A person’s outer appearance, which can be deliberately modified, is juxtaposed to their fragile, immutable inner beauty. A human being’s exterior is characterized by age, cultural influences, social background, facial expressions and many other factors, and people can change how they look, “beautify” themselves, to a certain extent. The interior, what’s hidden, what’s actually invisible, the finely layered structures—what a person cannot change and what their distinctiveness and individuality ultimately consists of—the human being who, despite the technologies, cannot be measured, copied, multiplied—is enduring.
How do I see myself? Who or what influences what I look at? The retina, with its millions of neurons, separates the significant from the unimportant and thereby exerts a powerful influence on human data processing. Our body thinks proactively. What does it mean to be a body? This is one of the core issues being raised now by the ongoing development of artificial intelligence. There would be no new technologies if there were not also, somewhere, a human being—there it is, plain and simple, reduced to the essence.
QUT Guerrilla Knowledge Unit
Artificial intelligence is inspired by human experience. But how might we create smart machines that are inspired by diverse human perspectives?
This lab encourages you to explore this by “coding” your body (and others) to perform a series of interactive, collaborative, and highly playful instructions, using lo-fi and low-tech materials. Get ready to transform into smart machines.
Credits
QUT Guerrilla Knowledge Unit (GKU)
Jacina Leong, Linda Knight, Jess Martin, Dee Armstrong, Xue Ning Lee
::vtol:: (RU)
The large-scale project Until I Die is a hybrid installation that uses the artist’s blood, extracted and accumulated over a long period of time. The blood is used to generate electricity for a small sound synthesizer.
It is one of the most significant and complex works created by ::vtol:: in recent years, touching on many topics relating to hybrid art: alternative sources of energy, unification of the human body and machine, using the body as a resource. In general, this project is an attempt to create a technical-biological clone of the artist, using his own life energy to compose electronic music.
An Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy @ QUT Project
Jessica Cheers (AU), Leah Gustafson (AU), Samantha Glennie (AU)
Teaching City is an experiential learning framework highlighting urban issues through playful interactions. It offers an antidote to the industrial-age pedagogy of the classroom, subverting the preconceptions of citizens through “knowledge interventions” embedded in urban spaces—the city is the teacher.
The Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy was created to support students and educators from international partner institutions in transdisciplinary practice. Since 2012, the platform has enabled collaborations between Ars Electronica and universities across the world.
Creative Catalyst Drop-In Sessions
THU 7. 9.
1 PM–1:15 PM
4 PM– 4:15 PM
FRI 8. 9.
1 PM–1:15 PM
4 PM–4:15 PM
SAT 9. 9.
3 PM–3:15 PM
SUN 10. 9.
1 PM–1:15 PM
Credits
Supported by:
Associate Producer: Quinty Pinxit-Gregg (AU)
Technical Support: Matthew Strachan (AU),
with special thanks to Jacina Leong and Linda Knight
This project was supported by The Creative Lab, and QUT Creative Industries.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
An Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy @ QUT Project
Felix Palmerson (AU), Georgia Pierce (AU), Sophie Barendse (AU), Jayden Grogan (AU), Oscar Connor (AU), Isabella Hood (AU), Matilda Skelhorn (AU), Phillipa Chapman (AU), Jessica Martin (AU), Peter Lloyd (AU), Yanto Browning (AU), Cameron Whelan (AU), Greg Jenkins (AU), Dr. Stephanie Hutchison (AU)
SynapSense is a performative installation heightening our bodily awareness. Sensorial understanding through enactment is revealed via three modes: explore, calibrate and create. Interaction creates the soundscape—touch enables investigation and sound reflects exploration.
The Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy was created to support students and educators from international partner institutions in transdisciplinary practice. Since 2012, the platform has enabled collaborations between Ars Electronica and universities across the world.
Performance Times
THU 7. 9.
7:20 PM–7:40 PM
9:05 PM–9:25 PM
FRI 8. 9.– SUN 10. 9.
6:40 PM–7:00 PM
MON 11. 9.
