Jedna z kilku rzeczy, które zrobiły na mnie ostatnio naprawdę duże wrażenie. Okolice 1967. Za dwa lata ludzie wylądują na Księżycu. Amerykański inżynier Bob Moog, po dziesięciu latach pracy, kończy syntezator, wyprodukowany specjalnie dla austriackiego imigranta Maxa Brand’a – kompozytora. Miałem okazję słyszeć kilka brzmień tego urządzenia, na tegorocznej edycji Ars Electronica. Jakieś trzydzieści sekund. Pomimo upływu ponad czterdziestu lat, wciąż brzmi jak zabytek.

detal

filmik jest gratis

on wednesday, oct 21st 2009, i will give a presentation about how ars electronica re/co-shaped the city of linz.

at the nightingale, chicago, 8pm, admission is free

http://upgradechicago.org/

the nightingale:
1084 N. Milwaukee
Chicago, IL 60642
map

abstract:

ARS ELECTRONICA: re:shaping a city’s cultural identity

30 years ago the first Ars Electronica festival took place in Linz, Austria. Ars has grown to be one of the most influential Media Art festivals and centers in the world. But while much has been written about it, and still more will be talked about its history when Ars celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2009, there has not yet been a comprehensive study about Ars Electronica’s influence on the local community and its impact on the cultural development of Linz. This paper investigates the socio-cultural, artistic and geographic traces Ars Electronica has left on the city of Linz. This Media Art historical account also details a very personal history, as the author, being four years old at the time of the first festival and amazed by its fireworks display, remembers the festival’s beginnings from her personal experience and – having worked for Ars Electronica’s Futurelab for many years – from a professional perspective as well.

The main question of this talk is how the then marginal field of art, science and technology, placed in an even more marginal, working-class and steel-producing city contributed greatly to the creation/development of a new cultural identity of the city, the art scene and the community as a whole. My investigation into the histories of this cultural institution focuses on the regional impact, regional being interpreted as geographically located/rooted as well as interpersonally built.

Having gotten my areas of interest narrowed down a bit more after brainstorming I’ve been looking around for inspiration and seeing what others have done with similar interests etc.

I came across the ‘International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica 2007‘ cd/dvd in the library and found an artist called Nobuo Takahashi and his work, Renkan, in the ’Computer Animation/ Film/ VFX category’.

Here’s the video:

As I watched I was writing down the words that came into my head:
organic, flowing, creature like, patterns, movement, silky, pulsing, growing.

The whole time I was watching I felt I wanted to touch the structures and objects, it’s this idea of tactility that I think will be a prominent feature of my project.

A link to the work of Australian artists David Haines and Joyce Hinterding. Their installation Earth Star, which focuses on the intense quality of the sun in ozone depleted Southern Australia, just won the Prix Ars Electronica Hybrid Art Award of Distinction for 2009. The installation involves hydrogen-alpha solar telescope footage of the sun, radio transmissions of solar flares and specifically synthesized scents that invoke the smell of ozone and bush fires

For more projects see: http://www.sunvalleyresearch.net/

So viele aufregende Veranstaltungen und keine Zeit, etwas darüber zu schreiben. Von der Ars Electronica in Linz vom 3. bis 8. September bis zu den Paraflows, die jetzt noch bis zum 20. September in Wien statt finden, rockt das digitale Haus Österreichs zur Zeit ganz gewaltig (gar keine Zeit hatte ich für die Aktion trans.it! im Rahmen von Urban Moves und das CastleCamp Zell am See-Kaprun – den Berichten zufolge war beides ein Erfolg).

