constantly growing network: Aarhus (DK), Berlin (DE), Bogotá (CO), Brussels (BE), Dessau (DE), Dortmund (DE), Frankfurt (DE), Guangzhou (CN), Helsinki (FI), Hong Kong (HK), Istanbul (TR), Jena (DE), Linz (AT), Liverpool (UK), London (UK), Madrid (ES), Marseille (FR), Melbourne (AU), Montreal (CA), (DE), Sao Paulo (BR), Sapporo (JP), Sydney (AU), Utrecht (NL), Vienna (AT), Wuhan (CN), York (UK), Zagreb (HR), Zaragoza (ES).

The Connecting Cities Network is supported by the European Union Culture Programme 2007 – 2013. It was initiated by Public Art Lab Berlin (DE) in cooperation with Ars Electronica Futurelab Linz (AT), Medialab-Prado Madrid (ES), FACT Liverpool (UK), Videospread Marseille (FR), iMAL Brussels (BE), Riga 2014 (LV), BIS (Body Process Arts Association) Istanbul (TR), m-cult Helsinki (FI), Media Architecture Institute Vienna (AT) Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (HR), University of Aarhus (DK), MUTEK & Quartier des Spectacle/Montreal (CA).
Text credit: Veronika Pauser, Claudia Schnugg, Susa Pop

POST CITY Cinema

Magdalena Sick-Leitner — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 12:55:00 +0000

You won’t find popcorn or a big silver screen in POST CITY Kino. What it does have is high-tech. The Zeiss VR One is the first and, at present, only virtual reality headset to combine a stylish contemporary design with world-class precision optics by Zeiss (DE). The VR One is compatible with all commercially available smartphones. An app enables users on the go to experience VR games and videos at an unprecedented level of quality.

Critics of the System as Movie Stars

Perfect film viewing technology is one thing; films worth seeing is another matter entirely. The two films Ars Electronica will be projecting onto the VR One, Citizenfour by Laura Poitras and TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard by Simon Klose, feature NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the proud copyright brigands of Sweden’s Pirate Bay, and thus protagonists who have scored hits on the world’s political and media systems at their most sensitive spots.

Ars Electronica Futurelab Credits: Veronika Pauser (AT), Claudia Schnugg (AT)

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net