Life Ink / Maki Namekawa (JP) – Wacom Co., Ltd. & Ars Electronica Futurelab, Photo: Florian Voggeneder
A festival day dedicated to Ars Electronica’s creative research and development lab: once again, the Ars Electronica Futurelab team joined forces with numerous guests from art and industry to create an exciting, diverse and always surprising Futurelab Day for all visitors.
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The presentations of the Futurelab’s latest projects were met with great interest. During the festival, visitors were able to experience “Dataspace: Global impacts of the Russian war on Ukraine” in Deep Space 8K for the first time and follow the sparks of their own creativity in real time with the fascinating project “Life Ink”. An insight into the diverse work of the Futurelab was also provided by the final presentation of the “CoBot” project, in which the cooperation of humans and robots was tested, for example in Deep Space 8K, with numerous project partners such as the JKU.
The Futurelab team was also available in person for the visitors: They were able to create messages from ink with microorganisms in “Bio Ink” and paintings from light in “Space Ink”. In addition, the Art Thinking workshop “Re-Writing the Script – A New Relationship to Finitude” offered a new perspective on one’s own life. “Revivification”, an artistic cooperation project on in-vitro intelligence, was also open for the public with a workshop. In Kepler’s Gardens, visitors were also able to discuss their opinions on “Mobility of the Future” and explore “neuro-rights” of the future with “The NeuroRight Arcades” by Artist in Residence Roel Heremans.
Futurelab Day visitors were also able to test Life Ink, a brand-new project by the Ars Electronica Futurelab in collaboration with technology company Wacom. For Life Ink, the Lab developed a wearable system for visualizing brain waves and body signals that makes the wearer’s creative sparks visible and tangible in real time., Photo: Ars Electronica Futurelab / Birgit CakirThe new program “Dataspace” proposes a „newspaper of the future“: The first project by the Ars Electronica Futurelab and Japanese financial media company Nikkei’s Innovation Lab focuses on the profound impact Russia’s war on Ukraine has all around the world now and in the future. It invites visitors into a sort of Zen garden of data, using the unique infrastructure of Deep Space 8K., Photo: Florian VoggenederVisitors also had the opportunity to take part in a unique tour through Ars Electronica Center and Ars Electronica Futurelab, guided by members of the Futurelab team., Photo: Birgit CakirThe collaboration “CoBot Studio” between the LIT Robopsychology Lab at JKU Linz, the Ars Electronica Futurelab and five other partners was also presented on Futurelab Day. The perennial research project focuses on human-robot interaction in the workplace, and was conducted in part at the Deep Space 8K where test persons encountered a real robot. Photo: Birgit CakirDenise Hirtenfelder, Researcher & Artist of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, guided participants of her workshop “Re-Writing the Script – A New Relationship to Finitude” into a thought experiment that had the goal of envisioning the future from an endpoint onwards., Photo: Birgit CakirIn their workshop “Revivification,” the hosts Nathan Thompson (AU), Guy Ben-Ary (AU) and Futurelab researcher Yoko Shimizu (JP) addressed the challenge of developing In-Vitro Intelligence (IVI) – an intelligent, bioengineered system with living neural networks that function as a brain outside the body – itself, and to find out what the practical, cultural and ethical implications of this are. Photo: BirgitCakirAt the Workshop “Mobility of the Future” the Supersense x BMW Experience Lab Project, Bernhard Böhm (AT), as well as the Ars Electronica Futurelab shared a dialog with young people from all over the world about their ideas of mobility of the future. Photo: Peter Freudling The NeuroRight Arcades – presented Ars Electronica Futurelab Artist in Residency Roel Heremans – consist of five interactive installations. They aim to make the “NeuroRights” of intellectual privacy, personal identity, freedom of will, equal access to intellectual augmentation, and protection from algorithmic bias tangible. Photo: Birgit Cakir
The Futurelab Day kicked off once again with “Morning Inspirations” on this year’s Futurelab Day motto “Creative Resilience for a Planet B”: with the question of how art and creativity can take society along towards communal resilience in the face of various crises. The audience was also able to contribute interesting aspects in an open discussion.
Further exciting presentations and discussions followed in the Afternoon Experiences, from “Media of the Future” to “Humanity of the Future” and “Work of the Future”. Another highlight of the afternoon was the keynote speech by Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker on “From the Limits of Growth to Wellbeing for All within Planetary Boundaries”, followed by a discussion with members of the Club of Rome on “Earth 4 All – A Survival Guide for Humanity”.