Nicht mal über den Besuch von 4Chan-Gründer Moot bei den Paraflows (hier gibt es das Video auf ustream) kann ich jetzt etwas auf den Blog bringen – es war in jedem Fall anregend, eine längere Verarbeitung der ausgelösten Gedanken folgt. Mittelfernes Ziel: Vorstellung auf dem BarCamp Klagenfurt, das auch im letzten Jahr für mich ein guter Motivator war, um mich an die Forschungsarbeit zu machen, die ich im Oktober auf der Internet Critical 10, d.h. der zehnten Jahreskonferenz der Association of Internet Researchers, vorstellen werde – PDF-Download gibt es dann). Auf den Twittertrain dorthin freue ich mich jetzt schon:)

Gleich mache ich mich übrigens auf den Weg in die Lassallestraße zu einer Blogger-Vorstellung des neuen aon.TV-Pakets – damit soll man seiner ‘Großmutter’ (Platzhalter für Analogwesen) Fotos aufs Fernsehgerät schicken können – mich persönlich interessiert der Rahmen, in dem Blogger gezielt angesprochen werden sollen, ja fast mehr als die Inhalte, da ich weder Verwandte in Österreich noch Fernsehempfang besitze. The times they are achanging – Journalisten dürfen dann morgen die Pressemeldeung lesen (hieß es;-).

On Saturday 5th September I flew to Linz via Birmingham and Frankfurt with 5 West Midland Art professionals on the request of ACE to visit Ars Electronica. We have had a great time exploring the exhibitions and at the end of the second full day here I want to post a few of the initial web clips to start the blog off.

A glimpse of the second day. we visited the Human Nature Exhibition at the Brucknerhaus and saw some more amazing things. Again a glimpse – Shrink.

and then there was day 3 with a visit to the Royal Interface Culture Masquerade Ball – a title that made no sense of the works in the exhibition. None the less it was a strong show made up of students projects which included Andreas Zingeries’ Wearable Interfaces for Spy Pigeons which featured a birds eye view.

Litz is a lovely city to visit with cultural buildings overlooking the Danube. Ars Electronica was an interesting mix of technology for technology’s sake and what was artistically inspiring, technology invisible, a tool in the creative process.

It was most interesting discussing what people found the most engaging. I have never been a fan of art videos. I have to throw all my art school training about looking at an exhibition away because you can’t scan this type of exhibition and get a sense that allows you to focus fully on a few works. Everything is time based – you have to plug yourselves in – I’d much rather sit in a cinema! But the first comment I heard from the most digi art addicted man – his favorite work of the day? was a video of a 16 month ish baby attached to a bunch of helium balloons. If the baby jumped slightly he would take of and float high in the room. Video of a baby giggling enough to make grown men and old art hacks coo – yep I agree – - engaging. Balloons are certainly in – balloons and a camera obscura – a man blowing up and floating on a balloon multiplied by morrors-  and of course my famous Shrewsbury Quarry balloon shot http://www.flickr.com/photos/marttn/3686099067/.

Other favourites were the rocket man. All video pieces. Table and chair outside. A rocket is st up pointing upwards. Man sets rocket off. Man jumps under the table – rocket crashes down – near miss! Man lights fuse on rocket pointing horizontally – man runs away from rocket – rocket chases man – near miss!! You get it – engaging.

There were some lovely machines that made scraps of paper look like a flock od seagulls. A chair bouncing around a cat. A music machine that replicated a tune played on a laptop keyboard by running fingers around the rim of many glasses and spitting balls up into the air  to land on a glockenspiel like instrument. My favourite though was Shrink – shrink wrapped Austrians – just cool…

THE STRANGEST WRITING MONK I’VE EVER MET

robotlab . Matthias Gommel, Martina Haitz, Jan Zappe

bios [bible] . The Bible Scribe
2007

The installation ‘bios [bible]‘ consists of an industrial robot, which writes down the bible on rolls of paper. The machine draws the calligraphic lines with high precision. Like a monk in the scriptorium it creates step by step the text.

Starting with the old testament and the books of Moses ‘bios [bible]’ produces within seven month continuously the whole book. All 66 books of the bible are written on rolls and then retained and presented in the library of the installation.

‘bios [bible]’ is focussing on the questions of faith and technical progress. The installation correlates two cultural systems which are fundamental for societies today – religion and scientific rationalism. In this contexts scripture has all times an elementary function, as holy scripture or as formal writing of knowledge.

In computer technology ‘basic input output system’ (bios) designates the module which basicaly coordinates the interchange between hard- and software. Therefore it contains the indispensable code, the essential program writing, on which every further program can be established.

www.robotlab.de

Se realiza en Austria la 30º edición de Ars Electronica.

Ademas de Hiroshi Ishiguro que es la estrella invitada, llamaba la atención una modelo que hacia de cable humano.

