As events on international financial markets have shown, the digital revolution is going through its first real crisis. What are the implications for art, and particularly media art that owes its development and the public attention it has garnered essentially to the same dynamics that have shaped the course of the New Economy? Can media art, understood as an overarching term encompassing artistic encounters with the technological reality of our world, maintain its innovative dynamism? Will it, in keeping with an avant-gardist definition, continue to contribute to overall social development, or will its power, its glamour and its attractiveness fade in a world in which media are increasingly ordinary features of everyday life.

Few recognize that quality does not prove itself in the transferal of the old into the new system, but rather in the invention and development of forms and methods that fit the new situation. And the contours of the new are already taking shape. The Digital Revolution has long since given rise to totally new forms and manifestations of art that have situated themselves for the most part beyond the realm of the art establishment and have largely gone unnoticed by or failed to gain acceptance from that establishment. This is a phenomenon characterized by an explosive eruption and breakout of creativity, by the innovative, inspired and often quite unexpected use of digital information technology.

New Sites and Scenes Beyond the Confines of the Art Establishment
These can be found in the world of science, in subcultures and pop culture, and in a newly emerging creative economy, as well as in what are rather exotic regions for media art such as Malaysia, China, Korea and Taiwan, countries that have undergone a massive technological build-up recently and now are investing with comparable enthusiasm in the creation of brain-ware and, in doing so, are paying attention not just to engineering but to design as well. This sets in motion a dynamism that also exerts an increasing influence on these countries' artistic potential.

The development of computer games is-in addition to other considerations-always a matter of creating fictions, fantasy worlds and experiences, and these are aims that are in very close proximity to art. The computer games industry already has the same economic dimensions as the entire film sector, a fact that is not without cultural consequences. And even if computer games are not necessarily artistic products, this industry, as a result of its commercial potential, offers a new field of gainful employment for a multiplicity of creative, artistic activities. What emerges thereby is in numerous respects a highly fruitful and creative biotope. In light of the fact that the vast majority of artists has never been able to live off actual artistic work, this constitutes a considerably superior alternative to a job as a waiter or substitute teacher.

New Reference Systems

Ars Electronica 2001 - Conferences

TAKEOVER Symposium
September 2, 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM and 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
September 3, 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM and 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Brucknerhaus

Creators of Life - How far can you go?
An essential challenge that art already faces today and one that will assume even greater proportions over the coming years is how to deal with developments in modern molecular biology and genetic engineering. The positions, experiences and outlooks of artists who are taking up this challenge will highlight the second day.

Who's got it right, what will remain, who will survive?
TAKEOVER is a confrontation with the "makers of the art of tomorrow." That includes not only the people who generate and create artistic processes and products, but also those who manage, administer and make money off them. Ars Electronica 2001 dedicates three conferences to this emerging area of tension and interplay.

Engineers of Experience - Who's got it right?
September 4, 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Brucknerhaus
The discussion will focus on new strategies to integrate interactive media into exhibitions and museums, as well as new concepts for their design, staging and architecture in light of the ongoing boom in edutainment and infotainment.

From Document to Event - What will remain?
September 5, 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Brucknerhaus
From Document to Event deals with questions having to do with "preserving" digital art.

The Undertakings of Art - Who will survive?
September 6, 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Brucknerhaus
In The Undertaking of Arts, representatives of a variety of institutions confront the question of how they have prepared for the future, for the globalization of the art market, for the new digital forms of distribution, and, above all, for the demands of artists.

Pixelspaces
September 3-5, 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Ars Electronica Center and FutureLab
Is a takeover underway in the virtual reality scene too? Under the headings CAVE versus Game Engines, Behind the Scenes and CAVE goes PC, Pixelspaces discusses and presents new ideas and potential application to save conventional VR systems from the fate of the dinosaurs. How does the future of VR look as far as its use in exhibitions and museums is concerned? How and in what form are the game industry's VR systems becoming available for application development?

Prix Ars Electronica Forum
September 4-6, 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM
ORF Regional Studio Upper Austria
The Prix Ars Electronica Forum offers a unique chance to get a glimpse behind the scenes of digital art today. This artists' round-table provides direct access to and highly concentrated information about this year's prizewinners, their ideas and projects, and how they go about their work.

