ARS ELECTRONICA is making its first appearance at VW’s showcase venue in Berlin, Automobil Forum Unter den Linden. “Poetry in Motion,” an exhibition created especially for the German capital, will run June 25-September 5, 2010.
Type: Exhibition
Duration: June 25 – September 5, 2010
City, Country: Berlin, Germany
Venue: Automobil Forum Unter den Linden, Berlin
The works that comprise it constitute a fascinating synthesis of art, technology, science and socio-cultural development. Volkswagen’s Automobil Forum Unter den Linden, in light of its substantive and conceptual orientation, is a most appropriate setting for ARS ELECTRONICA’s exhibition in Germany. This high-profile venue is a showroom of mobility—here, Volkswagen AG showcases its Bentley, Bugatti, SEAT, Skoda, Volkswagen and Volkswagen Utility vehicles—as well as a place of encounters in which visitors experience an interesting lineup of photographic, artistic and scientific exhibitions.
Artworks
Kohei Asano (JP)
Garden
Poetic, playful and fleeting—Kohei Asano’s “Garden” is a virtual one. It blooms only as long as visitors in the installation space keep tossing confetti into the air. The more they throw and the faster they do so, the prettier, more luxuriant and more colorful the garden gets. Celestial sounds underscore the dreamy effect as the floor of the installation space morphs into a carpet of blossoms.
h.o (JP)
Perfect Time
The installation focuses on time itself, its inexorable passage, its presence and its transience. A “wall” of trickling sand forms a flat surface onto which multicolored images are projected. If the sand runs out, they disappear. If an installation visitor tries to touch them, they dissolve. Visitors thus become active protagonists—without their participation, the virtual world remains a hidden realm.
Arthur Ganson
Machine with Concrete
The idea is as simple as it is fascinating. And the diametrical opposite of what one normally expects. “Machine with Concrete” uses 12 cogwheels to so radically decelerate the rotational speed of an electric motor that the last cogwheel can be encased in concrete. The entire machine consists of a motor-driven axle, one end of which is stuck into a concrete block. Cogwheels, gears and reductors transmit the angular momentum of an electric motor into the concrete block. The first cogwheel takes approximately 14 seconds to complete one rotation; the last one—the cogwheel encased in concrete—needs no less than two trillion years With his “Machine with Concrete,” Arthur Ganson (US) reminds those partaking of it that the human being is the only creature on Earth to build machines that (are meant to) outlive their creator. And that the world, despite its purportedly fast-moving pace, changes very, very slowly.
Arthur Ganson
Machine with 22 Scraps of Paper
A swarm of birds or butterflies, leaves scattered by an autumn breeze—many of nature’s spectacles fascinate us with their inherent harmony. This is what inspired “Machine with 22 Scraps of Paper.” Each of these 22 little scraps of paper is affixed to the tip of a vertical aluminum rod, which are then moved up and down by an electric motor. Air resistance induces the paper “birds’ wings” to develop a life of their own. And the swarm of birds begins to fly!
Jeff Lieberman, Dan Paluska (both US)
Absolut Quartet
“Absolut Quartet” was inspired by the tradition of musical automatons. This six-meter-long installation made a name for itself with an appearance in a commercial for Absolut Vodka. “Absolut Quartet” consists of three robotic musical instruments; completing the foursome is an installation visitor, who prescribes the musical motif. Software developed in collaboration with composers uses this sequence as a point of departure for the computation of a three-minute piece. Here, the user-input sounds don’t serve as a melody; instead, they’re interpreted as a set of rules. Finally, the piece is performed by a robot orchestra. A marimba is played by firing balls with incredible accuracy from several meters away at the instrument’s five-centimeter-wide wooden bars; 42 robot arms and a hundred rubber balls keep the sounds coming. Harmonies are provided by a wineglass organ whose 35 hand-made glasses are played by high-tech robot fingers covered by rawhide tips soaked in a special solution that displays the same properties as water but doesn’t evaporate.
Lawrence Malstaf
Nemo Observatory
Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf will unleash a cyclone right in the middle of Automobil Forum. Rousing and hypnotizing at the same time, “Nemo Observatory” puts installation visitors under its spell. Using five fans and a walk-through PVC cylinder, Lawrence Malstaf creates a localized tornado in which the installation visitor occupies the eye of the storm. Nevertheless, the effect is incredibly calming. The chaotic spectacle suddenly becomes a uniform, almost hypnotic sensory impression.
Kyoko Kunoh, Motoshi Chikamori, minim++ (JP)
Tool’s Life
Technical implements cast their shadows upon a tabletop. When they’re touched, the shadows suddenly come to life and start to form ornamental lines back and forth. Or to bloom like flowers. In contrast to the objects themselves, each shadow manifests a character all its own. With “Tool’s Life,” minim++ sheds light on everyday objects—not on each one’s designated function, but rather on its background and significance.Since it was founded in 2000, minim++ has pro
Sachiko Kodama (JP)
Morpho Tower
