International partners of the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival:
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0, Japan Media Arts Festival, Project Beehive
(Linz, August 16, 2013) Hundreds of artists and scientists are visiting Linz once again this year to attend the Ars Electronica Festival. Among them are notable contingents from Taiwan, Japan and Australia. “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” is an exhibition dealing with the inner turmoil of this lovely island off the mighty mainland’s southeast coast. The Japan Media Arts Festival offers a selection of excellent Japanese media art and features thought-provoking encounters with the subject of remembrance. Queensland (Australia) University of Technology undergraduates, for their part, are taking the festival theme as an appropriate occasion to experiment with a new form of documentation, one that focuses less on the actual lineup of events and instead shows how festivalgoers experienced Ars Electronica 2013.
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0
Taiwan is simultaneously center and periphery; embodies progress and tradition; represents East and West, what is Chinese both internally and externally. The tension between its well-defined national identity and the still unsettled legal status with respect to mainland China is omnipresent and manifests itself in people’s everyday lives. “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” addresses these contradictions and dualities, and—in an allusion to Heiner Müller’s 1997 play “Die Hamletmaschine”—conjures up a Taiwanmachine of its own. Like Müller’s work, “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” revolves around the technological progress that is revolutionizing the world by fracturing traditional narrative structures and advancing media to the status of central economic factor. Born between the era of color TV and that of smartphones, and born in a country responsible for a considerable share of the world’s production of high-tech devices, Taiwan’s young media artists are fully aware of the potential as well as the risk of globalization and cybernetics. Their works reflect the challenges that are now facing Taiwan and the entire world.
A reception and guided tour of “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” for media outlet representatives will be held on Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 5 PM. Accompanied by Ambassador Lien-Gene Chen, curator I-Wei Li will conduct the ladies and gentlemen of the press through the exhibition. This gathering is hosted by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Japan Media Arts Festival – A New Platform for Memory
Since 1997, the Japan Media Arts Festival has been honoring outstanding artistic achievement in a broad spectrum of genres ranging from animation and comics to media art and computer games. The festival also functions as a showcase to provide greater visibility for the prizewinning artists and their work. A best-of show curated from among a total of 3,503 entries from 71 countries will be exhibited in early September at this year’s Ars Electronica in Linz.
Project Beehive
In the spirit of this year’s festival theme, Ars Electronica is trying out a new and different form of festival documentation. Instead of filming the goings-on at the festival as neutrally, as objectively as possible, and then storing the categorized material in our in-house archive, we’re going to be focusing of a subjective festival experience this time. To do it, a crew of students from Queensland University of Technology is being equipped with wide-angle Actioncams and sent out into the hustle and bustle. What they cover and how they do it is completely up to them. What they most definitely shouldn’t film is the stuff that producers, curators and artists consider interesting and worthy of digital immortality. Instead, they should go out and capture what appeals to them. Once the swarm has scoured the festival grounds for sweet images, it’s time to buzz back to the Beehive, the Mobile Ö1 Atelier on Hauptplatz. Here, they can turn in their SD cards, upload their files, and finally view their material on a jumbo wall tiled with screens. This kaleidoscope juxtaposes diverse perspectives and points of view without the slightest effort to privilege any one of them, and thus delivers insights into the festival that radically differ from those that could be gleaned from an archive. Project Beehive doesn’t aim to document what went on at Ars Electronica 2013 but rather how it was experienced.
Total Recall – The Evolution of Memory
This year’s Ars Electronica Festival is set for September 5-9 in Linz. The 2013 theme is TOTAL RECALL – The Evolution of Memory. The festival program includes, as always, a diversified lineup of symposia, exhibitions, performances, interventions and concerts. Details will be posted over the coming weeks to https://ars.electronica.art/totalrecall/en/. Plus, thought-provoking background info and interviews with participating artists and scientists will be made available on the festival blog at https://ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/.
press release “International partners of the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival: Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0, Japan Media Arts Festival, Project Beehive” / PDF
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/9522524014/
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0 / The Unconscious Voyage / Wan-Jen CHEN / Printversion / Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/9290130291/
rrrrrrrroll / rrrrrrrroll / Printversion / Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/9495086652/
Project Beehive / Bhavanesh Chamdal / Ars Electronica / Printversion / Album
