The Practice of Art and Science

The rapprochement, as it were, of art and science, the artistic exploration of new applications, is a key factor in the increasingly social dimension of new technologies in order to comprehend how reciprocal human-machine relationships and interactions among individuals and globally networked systems can not only be better understood but, above all, better designed.

Anti Conductor

Ryo Kishi (JP)

Anti Conductor embraces the beauty of struggles. In our society, individuals tend to go with the flow of their environment. It’s human nature because it’s easier to survive. But it’s also monotonous and boring. If no one tries to go against the flow, nothing is going to change. The image of an individual struggling in the flow is full of power and energy, even if their efforts might not pay off.

Organic Primitive Bioplastics

Primitive Labs Biodesign (US)

Organic Primitive Bioplastics challenges endless data accumulation and memory by posing an ephemeral paradigm for interacting with objects, driven by organic intelligences. Using a library of biomaterials to give objects a “voice” to communicate, everyday things are transformed into ephemeral information displays that change color, odor, and form in response to fluids.

Bugfix the Brain

g.tec medical engineering GmbH (AT)

Imagine being able to think, hear, and feel – but not to move or communicate. The exhibition Bugfix the Brain focuses on patients who suffer from motor disabilities due to stroke or disorders of consciousness and shows state-of-the-art rehabilitation and assessment tools based on Brain-Computer Interfaces. Neurologists, physical therapists, caregivers and patients are welcome to test these brain rehabilitation technologies on themselves.

The Form of Digital Nature

Yoichi Ochiai (JP)

In Digital Nature, our current norms of physical and recognition abilities are transcended. Extremely enhanced computation and resolution abilities become part of daily life. The humanity of the future may live in Digital Nature, where the very concepts of nature, artificial objects, gravity and time are overturned.

Programmable Droplets

Udayan Umapathi (IN/US)

The Programmable Droplets system was created to use droplets in our environment and program them for information manipulation and human interaction.

LightWing II

Uwe Rieger (DE/NZ), Yinan Liu (NZ), arc/sec Lab (NZ)

The interactive installation LightWing II creates a mysterious sensation of tactile data. It allows the visitor to navigate through holographic spaces and to explore responsive narratives.

Mutupo

Natsai Audrey Chieza (UK), Karl Aspelund (US)

Mutupo: Origin stories of a multi-planetary diaspora explores the theatre of space through a new envisioning of space nomadism, its emergent cultures, beginning with speculative mythologies tied to DNA – the most ancient yet prescient origin text.

Particle Post

Yuri Tanaka (JP), Pavle Dinulović (RS), Umut Kose (TR), Chris Bruckmayr (AT)

Receiving cosmic muons through a scintillator detector, the postbox subtly emits sound and light as a direct consequence of every particle it detects. It is through this process that the implied aesthetics of the unperceivable are explored, as are the means by which it could be indirectly appreciated in different ways through the bodies and minds of humans.

Polytronics

Hannes Möseneder (AT), Agnes Hofstätter (AT), Steffanie Painsith (AT), María José Molina (CO)

The global plastics manufacturer Greiner showcases 5 future mockups, which in combination with printed electronics, have the potential to sense and act according to inputs gathered from our daily-life environments.

In the Lab: Processing Fashion

Fashion & Technology, University of Art and Design Linz (AT)

The participatory workshop situation *In the Lab: Processing Fashion* aims to make alternatives to the system of fast fashion visible and tangible.

Smart Traffic – Augmented Cyclists meet Automated Vehicles

CARISSMA — Center of Automotive Research on Integrated Safety Systems and Measurement Area, Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (DE)

How will city life be in a world controlled by intelligent and cooperative transportation systems? Experience future traffic as either a cyclist or an operator of an automated vehicle in an immersive virtual world, and become part of a real scientific experiment addressing traffic safety.

Space Exploration Initiative

MIT Media Lab (US), Xin Liu (CN)

In the past, the desire for exploration and expansion had a profound impact on how we imagined planetary futures. What shall we imagine now? In this exhibition, six projects from the Space Exploration Initiative of MIT Media Lab are asking the same question and bringing possibilities to the (im)possible space: All the projects were successfully deployed and performed in a zero-gravity parabolic flight last year. They are hopes beyond solutions, imaginations, more than facts.

Strange Temporalities

STOCHASTIC LABS (US)

Triaina: Model A

TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION x AnotherFarm (JP)

Triaina is an ongoing large-scale art project that utilizes design and technology to create sustainable ecosystems that integrate man-made forms with nature. A sculpture made from concrete and α-amino acids is placed on the seabed and acts as a cultural artifact as well as a home to marine life, promoting an ecosystem that is a symbiosis between man and nature.

(un)shaped

Takayuki Hirai (JP), Yasuaki Kakehi (JP)

This installation utilizes antibubbles in water as a medium. Through computationally controlled droplets, the antibubbles form various patterns on the water’s surface. Then they start to float in the water and disappear after a while. These periodic phenomena shows continuous morphing from computationally controlled forms to organic ones mediated by the environment.

Unicorn – The Brain Interface

g.tec medical engineering GmbH (AT)

The Unicorn Hybrid Black is a high-quality wearable EEG-headset for Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) applications to perfectly acquire brain waves.

xDiversity Project

Yoichi Ochiai (JP), JST CREST xDiversity Project Colleagues (JP)

This project aims to explore AI-assisted human-machine integration techniques for overcoming impairments and disabilities. The final goal is a social design and deployment of the assistive technologies towards an inclusive society.

Since the inception of the Ars Electronica Festival in 1979 by artist Hubert Bognermayr, scientist Herbert W. Franke and journalist Hannes Leopoldseder, art and science have always been a focal point of Ars Electronica. In 1996, the increasing interest in collaborations among artists and scientists resulted in the foundation of two pillars of learning, research and presentation: Ars Electronica Center as “Museum of the Future” and Ars Electronica Futurelab as “Laboratory for Future Innovations.” As a sort of melting pot, where different cultures of knowledge can – or should – mingle and discover their synergies, Ars Electronica has been a place for artists, scientists, researchers, designers and engineers to cooperate on multifarious projects for years. Based on a collaboration with CERN, which started in 2011, a plan evolved for a network of art and science residencies on a European scale. Ever since its initiation, the European Digital Art and Science Network with the partners ESA, ESO and Fraunhofer MEVIS sparked interest from artists as well as institutions and continued to grow. This year The Practice of Art and Science is particularly focusing on collaborative projects in the European context and beyond, as well as interdisciplinary approaches. Crossing boundaries in all conceivable ways – the curiosity of the pioneer – has always been within the DNA of art and science.