openFrameworks Lab performance – geek karaoke taken to new extremes

from the official post-conference press release: ARS Electronica – a new cultural wrap-up [pdf]

35.900 Visitors
484 Artists & Speakers from 25 countries
516 accredited Journalists from countries

a collection of best-of photos: Ars Electronica Archive

three great projects i didn’t mention yet, nor checked out as much as they would have deserved …

Bank of Common Knowledge

Bank of Common Knowledge is a group of activists from barcelona, who try to match people according to their interests, people wanting to learn and people who can teach, to organize small workshops. on a wall with color coded post-its, green is “i can teach”, pink is “i want to learn”, they collect skills and interests as well as email adresses. when enough people cluster around a certain topic, workshops are announced. i think five or six such workshops did happen with topics ranging from “how to make sushi in 5 minutes” to “programming in C++”.

Fallen Fruit – Who owns the fruit?

the guys from fallen fruit collect fruit in urban areas; that pretty much sums it up. but of course this action raises questions about property, public versus private space etc. they offered a guided tour through linz, to show people where they can find fruit and to share with them their knowledge. the next day, they made jam with the fruit they had collected. i didn’t attend, but some people who did told me it was really quite great. nice and goofy.

Ethics Disco

Kalle Laar calls himself an aural archeologist, he plays records with a strong political or cultural message to create a “temporary sound museum”. during these audio collages he can play anything from “mein kampf” to malcolm x.

DJ Spooky Sound Unbound

peter miller aka dj spooky that subliminal kid was in linz to pimp his fantastic latest book sound unbound, a collection of essaies from people ranging from cory doctorow to bruce sterling, but also chuck d, scanner, brian eno and more, all reflecting on the evolution of sampling and dj culture and the future of music. the books subtitle reads: “sampling digital music and culture”. and i am now the proud owner of a signed copy

to sum up my visit to linz here’s a wildy confused and confusing list:

- i discovered some artists i really liked (yeh duh, erm, hopefully. but i somehow doubted i would before the trip)

- i didn’t log into my world of warcraft account once and only watched tv twice, very briefly (and i still stared at screens almost the whole time)

- i ate 6 times within 5 days in the still quite fantastic vegetarian restaurant p’aa (and sunday the restaurant was closed)

- i also ate 3 pieces of linzer torte and 3 organic ice creams on a stick (sweet)

- i didn’ get laid, drunk nor otherwise fucked up, in fact i never even went out to party. my latest bed time was 22:50 (not that i planned to get laid, drunk or wasted, but it is sad what a boring sod i have become)

- i had actual conversations that consisted of more than 3 or 4 sentences with maybe 5 or 6 people (see what i did there, 7?)

- i met some really cool australian media artists (but am afraid they didn’t like me much in return and who could blame them, really)

- i beat the tris record on my ipod, a first time during one particularly boring symposium session (16245) – name of lecturer withheld – and then i beat it again on my train ride home (17499)

- i blogged, twittered, flickred and facebooked daily (what a good little chappy 2.0 i am)

- i wrote two articles for wmmna (one and two is not out yet, and might never see the light of day)

- i slept well twice in 6 nights (snorers, mosquitos and loud room neighbors kept me awake the other nights)

- i met the two loudest snorers i ever met (both in the same sleeping coach compartment with me on the way down)

- i bought a copy of dj spooky’s book sound unbound and got it signed (and yeah, i was shy like a real groupie)

- i am officially over my joi ito infatuation (he is still a very cool guy, but the aureole is off. i am sorry, joi, i know you never asked to get idolised. what was that saying? kill yer idols. better late than never)

- i ripped my favorite pants (/cry)

- i decided that next year will be my last visit to ars electronica (that’ll be 10 visits)

it was the day of the prix ars electronica presentations, the artist talks. artist talks are always risky, right? you might like some artwork, but then the artist presents it in such a way, that you feel dissappointed afterwards. the opposite can also be the case, of course, you were not exited before, but then the artist presents it in such a way, that you start to like or sometimes understand his piece. most often though your previous impressions are totally confirmed.

Pollstream by HEHE won the golden nica in the hybrid art category (i describe it more here [not online yet]). Heiko Hansen started the presentation, by saying they had alread talked so much about this project during these last few days, that he felt like showing some other work. erm, sure dude, but i kinda wanted to hear about Pollstream. no problem, at some point his partner Helen Evans cut in and started to talk about it. Heiko dissappeared from the stage at that point. assuming they are a couple, might we further assume, that they had a fight about this after? or before? or always? might conflict be the driving force behind their creative collaboration? he he, am i getting ahead of myself? but seriously, that’s the kind of thoughts that goes through my mind during these talks.

