ars electronica 2007: rain rain go away2 min read

this morning my first thought was: has the rain stopped? for the moment it has. and then: are my things dry? for the moment they are.

rain pretty much dominated the scene yesterday and it could very well dominate the whole festival. gosh, let’s hope not. this would be the perfect time to call for a small woodstock revival on the main square; let’s all get naked and chant “rain, rain go away, please come back some other day …”

the second city is upconservation of intimacy
no mobile phones allowedchinese tongue cleaner

but seriously, many of the main events of this years festival rely heavily on the weather being relatively nice. well, so far the weather has been awful, wet, cold.

last night the opening party “more than memories” was held at botanischer garten. i briefly went, but only encountered a few fearless people, or the one’s with perfect rain gear, stumbeling through the park, trying to avoid the torrents. tonite “music, bed and breakfast”, an all night open air event, is scheduled to take place on the top floor of a parking building with music from SPEKTR and ray lee. tomorrow saturday planes equipped with high resolution cameras will fly across the sky for “all of linz – a group photo from above”. impressive fact, the resolution will be such that one pixel correspond with 6 x 6 cm on the ground. but if the weather is crap … gosh, let’s hope not.

the goodbye privacy symposium started yesterday and i literaly have no idea what to say about it. yet. probably the information is still smoldering or fermenting within me. manu luksch, austrian artist living in london, spoke about her film project “faceless”, a film made from CCTV materials, that she was able to obtain after years of research and negotiations, and since has transformed into a 50 minute movie based on her “manifesto for CCTV filmmakers”. i can’t wait to see it; sadly the film is not shown at the festival.

to end this pathetic entry on a somewhat more positive note, i am now proud owner of a chinese tongue cleaner, thanx to regine who just got back from china.

links:

ralf bendrath blog – speaker at the goodbye privacy syposium
trackmenot – helen nissenbaum, another speaker developped this firefox addon that helps to conceal search trails
ambienttv – manu luksch website

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