This year's Ars Electronica, Festival for Arts, Technology and Society in LInz was themed on Simplicity, the Art of Complexity with a symposium curated by John Maeda.
Head of Programme Mark Cosgrove and Digital Development Coordinator Gill Haworth at Watershed visited the festival over two days and documented the visit through images and notes. Visit the festival website and blog here.
Click on the thumbnails below to view the larger images.
John Maeda's seven motion paintings shown in the architecturally impressive Lentos Kunstmuseum (Museum of Modern Art) were one of the highlights of the festival. From his series titled Nature, the projected images depicted beautifully coloured abstract shapes which appeared to grow and change organically, echoing natural forms. After adjusting to the darkened basement space from the bright sunlight outside, it was hard to leave as the atmosphere was so tranquil and the images pretty mesmerising. This was one of the first exhibitions we came into at the festival and it was strange to notice how much the audience look at the work through their own cameras, us included, this was a theme that continued throughout every aspect of the festival. All of the people viewing the exhibition at the same time as us were doing so for most of the time through their digital video or still camera, attempting to capture the work in their own way. It is something that hadn't struck me so much in other arts exhibitions and events, so perhaps its just that the audience for Ars Electronica are particularly used to this constant capturing in digital media. It just makes you wonder why there's such a growing urge to do this - record? document? re-create? re-distribute? share? own? - or is it just more prevailant now because the technology is so accessible? GH
Zachary Lieberman's Drawn (shown at the Ars Electronia Center as part of the Prix Ars International Competition for CyberArts) received an award of distinction in the interactive art section and it was easy to understand why. This was an intuitive and engaging piece in which you made a sketch of whatever came to mind, which was then simply scanned and projected for you to play with. By moving your hands within the image you could shift and alter the marks you had made which jumped around the screen triggering corresponding sounds. The technology behind the piece immediately became forgotten and the pleasure in creating new shapes and meanings to your drawing was captivating, it was also intriguing to watch others. It reminded me of seeing some of William Kentridge's pieces in which he used film to capture himself inside the frame drawing, editing, erasing, and redrawing his marks to create the illusion that his form could engage directly with the images he was creating and changing. These works of Kentridge made you want to get inside the frame also and do the same, and though very different, Drawn made such an experience feel somewhat possible. GH
Crossing over the Danube on Saturday night there were huge crowds of people looking intently down at the river. We were intrigued to know what was happening as there was such anticipation in the atmosphere. The event happening further down the river outside the Brucknerhaus was a narrative for around the world's children as part of the 60th anniversary of UNICEF, which we had seen being set up a few days earlier with huge projectors, speakers, scaffolding and floating giant balloons. From our position on the bridge, the event could only be experienced as distant lights and sounds. However, after stopping and waiting a while, we noticed a group in a boat just below the bridge begin to light floating candles and release them into the river downstream towards the main event, obviously timed to add to the narrative happening at that precise point. Thinking about the theme of Ars Electronica being on Simplicity, the Art of Complexity, the sight of a nonstop flow of these tiny lights floating down the rapidly flowing Danube seemed a great example of how such a simple idea is as spectacular a sight as anything else, though the choreography/timing in relation to the overall event must've been quite complex. GH
