josh on was on. he actually was. at two previous festivals i went to josh was announced as a speaker, but he did not actually show. yesterday he did and was supposed to speak about networks and power based on his theyrule.net project.
dude, i have a question:
how do you deal with a situation like this one? you admire somebodys work, but he or she cant really talk about it? do you start to doubt their work?
what josh had to offer was a pretty strange mixture between gang-ho lets-all-be-activists polemic, marxist doctrine and a graphic artist show and tell – i did this, did that etc. a swedish man i talked to afterwards pointed out to me, that it is a relatively new art school thing that artists nowadays not only have to create great work, but also have to be very eloquent when talking about it. good point there. often the work does speak for itself. and josh on has done a great number of incredible pieces… but uhm.
the mystery about all the japanese swarming linz sporting ars electronica badges has been solved. they are not joi ito fans and/or groupies as was previously suspected (yup, joi ito will speak this afernoon *psyche* he was announced as the japanese “star-blogger” in the programm. lol), uhm where were we? oh right, not joi ito fans (waiting to throw their panties on stage, maybe?), but in fact media art students from ogaki, gifu. the iamas is this years guest school with a media art focus – with students showing their projects. its especially interesting to compare this body of work with last years work from the last guest college hgkz from zurich, switzerland. last years presentations were funky, with as much cable junk laying around as possible. the japanese present their work in a much more tidy fashion – and who is surprised somehow… and they explain their projects to you in the most adorable way. as opposed to arrogance and whatever last year. lovely.
yesterday evening local woman m. told me a few interesting things about this place. here’s linz in a nutshell for you:
if you did not know this, the location here is spectacular. imagine a huge area surrounded by mountains with the river donau flowing right through the middle of it. so when the romans came here they built lentos. jump to the 20th century. for hitler, a child from around here, linz had always been the big city in the area. so when he took power he made it one of his first projects to turn linz into a cultural capital. his plan was to create a cultural island on the banks of the donau. meanwhile hermann göring kicked off the industry in the area. to this day one of the big industrial complexes is called the hermann göring werke. now fast forward to the late 70’s of the last century. in the meantime linz has grown into a major industrial city with a mostly working class population. the alternative youth culture is etchy and dark. the influentual underground industrial scene starts what was originaly a video festival. ars electronica quickly turns into the most influential new media art festival. in the late 90’s and early 2000 the ars electronica center, a permanent museum associated with ars electronica, and lentos, the museum of modern art, get built.
on the banks of the donau.
linz is currently appyling to be cultural capital of europe in 2009.
she told me all this while we walking to the party that was held on one of the mountains surrounding linz. in a dark forest, candles along the way, up to a tower made of stone…
you can read all about the linz hitler connection here
today the symposium will start to tackle the humble question: what will the next 25 years bring in technology and new media?
an ambitious theme for an ambitious festival. lets see. bring it on, man
cool idea: under aec.at/predictions users can submit their predictions about the future. what will the next 25 years bring? these will then get displayed and voted on.
please check my moblog for images…
i very much like the predictions site!