Ars Electronica Garden
Real Feelings – A talk on Survival with Lucy McRae and Angelique Spaninks
Lucy McRae (GB), Angelique Spaninks (NL)
Sci Fi Artist and Body Architect Lucy McRae in conversation with the curators behind the exhibition Real Feelings. Her new work Solitary Survival Raft, shown at HeK, is an inflatable, reactive, breathing sculpture, inviting visitors to crawl into it for safety. The outbreak of Covid-19 has made our digitalized societies evade the human touch even more. Going against the idea of a future without being touched, McRae builds machines that gently embrace and hold the body.
AIxLITERATURE: Poetry Is A Machine
The Grid (US/EU), Vikram Chandra (IN/US), Bryan McCann (US), Andrew Piper (CA), M Eifler (US), Clemens J. Setz (AT), Clara Blume (AT/US), Vanessa Chang (US/SG/AU)
How does the algorithmic contour the lyrical? Nearly a century ago, William Carlos Williams declared, “A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words.” As artificial intelligence becomes a writing tool, his words take on a new resonance. Some critics of algorithmic literature decry the incursion of automation into this essentially human creative practice.
Future Life Exhibition
Curated by: Karin Ohlenschläger
Marco Barotti (IT), Clams, interactive installation, 2019 Disnovation.org (FR), Online Culture Wars (in collaboration with Baruch Gottlieb, 2018/19; The Persuadables), video, 2019 Quimera Rosa (ES/FR), Trans*Plant: May the Chlorophyll Be With/In You, mix-media installation, work in progress since 2016 Anna Ridler (GB), Mosaic Virus, GANs generated video installation, 2019 Robertina Sebjanic (SI) & Gjino Sutic (HR), Aqua Forensic, installation, 2018
Real Feelings – A Talk on Vibes with Lauren Lee McCarthy, Kyle McDonald and Ariane Koek
Lauren Lee McCarthy (US), Kyle McDonald (US), Ariane Koek (GB)
Sabine Himmelsbach, Ariane Koek and Angelique Spaninks, the curators behind the exhibition Real Feelings at HeK Basel in conversation with the American artist Lauren Lee McCarthy. This Artist Talk allows insights into the work of a highly interesting and relevant artist, examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation and algorithmic living. Her interactive installation Vibe Check, especially commissioned for the exhibition at HeK, consists of a series of cameras capturing and analyzing the visitors emotional reactions to each other, ultimately presenting the results to them individually.
AI x MUSIC: Artificial Creativity or Enhanced Humanity
The Grid (US/EU), Christine Payne (US), Monica Dinculescu (US), Ali Nikrang (AT), Clara Blume (AT/US)
The music industry was transformed drastically over the past couple of decades. For better or worse, these developments are tied to technological advancements and a rapidly adapting consumer behavior. Tech companies are invested in a future where AI forms an indispensable part of the creative process. Recent breakthroughs are already paving the way for music that is entirely created and performed by algorithms. But does that make AI an artist?
Real Feelings – A Virtual Exhibition Tour with curator Sabine Himmelsbach
Sabine Himmelsbach (DE)
Co-curator Sabine Himmelsbach will digitally guide you through the international group show Real Feelings at HeK Basel, to present work by 20 artists in mediums ranging from artificial intelligence, interactive installations, robotics and biometrics, to gaming, video installations, virtual reality and photography. The shown works examine how technology can capture, evaluate or generate our emotions in a variety of ways. Find out more about the artistic and curatorial choices that determined the installation and set design of the exhibition.
Space in your Living Room!
Space in Your Living Room! is an online program that brings astronauts, artists, space scientists and engineers, into living rooms across Europe and beyond. It is a series of fun activities, exciting challenges with amazing prizes, and live events for young people, families and educators. At Ars Electronica Festival we will share conversations between astronauts and artists, and the youth art projects created during the program: including stories, speculative design and young reporters stories.
Step into Space
Online Exhibition
Step into Space is an exciting exhibition developed by Ars Electronica, Science Gallery Dublin and University Leiden that brings together space sciences and art to inspire youths and their families. Space mission will lead you through the story.
Locusts
Oswaldo Maciá (CO/UK)
Oswaldo Macia is a sculptor working primarily with sound and smell. His compositions investigate conventional notions of knowledge and perception. He creates spaces for thinking, stimulates new questions and new problems. "My sculptural compositions are formed from images, objects, sounds and smells. Whether on paper, object, video or image, the works operate as sculptures. Sometimes they are scenarios: they occupy space, pulling and pushing all that surrounds them for their own ends. Sculpture is concerned with the relationships people have to the space and volumes that form the world we experience; in utilizing a wider perceptual range my work opens itself to subjectivity over objectivity, experience over knowledge."
