Ars Electronica 2014

CyberEmpathy - Visual and Media Studies Academic Journal ISSUE 9 2014/2015 Cyber Art ISSN 2299-906X

Source of Image: http://www.jacobtonski.com/balance-from-within/

Sidey Myoo

What Are We Waiting for? Another Edition of Art and Technology at

Ars Electronica 2014: ... What It Takes to Change?


Sidey Myoo

What Are We Waiting for? Another Edition of Art and

Technology at Ars Electronica 2014: ... What It Takes to Change?

Abstract:

Every year in Linz there is held the world's biggest festival of the electronic art – the Ars

Electronica Festival of Art, Technology and Society, which includes the exhibitions,

performances, concerts and conferences.

Michael Ostrowicki (pseudonim: " Sidey Myoo " )

(b. 1965) – philosopher, an employee of the

Department Aestetics at the Jagiellonian University

and associate proffeseur at Academy of Fine Arts and

Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow.

Member of The Collegium Invisibile. His main

research interest is the aesthetics , regarded as a

theory of art, mainly in relation to contemporary art,

including electronic art.


Ars Electronica is a melting pot, which mixes art with the innovative ideas, technology,

which raises the awareness of changes of the surrounding reality. This year there were many

interesting works, focused primarily in three places: in the Mariendom Cathedral, in the

Akademisches Gymnasium and as usual in the Ars Electronica Center. The works-winners

were presented as usually at the Centre of Contemporary Culture (OK Offenes Kulturhaus).

Some works were also presented in the buildings of the University, and we listened to music

in the Lentos Museum and Brucknerhaus. In total, there were presented hundreds of works

and events. The 2703 works from 77 countries were presented at the contest. The five major

categories were awarded with the main prize - the Golden Nica. In addition, in each category

there were two honorary awards and twelve promotional awards. In the category, which is

[nexta idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant, there were awarded Grant and three

honorable promotional awards. For the third time in the history there was also awarded an

additional prize - Collide@CERN Residency Award.

This year a new category appeared, The Visionary Pioneers of Media Art, the winner of

which was Roy Ascott. This award is intended for the people who are dealing on the border of

the world of art, science and futurology, experiencing and trying to understand the

contemporary phenomena in a wider, changing perspective, often deriving the lessons for the

future. These are the opinions, in which not only the presence and the future are contested,

but often it is stated as to how it is and how it will likely be. The ability of argumentation of

the promulgated views and the independence in its exaggeration is also important. Roy

Ascott undoubtedly belongs to this kind of artists: rebels and visionaries. He is an active

creator from the 50s of the last century, and currently he is a professor at the University of


Plymouth. In his works, he developed the idea of telematics, telepresence or mediated

communication. The works that permanently entered the canon of the electronic art are La

Plissure du text (1983) and Aspects of Gaia (1989). He is also the author of a number of

theoretical works, including the most well-known, repeatedly published (edited by the ed. A.

Shanken) book Telematic Embrace. Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and

Consciousness.-by-roy-ascott.pdf. Honoring with the Golden Nica of this 80-year-old artist

was certainly a justified decision.

In the category of Computer Animation/Film/VFX, Golden Nica was received by the

movie Walking City (Animation: Chris Perry, Sound: Simon Pyke), produced by the Universal

Everything group. It should be admitted that this nearly 8-minutes film is impressive, mainly

because of the music and its synchronization with the image. In fact, you could even listen to

the music regardless of the image, which still looks great here. Wandering, changing figure, it

becomes itself a magical tale of transformation and changes, liquidity of changes and news.

The recipient can expect for the next phase of changes, imagining them himself. The film

could easily last a few minutes longer, on the one hand, being defined according to a general

form, which inspires for tranquility and gives a sense of liquidity, on the other, all the while

changing the phase, prompting the recipient to expect the next transformation of the walking

figure. The whole is great in terms of gray-white color scheme with a precisely made,

prepared during two months, render.

In the category Interactive Art, Golden Nica was received by Paolo Cirio for his work

Loophole for All. It is a global, interventional art project, having origins in the tax inequality


in the world. The project has a center in the Cayman Islands, where the global corporations

are registered to avoid the taxes. Through his website www.Loophole4all.com, the artist

enables the fictitious purchase - anonymously, only on the base of e-mail, of one of thousands

of companies registered in the Cayman Islands. Based on the issued by the artist "deed of

ownership", the holder of this act may issue invoices in the name of the purchased in this way

company and avoid the taxes on these operations. The whole is based on a fact that generally

understood tax mechanism makes us pay taxes in a way that is imposed in the given country,

thus creating inequalities on a global scale. Changing this mechanism is either not possible at

all, as, for example, in the case of professions related to the central financial management, or,

as in the case of your own business, it requires the efforts consisting in finding a way to

reduce or even avoid the taxes. The problem is that the global corporations do it on a massive

scale, using the mechanisms such as registration of companies in the tax havens. This leads

to the differentiation of taxation in the world, often with the anonymity of those involved in

the corporation. The fictional identities sale of companies by Cirico is intervention into the

tax system, where through the art some mechanisms are shown, as well as the opportunity to

make interference in them.

