[this review is up for grabs. the magazine i was hoping to publish this in has opted for another author. please feel free to use this review. it is as all my content CC-licensed]

one year after the celebrations marking the 25 years of its existence ars electronica had slightly less visitors, but still managed to pull 33′000 visitors to witness the 453 participating artists, lecturers and panelists from 26 countries. this year the biggest media art festival in europe took on the theme “hybrid - living in paradox”, and developed this topic in conferences, performances and curated art exhibits in almost 20 different locations all around linz, austria. the prix ars electronica handed out golden nicas and awards of distinction to 20 projects in 6 categories including the 2 special jury prices; one to theo jansen and his project strandbeest in the interactive art category, the other to the filesharing software bittorrent in digital communities. [Read more →]

Tags: ars - hybrid, web-launch by j. zup[ping]er
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after seeing toshio iwai and yu nishibori perform with these amazing instruments last night in linz i must fully have one!
end of discussion.
the only problem, it so far only exists in a beta version. so please, dear mr. yamaha, produce this and sell these in europe!
we need them.
i also fully volonteer to be a beta-tester. no really…

edit: tenori-on is a collaboration of toshio iwai with yamaha with the declared goal to create a digital music instrument that is equally stunning in shape, interface and sound. digital instruments do quite generally tend to be the opposite. they forget the design aspect as most come in fugly black boxes with knobs and switches. not so tenori-on. the stunningly beautiful instrument was presented here as a beta version. it is primarilly a visual midi sequencer, but it also consists of a 16 by 16 buttons led display that visualises the music. very intuitive and within minutes one can create amazing music.

Tags: ars - hybrid, gadgetMinded by j. zup[ping]er
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finally my highlight for this years ars electronica festival. and i only had to wait for the very last session and for a spontanous and actually quite unfortunate re-scheduling.
toshio iwai had a talk at the design for digital communities session, last minute replacing alexander szadeczky, who suffers from a sports injury he acquired yesterday. unlucky for alexander, lucky for us. very cool stuff. toshio iwai is one of regine’s heroes. and i agree with her. absolutly amazing work.

Tags: ars - hybrid, web-launch by j. zup[ping]er
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visitor-stats:
visitors: 33 000 [klangwolke 90'000]
= almost the same numbers as last year
participants: 453 from 26 countries
accredited journalists: 532 from 35 countries

web-stats:
hits/day: 523 000
page views/day: 125 000

next years festival: august 30. - september 5. 2006
theme: how to reconcile ourselves with the h-word? [just kidding. its a secret!]

stocker: “theo jansen was the hero of this years festival”
de kerckhove on the symposium: big challenge that turned into big discovery. thinks that more emphasis on theory was appreciated and that a new discourse was started.

Tags: ars - hybrid by j. zup[ping]er
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i already moaned about the net vision prix winners. so that was about all i have to say about yesterday. the “mcluhan still dead? 25 years later” lecture by derrick de kerckhove was interesting, but i can’t say much else about it since i am neither a mcluhan expert nor was i awake the whole time. i wrote down exactly 2 things: “everybody lives in a global world but it’s more global for some than for others” and “move from analog to digital and now to wireless. the characteristics are …”. sorry. nothing else. oh wait one anecdote stuck with me, mcluhan was asked by a journalist why his stuff was so hard to understand, mcluhan answered, “don’t worry i don’t understand it either”. pheew. apparently he often just rambeled on, speaking from “the right hemisphere”, fully stream of conciousness, just letting the thoughts loose and watching where they went.

i loved the video that got shown - must get that for samples. mcluhan had this grand american 50’s/60’s voice, raspy and sharp as a razor. may or may not be a good thing to catch on stream. depending if you are into mcluhan and if very fast speaking canadians with thick french accents are your bag.

okay, here, i’ll spoil it for you, mcluhan is no longer dead. hah.

some of my favorite projects that i have not mentioned yet:

USED Clothing by martin maringer: RFID chips get sown into used clothing. some information about the owner the clothes gets stored in the chip. future owners of the clothes will be able to access that data. [read more at textually.org]

Bordergames by la fiambrera obrera, medialabmadrid: a video game where you slip into the skin of a young marroccan illegal immigrant and you have to find your way around madrid avoiding the police and finding work etc. socially concious gaming coming up!

ACTION HALF LIFE by AES+F: the radical photo works by this russian crew showing kids carrying huge guns is even more impressive when you see it big. somehow very hitleryouth.

TENORI-ON by toshio iwai, yu nishibori: fantastic visual sequencer/digital instrument that looks like great fun to play with. but i never got my turn… :-( toshio iwai also released a nintendo ds game called electroplankton that would almost be an argument to buy that konsole). [read more at we-make-money]

more later. statistics from the press conference.

Tags: ars - hybrid, web-launch by j. zup[ping]er
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