1 PM–1:20 PM
3 PM–3:20 PM
7 PM–7:20 PM
Credits
Supported by: Artistic Direction: Dr. Stephanie Hutchison (AU); Producer: Quinty Pinxit-Gregg (AU); Technical support: Matthew Strachan (AU); Lighting Design: Glen Hughes (AU)
This project was supported by The Creative Lab, and QUT Creative Industries.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Werner Jauk (AT)
The installation makes the im-mediate/d interaction in social situations felt by media—by sound-gestures mediating the hedonic value of bodily interactions and in this way creating common emotional environments.
People who come into contact interact primarily by bodily behavior, following natural and cultural implicit knowledge. This interaction is a multimodal process controlled by tension as media leading to a homeostatic state of pleasure—there is a border to a person’s space where intimacy starts; crossing the borders of hedonic bodies is generating common environments.
As music is to media-arts, the installation is an experimental setting bridging art and science. In order to acquire knowledge it enables recipients to experience the creative power of mediatization, of Feeling the Ex-Tension of the auditory body—just as bio-acoustics acquire the knowledge-intensifying sonic and sonifying behavioral interaction of animals to achieve communis. The sound of mating behavior is the most sensual to every body leading to the rebirth of bodies in common environments, of pleasure evolving physical, social and virtual lives.
Marlene Reischl (AT)
All of Us explores the aesthetics of scars to highlight their visual aspects and exhibit something that is usually not on display. Apart from the visible wound, scars are also constant reminders of injuries and events.
Macro videos of scars varying in sizes and severity are taken from their hidden spots and projected in large format. Tracked by a camera system, visitors can use their hands to influence the footage shown: by placing your hand anywhere on your body, footage from that area is shown. This relationship between the feel of a physical touch and what is seen on the screen creates an intimate experience for the viewer.
All of Us is an ongoing project, anyone interested can contact allofus@marlenereischl.com to make their scars part of the installation.
Credits
Christiane Miethge (DE), Nils Otte (DE)
Will we all, at some point, have virtual friends, enjoy sex with robots more than making love to a real person, and hack our own body? Homo Digitalis is a Web series about the ultimate future question: What is the digital revolution doing with us human beings?
The protagonist Helen Fares begins her search at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, gets acquainted with virtual friends, learns to steer a drone with her brain and to hack her own DNA. Encounters with experts in the US, Japan and Britain provide additional international context to the posed question: What insights does Helen derive from her journey through futuristic technologies? Are we Homo Digitalis evolving into a new species: Homo Digitalis?
Homo Digitalis is simultaneously a scientific experiment. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute, BR, ARTE and ORF developed a playful test: How long do you still have as a human being? Find out with our Homo Digitalis Chatbot or at www.homodigitalis.tv!
Credits
Directors: Christiane Miethge, Nils Otte
Host: Helen Fares
Camera: Kyrill Ahlvers, Tenzin Sherpa
Sound: Gidon Lasch, Nils Otte
Editors: Tim Sprado, Daniel Bluhm
Animation and graphics: Anna Hunger, Sven Schulz
Illustrations: Benny Nero
Programming: Bernd Paulus, Phuoc Le, Lena Fischer
Producer, Web series: Andreas Martin
Producer, online test: Miriam Mogge
Production director: Laura Sages
Creative director: Christiane Miethge
Scientific director: Kathrin Pollmann
Team Ars Electronica Futurelab: Christopher Lindinger, Martina Mara, Maria Pfeifer, Roland Aigner, Clemens Francis Scharfen, Peter Holzkorn, Michael Platz, Nicole Grüneis, Peter Freudling, Erika Jungreithmayr, Manuel Selg
Producers: Dietmar Lyssy, Marcus Uhl
Editor, BR: Thomas Sessner
Editors, ARTE: Katja Ferwagner, Katja Dünnebacke, Aurélie Marx
Editor, ORF: Robert Glashüttner, Siegfried Steinlechner
Produced by Bilderfest GmbH and BR—Bavarian Broadcasting; co-produced by ARTE and the ORF—Austria Broadcasting Company.
Thanks to Fraunhofer Institute, IAO and the Ars Electronica Futurelab