In the category of Digital Communities, the Golden Nica was received by the Project

Fumbaro Eastern Japan, which was born after the earthquake in Japan in 2011, which later

led to the fatal disaster at the nuclear powered plant in Fukushima. The project concerns the

humanitarian aid in crisis situations with a flexible use of the potential of the help in the

independent management system of all possible appearing means. Fumbaro has a

philosophical background; it uses the structural constructivism, as a methodology, which is


the basis for the activities of humanitarian organizations in management. It means the

flexibility and ability to adapt the organization to achieve its goals using the existing at the

moment opportunities rather than adapting the humanitarian activities due to the

organization and management of the company. There were formulated the principles by the

Director of the project, Dr. Takeo Saijo, such as the principle of value, which indicates the

importance of the action because of the need itself, and not because of any additional factors,

also the principle that takes into account the effective action due to the goal and a given

situation. His views can be reduced to the expression: "We cannot positively see the tragic

disaster, but we can think that it made us better and stronger. We should strive to use this

experience to create a better future."

In the category U19 - Create Your World (under 19 years), the movie Femme Chanel -

Emma Fenchel by Sarah Oos won. The film is made in the found footage technique, formed

on the canvas of the film Chanel Nr. 5 Night Train, directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet. Thanks to

the found footage, the Sarah Oos movie changed the meaning of the original. It is no longer a

feature way to advertise Chanel Nr. 5, but a story about men and women, in which each plays

his/her role, due to the interplay of the dispassionate behavior models. The main character in

the award-winning film is the smell, not the person, and the relationship is determined by the

external behavior system, not by their own internal intentions. The title contains a suggestive

anagram, resulting from the converting of the last name of the main character Femme

Chanel, which obviously refers to the smell of the French perfume, pointing to a source of

passion. The found footage has a decades-long history, and today it is developed on the

background of the mix and remix, taking an important place in the art world. In this category


there were also awarded the promotion prizes. In the U14 category, Flora Storm received the

prize for the project of the video game Scratch: Jump and Run, and in U10 - Lara-Marie

Pascher for the project Das Ballonhotel.

In the case of category [the next idea], the main prize in the form of a grant was received

by the art project Blind Maps of Marcus Schmeiduch, Andrew Spitz and Ruben van der

Vleuten. Blind Maps is a navigation system used by the visually impaired and blind persons,

based on the mixing of GPS navigation and Google Maps, which allows determining the

walking route with the detailed information about the route itself. In the original version, the

system communicated with the user by voice, but it is intended to use the touch controller,

involving the ejection of small pins from a hand-held device, connected with the Smartphone.

The device, working as a touch interface, informs the user about the route, and in case of the

need to change the route, it indicates a new way.

The last prize, Collide@CERN Residency Award - awarded for the third time in the history

of the Ars Electronica (first edition), went to Ryoji Ikeda. The award is a two-month stay at

CERN, and then a month in the Futurelab in the Ars Electronica Center. Ikeda is a renowned

composer, using the minimalistic sounds that he mathematically converts into the sounds

accompanied by visuals. At the beginning of the year, Ikeda visited CERN and caught the

interest in his music of Dr. Tom Melia, working at CERN on the similar projects.

Supersymmetry is a work that is the result of a week's stay at CERN; it consists of two parts:

experiment and experience and refers to the quantum physics decaying the processes

occurring at the level of the elementary particles.


In one of the exhibition places, Akademisches Gymnasium, there was the exhibition

"Future Innovators Exhibit", where a lot of interesting art projects were exhibited. The one

that immediately drew the attention was Eric Siu’s Touchy – helmet, the eye apertures of

which opened only when the wearer touched somebody or was touched by another person:

lack of contact makes it impossible to move around and to experience the environment.

1 Eric Siu, Touchy photo. (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)

The several works appearing under the common title "Buddha on the Beach" were worth

the attention, including two interactive video installations: Smile Buddha by Yi-Ping Hung

and Digital Buddha by He-Lin Luo. In the first case, the recipient sat before a multi-channel

video, where the dozens of faces were shown, and smiling caused the reaction of the


installation, which changed the faces displayed on the screen into the recipient's face. The

next installation had a hybrid structure, ie. made of three independent, hanging slowly

around its axis sculptures that were displayed simultaneously on three independent displays.

Thanks to the detection system, at some moment the image of the recipient standing next to

the physical sculpture was converted onto the screen, according to the movement and shape

of the sculpture. This hybrid installation was making an interesting impression during the

reception, where one even physiologically could feel the impact of rotational motion on

himself, through the "winding up" of depicted corporeality on the sculpture.

2 Yi-Ping Hung, Smile Buddha (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)


3 He-Lin Luo, Digital Buddha (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)

There was another installation in the Gymnasium, which drew my attention, ie. Lapillus

bug by Michinari Kono, Yasuaki Kakehi, Takayuki Hoshi. It was an interactive installation,

operating on the principle of sonolevitation resulting from the use of sounds of 40 kHz

frequency, which bumping phase by phase onto the ceramic plate induced the turbulence,

which in turn floated, in the irregular flight, the small grains of styrene.

