Hay Month kicks off with a first look at the Samurai Museum Berlin, conceived by Ars Electronica Solutions. On 1,500 square meters, the Samurai Museum combines a series of spectacular exhibits from the Peter Janssen Collection (collector and founder of the museum) with legendary lore from the world of the samurai. In 2022, visitors will experience a breathtaking journey through time from the origins of the samurai to modern-day Japan, interactively staged with innovative technologies.
Digital Humanism
User Manual for Digital Humanists is a new series hosted by Veronika Liebl, Director of European Cooperation, and Kristina Maurer, Head of European Projects at Ars Electronica, that explores the big questions at the heart of Ars Electronica’s global platform. In Chapter 4, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog and John Palmesino of the Territorial Agency, winners of this year’s Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration, provide insights into their project Oceans in Transformation.
Of Robots and Men
In what is now the fourth episode of Inside Futurelab, Hideaki Ogawa, Director of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, and robot psychologist Martina Mara, Director of the LIT Robopsychology Lab at Johannes Kepler University, reflect on the ambivalent relationship between man and machine-a reflection that is shaping one of the most significant historical stages in human history at the dawn of the 21st century.
In this article, Martina Mara and Roland Haring, Director at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, provide the joint findings that should ensure more harmonious cooperation between humans and machines in the future.
Artificial intelligence meets music
What if artificial intelligence wrote the notes for us and we just took on the role of musicians? Ali Nikrang of the Ars Electronica Futurelab has developed Ricercar, a music composition system that uses artificial intelligence and existing human-composed music as a basis for writing new pieces of music in a similar style. In the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K, Daniela Mülleder (violin), Yishu Jiang (cello) and Ali Nikrang on piano presented the musical and AI-generated creation based on Franz Schubert’s “Grande Sonate in B flat for piano duet, D. 617 2nd movement” – with a visualization by Cori O’Lan.
Joachim Sauter (1959 – 2021)
Joachim Sauter has accompanied Ars Electronica for decades, as an artist, as a frequent juror and also as a Prix Ars Electronica prizewinner, as an advisor and as a friend. Time and again, he has inspired and inspired many of us with his ideas and his passion; without his involvement, many things would not have succeeded. As a pioneer of media art, he contributed significantly to the development of media art as an independent new art form. To commemorate the pioneer of media art, we are showing an excerpt of the lecture he gave at the 2017 Ars Electronica Festival.
Preparations are underway
Live from our streaming studio in Linz, Inside Festival gives you a sneak peek at our partner gardens’ programs as well as our local events in Linz. In the first edition of Inside Festival, Gerfried Stocker, Artistic Director of Ars Electronica, and Christl Baur, Head of Ars Electronica Festival, introduce not only the theme of the Ars Electronica Festival 2021 but also the two community projects Taste your SOIL and Experts of the Future, in which many international partner*institutions will participate.
Christl Baur and Veronika Liebl, Managing Director Festival, Prix, Exhibitions, and Martin Honzik, Director of the Ars Electronica Festival, give a first preview of the Ars Electronica Festival 2021 “A New Digital Deal” and talk about festival preparations, new team motivation and an all-encompassing network.
And how it went on in August 2021, we’ll show you in the next part of our 2021 Year in Review.