Julius von Bismarck won the golden nica for interactive art and while we can discuss, if this is in fact interactive art, i really began to like his work after hearing him talk. it starts with his look; with the long beard and straight hair, he could be a ZZ Top guitarist. or rasputin. he proved to have a really subversive understanding of his work and was completely transparent about the workings of his tool. Image Fulgurator transformed what looks like a camera into a projector. when other cameras close by use flash, it can react and project shapes of light onto objects. in that way he projected a cross onto obama’s desk when he spoke in berlin, or a peace pigeon onto an image of the chairman mao in china. when asked, if he wasn’t afraid, that he unleashed a beast with his invention, that soon this will get exploited by companies to project their brand everywhere, he said he was now a little bit less depressed about that possibility. when asked if he has family relations with otto von bismarck – what a shitty question – he nevertheless answered it and admitted, yes he did. now that’s great, the heir of the reichskanzler doing subversive mediaart. gotta love it.

Yann Masurrich, would have made me win a bet. His project Bleu remix won an award of distinction in Hybrid Art. i described it a little bit yesterday. somehow he makes blue liquids seep out through his skin and of course everyone, and their dog, wants to know how the hell does he do that. my bet was, he wouldn’t say. and i was right, he was totally secretive and evasive in his talk. and the best part is, no one even asked. i just wish i found someone to bet money on this. but everyone agreed. well i only asked 2 people, so it’s not that dramatic. chill out, jan. that’s me, jan. hi, nice to meet you. erm.

oh and dj spooky presented the winners in the digital music category. yay, dj spooky!!!!1

anyway. yesterday my website went down. sooo unfair. why now? no idea, when i can post this. oh it’s back. meh.

what’s on today?

no idea yet. the festival is petering out.

my flickr set: ars electronica 2008

A New Cultural Economy Symposium Day 2

The second day of the symposium was far more interesting, even if everybody still was on the same page regading the topic. i would have liked to hear at least a few speakers defend a somewhat opposing view, i am sure the ensuing discussions would have been much more passionate. a priest, a.k.m. adam, suggested that religious texts should be transcribed into xml, to be used in new media applications. james boyle pointed out, to my big surprise, that science is one of the most complicated areas to access materials online, because apparently many papers are protected in internal databases, only to be reached if you are part of the same faculty. they are now working on a project called science commons.

in the afternoon georgia popplewell spoke about the amazing global voices project, “the world is talking. are you listening?”. elisabeth stark presented freeculture.org and their inspiring anti-drm activism and jonathan mcintosh showed political remix videos, a field where artists just go ahead and use copyrighted material, not waiting around for the legal situation to get cleared up. good point there, as we might have to wait awhile before everything gets released under the perfect creative commons license. in the meantime people need to just keep doing what they are doing, mix, mash, remix and remash. it’s the results, the new culture and art forms, that will eventually convince everyone.

Vernichtungsaktion

Knock-offs of brand-name merchandise were getting shredded all day on the main square by a machine incidentally called “Terminator”. a lot of discussion ensued as perfectly wearable items of adidas and nike clothing went up the conveyor belt to get destroyed by the machine. i didn’t see this, but apparently in the morning there was a flea market on the main square and vendors used the surrounding fence to attach some of their second hand clothing items, with price tags on them, while behind the fence brandnew knockoffs, most of them still in their plastic wrappers, were fed to “Terminator”.

the action left some questions open, like, is ars taking a stand against knock-offs with this? i think that point was left ambiguous on purpose in order to get everyone talking. this process, the destroying of knock-offs, is taking place anyway, only behind closed doors, and here it was shown out in the open. apparently the organizers first had the idea to let people cut off the brand logos and replace them with something else. but confiscated merchandise needs to be made unwearable by law.

Bleu remix

a long line of people wanted to see the yann marussich preformance Bleu Remix at lentos museum. there was atmospheric music and minimal lights as we entered the room, the artist sat prefectly still in some sort of class container, wearing only a piece of white underwear, sometimes his eyes blinked, sometimes opening for brief moments, but other than that nothing. blue liquids started to seep through his skin, coming out of his pores. apparently he developped this process with the help of scientists. i am quite curious what he will say about it, on how it works, during his artist talk on sunday. oh, and he is swiss ^^.

no paul granjon ;(((

i really really wanted to go see paul granjon’s performance lo tech songs with servo drive at OK Center. i had loved his robots at biennale in venice a few years ago. especially sexed robots, which he was gonna show as well. but i made the mistake to quickly pop home to drop off my bag and the last thing i remember, i turned on the tv to watch some footie … i think austria beat france!!! oh well, can’t see them all, or can you? i will have to search the glorious interweb, maybe someone youtubed or at the very least flickered this performance…

what’s on today?

10:00 – 18:30 Prix Forum – the artist talks
13:00 – 15:00 LEF@ARS Leonardo Education Forum gives an update (not sure about this)
classical music in the evening

my flickr set: ars electronica 2008

A New Cultural Economy Symposium

what can i say about the symposium? not much. yet again. this being the first day of the two day symposium covering the theme of the festival, small hope remains that the second day will be better. but ever since these symposia are guest curated the quality of debate has gone down dramatically. the natural tendency for guest curators seems to be to invite their friends, like-minded thinkers, instead of getting people, who would add controversy into the mix. even joi ito made this mistake. we heard CCC hackers, scholars, authors, coders, but they were all on the same page. as were most of the people attending. which meant that the speakers were preaching to the choir. and that’s just boring. then of course this years theme is not exactly a new debate and so far not much new thought has been added. needless to say i have mostly been playing with my ipod touch between naps. noooo… but i really wish the ars electronica would go back to curating the symposium themselves, because there used to be great debates and processes going on during these symposia.