The next two works, which I want to describe are an interactive-inside sculpture by Jacob

Tonski, Balance from within, and interactive projection of Sam Bunn, Christoph Einfalt,

Valentin Ortner and Remo Rauscher, YOU can make an animation – FOR Walt Disney's

FACE. The first work is the "dancing sofa" - a piece of furniture with installed gyrocompasses,

which make the sofa balancing on one leg... but sometimes it falls down. However, at the time

when I visited the exhibition the demolished sofa lay on the ground, but it did not bother to

imagine the gentle movement of standing on one leg sofa, balancing in order to maintain the


equilibrium. In this symbolic way, it could be presented the continuous, focused care of the

balance maintenance, which sometimes leaves no room for any other action. But sometimes,

a fall happens anyway. The next work is concerned with projecting animation on the made of

cardboard, approximately of a meter size effigy of Walt Disney. The animation could be

designed on a small interface by two persons. The work attracted with its painterly; the

recipient had at his disposal the vivid colors, decaying by streaks or spots on the portrait.

4 Remo Rausche, YOU can make an animation – FOR Walt Disney’s FACE (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)


5 Sam Bunn, Christoph Einfalt, Valentin Ortner, phot: http://www.jacobtonski.com/balance-from-within/

At this year's Ars Electronica there were two Polish accents. The first was an interactive

installation Constellaction, by Peter Barszczewski, Krzysztof Cybulski, Christopher Golinski

and Jakub Koźniewski, labaled by the Polish Copernicus Science Centre. The installation uses

the light-sensitive receptors located within the tetrahedra, with the edge of about 8

centimeters, spread freely on the plane. Tetrahedra lit up for a split second, depending on the

light that strikes them, and then sent the light impulse to each other. Light could pass

through them in different directions, but only where the impulse was detected by sensor of

http://www.jacobtonski.com/balance-from-within/


the next tetrahedron. The recipients could arrange a variety of figures, eg. a circle, in which

the light circled endlessly.

6 Piotr Barszczewski, Krzysztof Cybulski, Krzysztof Goliński, Jakub Koźniewski, Constellation (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)

Another accent was the performance of Polish dancer - Joanna Gruberska – in the Anatta

show. The performance was a black and white dance spectacle, in which Joanna Gruberska

"draw" the abstract, light forms on the floor and the wall of Deep Space in the Ars Electronica

Center. It was a beautiful presentation, using six motion detectors and changing form of

displayed graphics, thanks to the participation of the music author, Viktor Delev.

At the exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center, there was Ryota Kuwakubo’s work

SiliFulin that in a personal way drew my attention, due to a line of thinking, which generally


can be associated with bionics, and further with the identity and individuality. It's about a

group of electronic users, similar to the animal tails, which are attached to the body belt. This

kind of work, from the device art family, can awake the interest due to the general question:

would you like to change something in your physicality, on the basis of what science can offer

today or in the future? It turns out that the tails already have their supporters.

7 Ryota Kuwakubo, SiliFulin (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)

During the Ars Electronica, I had the opportunity to meet with the Oculus. So far, I had

mixed feelings of using similar devices, or VR helmets (goggles) with displays inside. The

Oculus is a different story. The displayed inside image presents itself as a space that is well

synchronized because of the two displays. When turning the head back, you still reside in the

electronic space, which in the case of Oculus does not end there, where the frame holding the

display begins. The display of this kind has over 40 years history, but it was not widely


accepted - in the case of Oculus the situation may change. I had to deal with the artistic

program, not the plot of the game, but I am convinced that if it were possible to enter in such

a way one of the games I know, probably I would get in it for a long time… A journey through

the electronic worlds, thanks to the Oculus, can produce the immersive experience, which

may be the subject of fascination. As far as I know, for today, the entire quantity of the

devices has been sold out, and the Oculus was purchased by Facebook, which may mean that

we may expect the "brave new world".

8 Oculus (phot. Jakub Ostrowicki)


Ars Electronica ended as usual by the Big Concert Night, which began in the Lentos art

museum by the performance of Josef Klammer, Drumming is an Elastic Concept. Then,

already in Brucknerhaus, The Bruckner Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, has

performed Overture to 2012, and The Four Movements for Two Pianos by Philip Glass. In

turn in the Stadtwerkstatt club, the every night timeline gathered the series of DJs, so that

sets climate changed with a person that sit in front of the mixer.

From Poland, a dozen of people came, still meeting at Ars Electronica.

What Are We Waiting for? Another Edition of Art and Technology at Ars Electronica 2014: ...

What It Takes to Change?/ S. Myoo. CyberEmpathy: Visual Communication and New Media

in Art, Science, Humanities, Design and Technology. ISSUE 9 2014/2015. Cyber Art.

ISSN 2299-906X. Kokazone.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web: www.cyberempathy.com

http://www.cyberempathy.com/

Ars Electronica 2014

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