Ella estaba pintada con una tinta conductora -como con tattoo de henna- capaz de llevar electricidad y encender una lampara con sólo sujetarla en los dos puntos clave.

Vía +

Hannes Walter and Stephen Williams from Fluid Forms are going to run a Creative Coding workshop during the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. It will start this Friday (4th of September) and last till Tuesday 8th. An excerpt from the description of the workshop is below:

“Personalised products resulting from the marriage of geometry, code and data are the focus of the workshop. Parametrically generated forms will be produced and tested using the FabLab production facilities.”

SMS get encoded into blinking signals, which then are “morsed out” through the media fassade. Each pixel represents one individual message. Scope like videocamera interfaces, in some distance, allow the user to “aim” at one specific pixel, and decode its content back into text which gets spelled out by the machine, using TTS software. The idea is to create your very own “bastardmix”. A sort of cut-up technique using the content of this liberalised media fassade.

*this video shows the first version of the project, using binary blinking signals.

The idea was to create a liberalised media fassade using user generated content. Furthermore I wanted to maximize the output of this quite limited media screen, as the whole surface of the fassade just offers 1085 “pixels”. One face of the main building has a resolution of about 12 x 18 pixel, so you could hardly display a single word on it. With my technique I’m able so stream out 1085 different textmessages at the same time. This could be 1085 SMS, or 1085 Books.

Instead of the common 8bit ASCII code this project uses a technique which only needs three signals to transmit a character. This is done by using a coloured signal with 6 different states instead of a binary signal. The first two colours send the letter code, whereas the third one, which is black, is used to synchronise the signal between the facade and the decoder.

Programming mainly done by Simon Repp. Thank you very much!

Work in progress…

Der Begriff Digitale Bildkunst – kurz Digitale Kunst wurde erst in 1990er Jahren gebräuchlich und fällt weitgehend unter ´computergenerierte Kunst` die vorwiegend auf zweidimensionale Medien (Web, Print, Projektion) ausgegeben wird. Die Digitale Kunst entsteht entweder als Nachempfindung und Weiterführung traditioneller Kunststile (z. B. digital-impressionistisch, neo-pop, digital-abstrakt) oder als völlig neue Kunst-Komposition mit dem Computer als weiterführendes Werkzeug (z.B. 3D-Kunst: Darstellungen virtueller Räume mittels 3D-Software; Mathematische Kunst: Fraktale und Vektordarstellungen etc.). Der Beginn der Digitalen Kunst ist in mehrfacher Hinsicht mit elektronischer Musik verbunden. Zu den Pionieren zählen Personen, die von der Informationsästhetik beeinflusst sind, vielfach auch aus der Informatik- und Grafikdesignszene verwurzelt sind. Das Festival ´Ars Electronica` in Linz geht auf alle Entwicklungen in der elektronischer Kunst ein und fördert Künstler mit dem ´Prix Ars Electronica`.

Und eine weitere nette Dokumentation über Copyright. Behandelt wird u.a. die Linzer Ars Electronica und deren Kernthematik. Dabei wird maßgeblich auf die Herkunft und Zukunft des Urheberrechts eingegangen, wobei natürlich auch Leute der Gegenseite, wie der backenbärtig beschränkte Herr Müller zu Wort kommen um ihre Inkompetenz unter Beweis zu stellen. Wie gehabt also. Ausserdem geht man auf sonst weniger beachtete Themen, wie genetische Ressourcen ein. Ferner gibt es als kleinen Cliffhanger einen Ausschnitt aus Yann Marussichs Kunstaktion bei der ihm seine Körperflüssigkeiten blau eingefärbt wurden, um sie dann wärend der Aktion nach und nach wieder loszuwerden. Sonst: Musik, Journalismus, Literatur, Plagiate, usw.

Anschauen. Reinhauen.

The new ArsElectronica center in Linz, Austria is covered in 1085 led windows. The programming for the led windows is done with openFrameworks, programmed by Zachary Lieberman, Joel Gethin Lewis and Damian Stewart. Zachary Lieberman is one of the developers of OF.

