The 2013 Ars Electronica Festival
CyberArts Exhibition
OK Center for Contemporary Art / September 5-15
(Linz, August 19, 2013) The CyberArts exhibition showcasing prizewinning works of art, the Ars Electronica Animation Festival screening the year’s best animation, the experts’ conference entitled “Expanded Digital Animation: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape” debuting this year, the Prix Forums featuring the prizewinners and the gala soirée at which they receive their Golden Nica statuettes—the Prix and its ancillary events have always constituted a centerpiece of the Ars Electronica Festival.
CyberArts 2013
This year’s CyberArts exhibition at the OK Center for Contemporary Art presents 15 prizewinning initiatives and projects from four Prix Ars Electronica categories—Digital Communities, Hybrid Art, Interactive Art and Digital Musics & Sound Art. The show was curated by Genoveva Rückert and is running until September 15, 2013.
Categories and Projects
Digital Communities honors innovative forms of social coexistence—projects and initiatives that bring communities together, generate social capital, and nurture social innovation as well as cultural and ecological sustainability. Digital Communities is also committed to reconfiguring the relationships of power between citizens and political parties, elected officials, government agencies and corporate interests. This year’s CyberArts spotlights three initiatives from the Digital Communities category: El Campo de Cebada (ES), Refugees United (DK) and Visualizing Palestine (PS).
Hybrid Art is dedicated to hybrid and transdisciplinary projects, approaches and methods in contemporary media art. The accent is on interconnecting different media and genres into new forms of artistic expression. CyberArts 2013 features five works from the Hybrid Art category: The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project by Koen Vanmechelen (BE), Five Variations of Phonic Circumstances and a Pause by Tania Candiani (MX), Mycotecture by Phil Ross (US), The Blind Robot by Louis-Philippe Demers (CA/SG) and Pancreas by Thomas Feuerstein (AT).
Interactive Art includes installations, performances and network projects. The jury looks at the artistic quality of the work’s interaction, and looks for excellent dialog between the content on one hand and the interaction principles and interfaces on the other. Of particular interest is the sociopolitical relevance of the interaction. Six works from the Interactive Art category are included in this year’s CyberArts show: Pendulum Choir by Michel Décosterd (CH) and André Décosterd (CH), Rain Room by rAndom International (UK), AHORA. A song in the Hypertemporal Surface by Hernán Kerlleñevich (AR) and Mene Savasta Alsina (AR), Angles Mirror by Daniel Rozin (US), Down with Wrestlers with Systems and Mental Nonadapters! by Kawarga Dmitry & Elena (RU), Ishin-Den-Shin by Olivier Bau (FR), Yuri Suzuki (JP) and Ivan Poupyrev (RU).
Digital Musics & Sound Art honors outstanding contemporary digital sound productions that combine sound and media, computer compositions ranging from electro-acoustic to experimental, and sound installations. Regardless of the media employed or the particular genre to which the work can be ascribed, the focus of attention is always on the work’s musical qualities and tonal artistry. CyberArts 2013 is showcasing frequencies (a) by Nicolas Bernier (CA), SjQ++ by the Japanese artists’ collective of the same name, and Borderlands Granular by Chris Carlson (US).
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 “Ars Electronica Festival 2013: CyberArts Exhibition” / PDF
Interviews with Koen Vanmechelen (Cosmopolitan Chicken Project) and Martin Sturm (director of the OK Center for Contemporary Art) aswell as further information, photo-stories and interviews with artists and scientists taking part in the Ars Electronica Festival can be found on the AE Blog.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/8741491594/
FIVE VARIATIONS OF PHONIC CIRCUMSTANCES AND A PAUSE / Tania Caniani / Printversion / Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/8740374257/
The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project / Koen Vanmechelen / Printversion / Album
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/5576620390/
Golden Nicas / rubra / Printversion / Album
