Ars Electronica 2008
Last month our curious delegates Alex, Cefn and Dave went off to see the weird and wonderful on show at the annual Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria. Over the weekend they were entertained by a mix of interactive exhibits, experimental music and absinthe.
It was an inspirational place with both famous attendees such as the guys behind the Absolut Quartet as well as less well-known technoart enthusiasts.
The full spectrum between technology and art was represented, where some exhibits were impressive because of the new nuggets of technology on show, and others, where the technology used was entirely tacit, led the audience into a world of wonder and occasionally astonishment.
Highlights included:
Bleu Remix - An example of one of the more astonishing exhibits because it was human (we think!)
Ephemeral Melody - Bubble-induced melody
Structured Creature - A compelling use of nitinol wire
Paul Granjon - A musical performance with accompanying machines
A plaything for the great observers at rest - An exploratory interface into the processes behind heliocentric and geocentric thinking
It’s fire, you can touch it - Hold fire in your hand
levelHead - A 3D spatial memory game
openFrameworks - for creative coding
reactable - collaborative electronic music instrument
Touched Echo - hear through your elbows
ten thousand cents - crowdsourced money
Tablescape Plus - allowing tabletop objects to be both projection screens and input devices
Sticky Light - by smart markerless laser tracking
Next year sees Linz as Europe’s Capital of Culture and we can only imagine that the next Ars Electronica festival will be even bigger. The theme will be ‘the future’ and we’ll certainly be going again - we recommend you join us!
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