CyberArts

during lunch break i went to the CyberArts show and saw a few awesome pieces. i am really looking foward to the artist talks on sunday. i especially liked Salat by Johannes Gees, which i described a little more here. i am a sucker for art with such a right-on activist approach. levelHead by Julian Oliver was another great piece. a game, of sorts, the aim of which is to navigate an avatar through a maze of doors and stairs, the interface being small cubes made from paper and glue, that you twist and turn to move the animated figure about. and then of course i liked the work of HEHE, the winners of the golden nica in hybrid art. i might write more about them come sunday, after their artist’s talk.

Episuero – zusammenfliessen

it was a challenge for me to go see this project at holmes place, the city’s top notch health center/spa; as a well-on-his-way-to-being-pear-shaped man it was a little hard to walk among the bodyperfect normal visitors there. episuero by sebastian neitsch and stefan schwalbe is one of interface cultures student works on show this year. the swimming pool is the interface, the swimmers influence the projections on the ceiling. i like the idea, very much so, however i found the generated images a little bit dissapointing, it was also not very clear, how the swimmer can influence the image.

episuero at ars electronica

Tosca – no hassle

at night there was an electronic music concert at alter dome, one of the many churches in linz. tosca are richard dorfmeister and rubert huber, they performed a world premiere of their new album no hassle to be released in 2009. the music was fine, their usual blend of relaxed jazzy beats and spacy sounds, goosebumps music for the discerning potsmoker. (lol, bbedit didn’t offer me an auto-completion for that word. potsmoker. now it did! it learns!) which i am neither, potsmoker (weee again) nor discerning. but the music really worked well in the church – as we all know accoustics are excellent in these things. however the video projections ranged from the fantastic to the very mediocre. i especially liked the splitscreen comic style animation that had a great luminosity, but other times it was almost cheap with video effects galore reminding me of that late 90s tv show space nights. my ass had fallen asleep within minutes, church benches really are not designed for comfort, or are they? so i left after about 40 minutes, feeling sorry towards all the people who wanted to get in, and i had snagged a ticket only to leave half-way through.

what’s on today?

10:30 – 18:00 day 2 of the symposium, brucknerhaus
10:00 – 18:00 vernichtungsaktion, hauptplatz, tons of knock-offs of brand-name merchandise get destroyed
19:00 – 20:00 bleu remix by yann marussich @ lentos
austria – france on the box
23:00 – 23:40 paul granjon robot performance @ OK Night, sadly probably past my bed time.

my flickr set: ars electronica 2008

not much to say about the first day. as usual it was a day of first impressions, a brief dip into what’s around this year. i went to a few openings – ecology of the techno mind at lentos, the featured artist group from slovenia, seems very intense, kinda dark, kinda cool; hybrid ego, the japanese students at campus impress with their haptic and playful approach -, not to the opening of CyberArts at Ok Center though. i missed that for the conference on interactiviy. to be honest, i am not too exited about much of the work shown this year at CyberArts, and with that i pretty much diss the prix ars winners, so sorry everyone. i will catch it later, but at least on paper none of the projects really have managed to grab my fancy, with the exception of bleu remix and moving mario, that i look forward to see. but i am open to surprises.

the conference on interactivity, titel : Interaction, Interactivity, Interactive Art – a buzzword of new media under scrutiny, sounded interesting, however it also kinda went past me. i must have been a little bit too tired (after just one hour sleep the previous nght) for the sometimes heady debates (or too engrossed in the interactive capabilities of my ipod touch interface ^^). this is what my notes looked like at the end: “ludwig boltzmann institute conference interacticvity”. not much, i agree.

i did however notice something, that i can’t really decide yet, how to feel about. i noticed that when i listen to british people give talks, i tend to get very impressed, even though often when i think about what they said a little bit further, it might turn out to be quite obvious, banal even. but they tend to deliver their arguments with such weighed words, that it gives the impression of being very thoughtful and deep. spinning this further, americans i tend to dismiss much too quickly, because they give their talks with such gung-ho over-enthusiasm, like yapping puppies, yet often what they do say is actually right on. now with germans, it’s the worst for me. they often say very profound things, but it may do it in such a snide way and in such elitist language, that i might miss it, because i either get stuck in my defenses against their arrogance or in my feelings of inadequacy because of their language. not good. i wish there was a bullshit-filter for such cliches that lets me hear just the essence of what people are saying, not influenced by how they deliever them.

ok, enough words. let the images do the talking:

my flickr set: ars electronica 2008