Art & Events - Art as a Test-Drive of the Future

Projects
September 1-6, 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM
Brucknerhaus
TAKEOVER presents projects and modes of working by artists who are facing considerable risk in opening up new territories in which their scope of action has not yet been defined, and in which the existential framework conditions (art subsidies or the art market) have not yet been established-whether in scientific, artistic and/or commercial contexts.
Fish & Chips has "semi-living artists" as its aim: a research project that is simultaneously a work of art and science, and that brings together designers, biologists, artists, and computer specialists into what is not your everyday team-the SybioticA Research Group (AUS/Israel).
TGarden™, a prototypical example of ways in which artists work today and the problems they now face, acts as a transducer between a multiplicity of social worlds: institutionally-based knowledge creation, techno-scientific research, art and performance.
The Green project by Reinhard Nestelbacher/A takes an everyday scientific phenomenon and exports it beyond the confines of the lab: green-glowing mice, fish, bacteria, and a new species of artificial organisms.

T.O.C. Takeover Campus
September 1-6, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Kunstuniversität Linz
The T.O.C. Campus, an attractive new venue for Ars Electronica 2001 set up in cooperation with the Linz University of Art, is the site of a dynamic scene grouped in ad hoc fashion and representing highly diverse approaches to TAKEOVER. Groups like Stadtwerkstadt with meat.space Linz, the listener festival takeover systems, connect systems by Radio FRO and radioqualia, and the Female Takeover discussion series by KunstRaum Goethestrasse promise unexpected and, above all, target-group-oriented, open modes of dealing with the festival theme. Under the label lab-ac.at, students of visual media design at the University of Applied Art in Vienna transfer parts of the university's research lab to Linz: a hybrid mix of programming workshop, Web agency, sound studio, hang-out/lounge, laboratory for 3-D animation & media critique, game development center and party space. Participants will be working on process-oriented projects as well as generating and discussing new ideas about the future needs of education specifically tailored to media art.
T.O.C. Takeover Campus will also present Masaki Fujihata's Field Work, a project that gives rise to a hyperreal information sphere. Video images of real environments are combined with exact GPS data to produce a linkage of topography and the subjective perceptive of space. Pixels + Space, a project at the interface of architecture, industrial design and media design will be launched as a collaborative effort of Ars Electronica FutureLab and Linz University of Art.

Concerts, Events & Performances
A full program of concerts, events and performances makes for TAKEOVER nights full of variety. Among the highlights is Golan Levin's Dialtones: A Telesymphony, the first concert to by played out exclusively via the ringing of the audience's cell phones (September 2, Brucknerhaus, 9:00 PM). Ryoji Ikeda's concert performance, with its expressive power of minimalistically penetrating tonal strata and precise visual elements, produces a sensitive, intensely stimulating ambience. (September 4, Brucknerhaus, 9:00 PM). Ridin' A Train is an annual festival feature those in the know always look forward to. This year, the train serves as a shuttle and the VA Steel plant grounds as a performance space in which, among other artists, Senor Coconut Y Su Conjunto, in an eccentric fusion of Kraftwerk and Latin American music, will offer a dance course as free-form variation on the theme "El Baile Aleman." (September 5, VA Steel Works, 9:00 PM). This year, Finnish electronic musician Vladislav Delay transforms the Donaupark into the impressive acoustic environment of Klangpark 2001. The musical finale promises to be another highlight: the world premier of the laptop supergroup fLeetwood Macintosh, featuring all-live sets by tigerbeat6's bLectum from bLechdom, Lesser and kid606 (September 6, Posthof, 9:00 PM).

Ars Electronica Center - Museum of the Future

In the five years of its existence, the AEC has proved to be a successful realization of the idea of introducing artistic works as catalysts in processes of social development and transformation. This interplay and overlapping of artistic and technological work also characterizes the new exhibits.
One substantive feature is Get in Touch, which showcases a representative sample of works by Prof. Hiroshi Ishii's Tangible Media Group (MIT Media Lab) for the first time in Europe. In a lecture presentation in conjunction with the opening of the Ars Electronica Center exhibition, Hiroshi Ishii will elaborate on the scientific and artistic aspects of these works. (September 1, 2:30 PM).