CONVERSATION WITH THE MAKERS OF VIRTUAL BLACK OUT: EXPERIMENTS IN THE FUTURE OF FORM Exhibition
Panel with the artists of the Virtual Black Out: Experiments in the Future of Form that took place at the National Arts Festival and includes discussion on the outcomes and collaborative procedures
QUINTESSENCE PRIZE
Quintessence Dome Lab Award Ceremony Award ceremony/ curated visit to the winner installation/ panel discussion. QUINTESSENCE DOME LAB is a 4 weeks artist residence organized by Espronceda, Institute of Art and Culture (IMMENSIVA) in collaboration with Mira Festival, UCA, MEET Digital Center Milan, Helsinki XR Centre and with the funding of Institut Ramon Llull. The participants will create an immersive project in different teams. In this ceremony the winner will be announced and the work showcased in a live connection.
artUNBOXING
Filip Ignatowicz (PL)
artUNBOXING is a series of video-performances produced for the Internet. It is published in episodes, in the form of a program that mimics the YouTube unboxing show. Instead of typical objects for this genre, I open purchased works of art, things signed by artists, or gadgets from exhibitions. The act of unpacking of those items - is the essence of my creative act. I try to verify the thin border between art and product.
Garden of Third Life Conference
The Online Lecture Series aims to share the main discourse on the “Garden,” the central theme of Ars Electronica, and the “Third Life” of the Korea National University of Arts.
Pan African Telematic Art Project
The Pan-African Telematic Art Project (PATAP) is a new initiative of the Vrystaat Arts Festival through the Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE), in partnership with the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival, Ars Electronica, and the University of the Free State’s Program for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD), funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Pretoria and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Two projects were selected to receive funding to experiment with new, interactive media arts projects, dealing with issues relevant to the continent.
Late Night Party.
The Glad Scientist and TribeXR
Live Music/ VR experience/ performance The Glad Scientist, is an innovative genre pushing virtual reality artist and musician. He is based in Osaka, however his work is known worldwide. His work includes live Audio Visual performances incorporating EKG technology, VR, and more: VR DJ dance party Sponsored by TribeXR will be a fun addition to the dome allowing a place to break free, dance, and enjoy the talents of worldwide Virtual Reality DJ’s.
Fak’ugesi Digital Art Curators
Over the years of growing the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival we have experienced a huge hole in our African digital arts ecosystem, essentially the lack of curators, producers and general advocators of digital arts in Africa, and specifically those from the continent. The field itself is not necessarily new, but the hurdles to accessing resources and markets brings a number of challenges for the African digital art ecosystem.
SKNXSYNTH
Performer: Anna Pompermaier (AT), Project Artists: Cenk Guzelis (AT), Josecarlos Florez (PE), Mohsen Hazrati (IR)
A xenotransplantative skin Live Performance/ Digital interaction The xenotransplantative skin project behaves as a digital skin that interfaces human and non-human entities to change spatial perception, create sensual friction, construct a self-image through detachments from bodily self and a space of negotiation between the self and the other self, oscillating between virtual and physical.
Creative Question Challenge: The Organ of Consciousness
Oswaldo Maciá (CO/UK), Chris Bean (IE), Emilia Leszkowicz (PL)
'Let us finish what we started'. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal - to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself - 'Transforming our World' - oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?
We Come From Our Stories I and II
Platfontein is the residence of the !Xun and Khwe people, first-nation inhabits from Southern Africa. FSAH, under the direction of the former Programme Manager MC Roodt, initiated a youth print-project, in partnership with the William Humphreys Arts Gallery and the Isibindi Youth Centre. Fourteen young artists translated traditional narratives into linocut editions during April of 2017. The print portfolio was titled Ons Kom Vanaf Ons Stories (We Come From Our Stories). All proceeds from sales were funnelled back to the Platfontein artists to support their continued growth as voices from the next generation.
Amazonia
LGM#2” Quadrature (GE), “Temazcalli” Josecarlos Florez (PE), “Simulacrum” María Almena (ES), “ABVXHMN” Cenk Güzelis, Anna Pompermaier, Burkart Schwaighofer, “RTTT” Mohsen Hazrati (IR), “A fourth dimensional travel guide” Kris Pilcher (US).
The Gaia Hypothesis Exhibition / Curated visit by artists and curator “Amazonia” is a collective exhibition curated by Alejandro Martín that goes from the sounds coming from space to the earth to Mesoamerican indigenous ceremony. Combining ritualistic dance with interactive screens and AR/VR experiences, Amazonia speaks to the current pandemic situation where the Ecosystem rules over humans, altering the dynamics of the Anthropocene era. The Amazon is burning by human actions and at the same time the power of Nature has the ability to re-initiate the “game” following the Gaia hypothesis.