Die Idee hinter meinem Algorithmus ist die Visualisierung des Spiels Tetris auf der Fassade. Dazu wurden einige Einschränkungen vorgenommen: zum einen drehen sich die Steine nicht automatisch, sondern es liegen 8 verschiedene Steinformen vor, die zufällig ausgewählt werden. Die Farben der einzelnen Steine werden aus einem Farbthema mit jeweils 4 Farben ebenfalls zufällig ausgewählt, sowie auch die Positionierung der Steine auf der x-Achse.

Bei der Bespielung vor Ort ist aufgefallen, dass nur bestimmte Farben gut zu sehen waren, was vorher leider nicht oder nur schlecht abzuschätzen war. Ein weiteres Problem bei der Umsetzung waren die Bespielung der kleineren Teile (Main Building South Street Level, FutureLab North, FutureLab East, FutureLab South). Diese wurden in Processing dann so verschoben, dass sie auf den großen Hauptflächen liegen und so einige Steine doppelt zu sehen sind.
Mögliche Erweiterungen wäre die Drehung der Steine zu animieren und auch eine Bewegung auf der x-Achse.

Link zur Processing Datei
HD Video on vimeo

Beschreibung des Algorithmus

Meine Visualisierung besteht aus einem Partikelsystems mit Quads. Die Erzeugung der Partikel wird über ein LFO gesteuert. Die Positionen und Bewegungsrichtungen der Partikel ergeben sich aus verschiedenen Random Spreads mit Dämpfern.
Die Farben der Partikel verändern sich je nach Lebensdauer, dies lässt sich über den dritten Ausgang des Particle-Objects realisieren.
Über die zig Eingänge des Particle-Objektes lässt sich das genaue Verhalten der Partikel hinsichtlich Richtung, Richtungsabweichung, Beschleunigung, Beschleunigungsabweichung, Masse, Lebensdauer und vielem mehr verändern.
Die so entstandenen Partikel werden auf Quads abgebildet, um für die “Fensterauflösung” des AEC eine passende Größe zu erhalten.
Zum Starten des Patches benötigt man das AEC_FacadeFramework.

Link zum Vimeo-Video

Link zum vvvv-Patch

Lights on is an audio visual performance created for the Ars Electronica museum in Linz, Austria, which has a facade that contains 1085 LED controllable windows. The windows’ colors are changed in realtime with music that’s broadcasted on speakers surrounding the building.

Estamos acostumados a escutar todos os dias pessoas falarem alguma coisa sobre a crise econômica, a escassez de água, como os computadores vieram resolver problemas que antes não existiam, como a tecnologia nos deixa alienados, e muitas outras reclamações. Sim, vivemos em tempos problemáticos.

Mas assistam a esse vídeo (retirado do Fabrik Project):

Não é incrível essa era em que vivemos? Não se impressiona com o que somos capazes de criar? Muitos podem dizer que essa obra foi um enorme exercício de futilidade, desperdiçando dinheiro, tempo e energia (tanto humana quanto elétrica). Mas eu digo que artistas como esses caras são tão essenciais quanto qualquer engenheiro, médico ou qualquer que seja a nossa profissão.

Graças a manifestações artísticas como essa, podemos ser lembrados de como a vida não é só feita de dinheiro e não devemos gastar nosso tempo e energia apenas em busca de “sucesso”. Muitas vezes a satisfação que precisamos está em apreciar momentos de beleza ou em cria-los.

Como tudo, é apenas uma questão de ponto de vista.

How if designers do not design & user only design their products. For sure, sometimes it ends up in mess, but an interesting experience for the user where she can design her own products. A project by Ars Electronica’s FABLAB explores the idea of “fluid forms”

“”Fluid Forms” takes an original approach to implementing the concept of user-generated designs. To accomplish this, a user-friendly tool has been developed that enables anyone to create an individualized lamp or jewelry: a punching bag.
This device is peppered with sensors. Force and position of each blow-and hugs as well-are transmitted to the computer model of the punching bag. Home-brew software then generates the production data for the object

The production is via 3D printing (selective laser sintering) that utilizes a laser and a powder mixture of plastic, metal, ceramic or glass. The laser heats the powder on precisely those points specified by the computer for the production of the lamp. In this way, the object is created layer by layer “