Get in Touch
September 1-6, 10.00 - 19.00
Ars Electronica Center
Get in Touch is an exhibition at the interface of man and machine. Communication with and by means of digital technology as a design task. The centerpiece is Tangible Bits by Hiroshi Ishii. Here, information is endowed with physical forms, and it becomes possible to directly manipulate and perceive bits of it. The aim is to blur the boundaries between the physical and the digital, and to create a seamless interface between human beings, bits and atoms.

FutureOffice Project
September 1-6, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Ars Electronica Center
A multi-phase research project at the Ars Electronica Center's FutureLab is developing prototype components for telematic everyday life in the office of the future. The primary objective here is to integrate existing functional technologies into ergonomic and stylishly designed scenarios. Custom-made objects and furniture make possible the evaluation of conventional concepts and visions, and offer exhibition visitors a demonstration of current possibilities.

electrolobby 2001
Interface for Digital Art, Cyberculture and Internet-inspired Lifestyle

Game Jam/F/FI/UK/D/A/DK/USA
Feat: Team Chman, Sulake Labs, Kerb, Moccu, Lippe, Kaliber 10000,
and others; a coproduction of: Vectorlounge and TNC Network

Everything2/USA
Feat: Nathan Oostendorp & the Everything noders

Habbo Hotel/FI/UK
Feat: Sampo Karjalainen, Aapo Kyrölä & the Habbos

From Bedroom Programmers to Media Gods/USA
Feat: Simon Carless

E-Sport: Gaming Goes Pro/D/KR
Feat: Kambiz Hashemian, Ana Vranes, Dominik Kofert.
In collaboration with Progaming.de

Keitai Zone/J
Feat: Andrea Hoffmann

micromusic.net/CH
Feat: Gino Esposto aka carl, Mike Burkhardt aka superB,
Paco Manzanares aka wanga

Kerb/UK
Feat: Jim McNiven, Pete Barr-Watson and others

Open Law Project/USA
Feat: Wendy Seltzer

Team cHmAn/F
Feat: seb, jr, dja9, stef, dany, cocotte, gael, yan, dany, got

Asia Replay/F
Moccu/D
Feat: Jens Schmidt, Björn Zaske

Kaliber 10000/DK/USA/UK
Feat: Toke Nygaard, Michael Schmidt and Per Jørgensen

404Zone/A
Feat: Simon Scheiber

Lens Flare 98-01/UK


Prix Ars Electronica 2001

Prix Ars Electronica Gala 2001

September 3, 2001, 9:00 PM
ORF Regional Studio Upper Austria
During the course of this gala evening, the secret will finally be revealed: Which of the nominees will receive the Golden Nica in each of the competition's categories?

Nominations

Computer Animation/Visual Effects
Ralph Eggleston; Pixar Animation Studios/USA
Laetitia Gabrielli, Pierre Marteel, Mathieu Renoux, Max Tourret; Supinfocom/F
Xavier de l'Hermuziere, Philippe Grammaticopoulos; Supinfocom/F
Digital Musics
Markus Popp; oval/D
Ryoji Ikeda; David Metcalfe Associates/GB
Blectum from Blechdom; Haus de Snaus and Tigerbeat 6/USA
Interactive Art
association.creation/A
Carsten Nicolai, Marco Peljhan; Canon Artlab/D/SLO/J
Haruki Nishijima; IAMAS/J
Net Vision
Sebastien Kochman; team cHmAn/F
Yuki Naja; Sonic Team/USA
Neeraj Jhanji; ImaHima Inc./J
Net Excellence
Chris McGrail; Kleber/GB
Joshua Davis; maruto/USA
Brian McGrath; The Skyscraper Museum/USA
cybergeneration - u19 freestyle computing
Martin Leonhartsberger/A
Johannes Schiehsl, Conrad Tambour, Peter Strobl/A
Markus Triska/A

Cyberarts 2001
September 1-6, 10:00 AM to Midnight
O.K Center for Contemporary Art
The presentation of prize-winning works from all categories of Prix Ars Electronica 2001 provides a condensed view of the current state of the digital arts. A separate exhibition space is devoted to cybergeneration - u19 freestyle computing.

Ars Electronica 2001
Organizers: Ars Electronica Center Linz and ORF Upper Austria Regional Studio
Co-organizers: Brucknerhaus Linz, O.K Center for Contemporary Art,
Universität für künstlerische und industrielle Gestaltung Linz

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