Once again, the “Morning Inspirations” session of Futurelab Day created a physical space for exchange. The panel talke revolved around the topic “Creative Resilience for a Planet B” with experts Natalia Rivera (CO) & Jung Hsu (TW), Yuima Nakazato (JP), Sigrid Bürstmayr (AT), Marcus Neustetter (ZA), Tom Lamberty (DE), Rashin Fahandej (US/IR), Adrian van Hooydonk (NL). Photo: Philipp GreindlThe “open fishbowl” style of the “Morning Inspirations” at Futurelab Day each year gives audience members the opportunity to add their own ideas and perspective to the discussion. Photo: Florian VoggenederIn his keynote “From the Limits of Growth to Wellbeing for All within Planetary Boundaries”, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (DE) spoke about the new report of Club of Rome: A survival guide to save humanity from ecological and social catastrophe. , Photo: Philipp GreindlAt the event “Earth4All – A Survival Guide for Humanity” Maria Langsenlehner (AT), Friedrich Hinterberger (AT), Astrid Rössler (AT), Jayati Ghosh (IN) discussed five ways to save humanity from an ecological and social catastrophe through systemic change. Photo: Philipp GreindlIn the Panel Discussion “Humanity of the Future” Hideaki Ogawa (JP/AT), Guy Ben-Ary (AU), Kasia Chmielinski (US), Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP), Akane Kikuchi (JP), Martina Mara (AT), Sarah Newman (US) und Nathan John Thompson (AU) discussed the possibilities presented by life science, brain science, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and robotics, that influence the essence of our sense of life and hints of a new humanity. , Photo: Ars Electronica Futurelab / Birgit CakirThe experts Joanna Wright (GB), Rashin Fahandej (US/IR), Oishi Nobuyuki (JP) and Sarah Kriesche (AT) are discussing with Futurelab member Nicolas Naveau (FR/AT) of the Ars Electronica Futurelab: What are new methods and media for thinking deeply about facts and issues in this age of visual information inundated with text and images – rather than simply consuming and reacting to news., Photo: Birgit CakirAt the session “Work of the Future” Horst Hörtner (AT), Mary Lizabeth, short Ria Lu (PH), Victoria Čaić (DE/AT), Gianpaolo Barozzi (IT) and Marcus Neustetter (ZA/AT) discussed in Lecture Hall 1 in Kepler’s Gardens perspectives on what will be the existential basis of our income on Planet B., Photo: Philipp Greindl
The Futurelab Day concluded once again with the “Night Performances”, an exciting mixture of project presentations and artistic performances. These included the world’s first glimpses of the Futurelab-internal projects “SonoSynthesis” and the children’s book to the Deep Space hit “Welcome to Planet B”, which was also developed by the Futurelab team. The projects “WebExpression” with partner Cisco and “Dataspace” with Nikkei as well as “Life Ink” in collaboration with Wacom were also presented to a broad audience for the first time – the latter impressively illustrated by a brilliant performance by pianist Maki Namekawa. Musical highlights continued, from “Man-Machine Music”, a.ni.i.la.sjɔ̃ and Plasticphonia to Polychoro and Futurelab’s own 11°22’4″142°35’5″ as an exciting conclusion to the Futurelab Day.
The composition “Man-Machine Music” by an artificial intelligence was performed by Ali Nikrang (AT) of the Futurelab, Cori O’Lan (AT) and the F.X.Frenzel Quartett with Lui Chan (AT), Johanna Bohnen (AT), Laura Maria Jungwirth (AT) and Lia Vielhaber (AT). , Photo: Florian VoggenederIf you’ve ever wanted to know what the creative sparks of a world-class pianist look like during her performance, you were in for a treat at “Life Ink”. Maki Namekawa (JP/AT) enchanted the audience with a breathtaking performance supported by real-time visualization of her brain waves and body signals – thanks to a wearable system developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab in collaboration with technology company Wacom. , Photo: Florian Voggeneder The artists Colas Fiszman (BE)/Tyrell, Jonas Margraf (DE) and Mate Jonjić (HR), perfectly understood how to use the Deep Space 8k as an immersive space between visual and dance performance., Photo: Florian VoggenederSonoSynthesis is another project developed as part of Futurelab’s internal Ideas Expedition competition – by Ali Nikrang (AT), Raphael Schaumburg-Lippe (AT) and Yoko Shimizu (JP). SonoSynthesis addresses the question of whether machines and nature can co-create art and music in a new era of creative collaboration, bringing together AI, biology, and Deep Space technology to develop an immersive auditory and visual environment, Photo: Florian VoggenederWith “WebExpression”, a collaboration between Ars Electronica Futurelab and IT company Cisco, the audience is able to envision what digital communication looks like. An introduction was provided by Gianpaolo Barozzi (IT), Rupert Huber (AT) and Peter Freudling (AT) in Deep Space 8K. , Photo: Florian VoggenederAnother highlight of the Futurelab Day’s “Night Performances” was “Polychoros” by Georgios Tsampounaris (GR), Ariathney Coyne (GR) and Vahid Ghaderi (IR)., Photo: Florian VoggenederAlso part of the evening program was “Plasticphonia” by Crystn Hunt Akron (AT) and Christopher Noelle (AT), who performed live electronic music with sounds of improvised instruments made of plastic taken from the ocean. Photo: Florian Voggeneder The start of the “Night Performances”, the evening program of Futurelab Day 2022: Futurelab researcher and artist Susanne Kiesenhofer presents the children’s book on the Deep Space program “Welcome to Planet B”, that she and her team conceived and developed as part of Futurelab’s internal Ideas Expedition competition., Photo: Florian VoggenederThe performance 11°22’4″142°35’5″ by Stefan Mittlböck-Jungwirth-Fohringer(AT) and Johannes Pöll (AT) from the Futurelab team demonstrated a noisy fusion between squeezebox and synthesizer, which caused Deep Space 8K to shake one more time for an interesting finale., Photo: Birgit Cakir
