king talk

The last (and interactive) project I want to point out in my little series about Ars Electronica 2010 is called “plant” by Akira Nakayasu.
The artwork itself seems very simple. It just looks like a small bed of tiny plants. But the power of it really lies under the surface. The plants are actually robotic and every single one of them is controlled by small motors which enables them to perform very subtile movements. If one moves his hand over them, they react to it with a movement that seems like they are moved by wind. The thing I liked most in that artwork is the allready mentioned subtile movement and the simplicity in the work itself (not talking about the technical part here.. only about the thing people see).

During the days at Ars Electronica 2010 I saw so many highly sophisticated and technophile works that in some way just seemed like the artwork was mostly made just for the technics and not the other way round. This one really uses some very sophisticated engeneering and still shows none of it. It just speaks with the beauty of the moving plants. (A point on which I could go on for ours when it comes to interactive installations nowadays.)

Another artwork I would like to share with you from Ars Electronica is also about sound. The Cycloid-E from Michel Décosterd. This one is a huge kinetic sound scultpure which I found highly aesthetic and totally hypnotizing. It consists of connected tubes which perform a rotary movement that seems like a dance to the sounds that are created. The simple and mechanic design together with the sound and the expressive motion creates a really unique artwork.
For further information and a video be sure to visit the project website.

The first project I would like to mention from Ars Electronica 2010 is “The Braun Tube Jazz Band” by Ei Wada. The artist uses his body as an antenna for electromagnetic waves conducted by old televisions. As different images on the screen create different electromagnetic fields, it can therefore be used to influence sound. Having experienced it in person at the festival, I can only say: amazing. But I will let moving pictures speak for me (unfortunately there isn’t any real good footage online at the moment)

I spent a great inspiring long weekend at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. Together with my project partner Jochen Winker we had the great opportunity to be part of it as artists by contributing with our bachelor project.

But of course there was much more to see during the festival (some exhibitions are actually still open until 09/11 in case someone want’s to go there spontaneously). The thing I like most about that exceptional festival for media arts, is the mixture of exhibitons, conferences and events. You can both see impressive artworks and learn amazing things from specialists of all areas of arts and science.

This year the topic was “Repair – ready to pull the lifetime” (or in German: “Repair – sind wir noch zu retten”) so it was all about brining our word forward and helping it to solve the major crisis we had or we are heading to. A big diversity of different speakers and topics provided the audience with knowledge from areas of design (e.g. a talk from munich based train-design-pioneer Alexander Neumeister about mobility) to science (e.G. an outstanding and exciting talk about neuroscience from LMU Prof. Ernst Pöppel) and many many more. Fortunately all of the talks were recorded and should be online at Ars Electronica’s vimeo channel soon.

Of course the festival also stands for one of the most important awards in media arts – the golden Nica. This year’s winner in interactive art was a group around open-frameworks inventor Zach Liebermann who developed an inexpensive eye-tracking solution for a paralyzed graffiti artist – The Eye Writer – which is not only one single product but also an initiative to help that artist and many others to express themselves again. A great work wich totally deserves the price and also fitted very well into this year’s topic “Repair”. For more informations about the awards, winners and categories just head to the Prix Ars Electronica website.

One point I want to mention for people who have been at the Ars Electronica Festival before:
This year the festival organizers had the opportunity to hold the event in an old tobaco factory which provided an interesting venue for the artworks.
I guess the things that profited the most from the industrial surrounding where the Cyber Arts projects which really looked much better there then in some modern art gallery like the OK-Kunsthaus were the exhibition normally takes place.
Unfortunately the talks, lectures and conferences where the ones who really suffered from the venue. Obviously there was no real space that could be used for talks so the main area for the symposiums was located in a room which hat massive pillars that prevented the audience to have a clear sight to the speakers .They tried to fix that with a notable amount of hd-screens and projectors but it was still not perfect compared to the conference hall at the Bruckner House where the talks normally takes place.
Nevertheless the biggest advantage was to have nearly everything in one place and not spread throughout the city how it was done in the last year. Actually you only had to leave the factory for some special events or for the Ars-Electronica-Center. A point which made it much easier to switch from talks to exhibtions or to see everything in a much shorter amount of time.

For me the most impressing exhibtion was the Cyber Arts 2010 which showed most of the prix winners, destinction awards and honorary mentions.
There are three projects I really want to point out in the next days and which impressed me the most. Interestingly only one of them is interactive. Perhaps I am just to much inside that field now so that i am not that easily impressed anymore – which is really a pitty. But still: stay tuned for these 3 great pieces of art.

While you are reading this culmination of words, we are heading to Linz, checking out the ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL. We will provide you with more information, after this short break…