Space and sound will transport you to distant spheres, so enjoy the trip as the 2017 Ars Electronica Opening in POSTCITY Linz takes its inimitable course. First of all, amid the breathtaking setting of St. Mary’s Cathedral, festivalgoers’ initial encounter is with L’Enfant, a four-part performance from Taiwan that uses sophisticated technology to deal with the subject of becoming an adult and dispatches a drone-mounted camera to capture the audience reactions to these developments. That followed, the festival opening’s performances and concerts begin at 7:30 PM in POSTCITY.
No less impressive is cellF, Guy Ben-Ary’s neuronal synthesizer that enables musicians to perform with neurons. From New Zealand we have Singularity, skillfully blending data, dance, music and architecture into a spectacular show for this year’s Ars Electronica Opening. On the main stage an interactive sound performance entitled Breaking the Wall, under the direction of Oliver Hödl and Peter Purgathofer, invites attendees to get actively involved with state-of-the-art technology and some cutting-edge artists. L’Etude, a project by Vibert Thio and Duanger Du, compiles a live set from melodies specially created via app by former victims of the “Formosa Fun Coast – Explosion.” Then, while still reeling from these unconventional sounds, the audience will be transported into unprecedented terpsichorean realms by _nybble_ from Paris and Kyoka from the Raster-Noton label. Finally, patten, a Warp Records live act will conclude the night.
7:30 PM / Mariendom
First performance of the Taiwanese dance performance L’Enfant (Derjk Wu)
7:30 PM / POSTCITY
The sound artists Ei Wada (JP), Megumi Takei (JP), Rinichi Washimi (JP) and Keisuke Tanaka (JP) present the Sempookin Quartette (Electric Fan Quartette), an electronic musical instrument of the Electronicos Fantasticos! project.
8 PM / POSTCITY (Upper Level)
Entropy
8 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
cellF
8:30 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
Breaking the Wall
9 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
Étude
9:35 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
_nybble_
10:20 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
Kyoka (JP)
11:20 PM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
SINØ (PT)
12:05 AM / POSTCITY (Train Hall)
patten, Wrap Records (UK)
There is always a child living inside our mind. Jean-Jacques Rousseau might have called the child Émile or Sophie. This child has eternally coexisted with us and always gazed back at our heart. How do we define growing up? Or have we never grown older?
cellF is Guy Ben-Ary’s self-portrait but also the world’s first neural synthesizer. cellF’s “brain” is made of a living neural network that grows in a Petri dish and controls analog synthesizers that work in synergy with the neural network in real time.
The Tokyo-based artist and musician Ei Wada started the “Electronicos Fantasticos!“ project, where he revives old domestic electronic devices and turns them into electronic musical instruments, in 2015. Among the various instruments the project has created is the “Sempookin“ (literally, “electric fan harp”).
Through this project the artists aim to bring back a colorful future to young victims of the Formosa Fun Coast explosion through music, art and technology.
Breaking The Wall invites the audience to participate in the interplay of artifacts, artists, audience and technology. The interactive performance focuses on the technological and dramaturgical connection of audience, sound, light and room and triggers questions of digital surveillance and technological authority.
SINGULARITY blends data, dance, music and architecture in an immersive performance that transports audiences into spaces of awe and delight. Large 3D holographic constructions appear interactively in space. The set-up combines a live-render program with motion-tracking cameras and triangulated projectors illuminating haze particles.
I.M. FREE is a program based on the free improvisation, using the non-harmonic music materials for its sound base. Noise produced by various sonic operations through the speakers mixes freely with saxophone sounds, transformed—rough and unleashed!
ENTROPY is an international, transdisciplinary research project on entropic processes. In the course of a two-year discourse process, artists and scientists have followed the traces of the famous “H-Theorem” of thermodynamic theory in collaborative settings.
_nybble_ is an audiovisual, formal and spatial performance in which the media fluctuate between minimal and organic digital aesthetics. Two poles on the same continuum.
