Ganztags

AIxMusic Panels

Renata Schmidtkunz (DE)

Renata Schmidtkunz hosts four panel discussions in the summer refectory, prominently featuring Josef Penninger, Sophie Wennerscheid, Amanda Cox, Markus Poschner, and others.

Neigungsgruppe Medienfassade

Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Media and Fine Art, Academic Group: exMedia

exMedia is an academic group which shares the conviction that experimental aesthetic projects and socio-technical research lead to an expansion of scholarly and creative horizons that effectively address existential human conditions in the 21st century.

The Generative Adversarial Network

Wesley Lee Yang (BR)

Democratization of technology and information has not been the means of liberation and empowerment as it could have been. As described and discussed by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, these developments have been co-opted to become mostly a means of commercial exploitation. These manipulation processes have moved from mass media to the internet and to the smart devices that are pervasive in our lives. Even when we don’t want them, it is impractical to function in society without owning and operating them. Adding insult to injury, not only are we exchanging our privacy, freedom and the health of our planet to devices that bring us convenience and comfort, but also doing it to have access to useless features, many of which create new problems for us—so that we will need or want the next “innovation.”

VALIS

Digital Research Unit in Art and Design at the Esad Saint-Étienne/Ensba Lyon

For this first presentation in the framework of Ars Electronica, we chose to explore concepts of “science-fiction,” considered as a domain that provides forms but also imaginary elements to be renewed. The exhibition presented here is therefore a first approach which summons various references to fields such as archeology, music, robotics or video games, passing through several experiments with media (code, 3D, sound, performance, deep learning …). VALIS “Vast Living Intelligent System” is a reference to the late work of Philip K. Dick.

I Am Here

Dorin Cucicov (MD)

I Am Here is an interactive experience powered by human interaction. An ambiguous digital presence invites you to an exploratory dialogue. How well can you understand the entity and its intentions? Does the movement influence the digital form, or does the form dictate your movements? I Am Here explores the possibilities of outsourcing human personality to digital forms. It attempts to blur the differences between interhuman and human-computer interaction.

Big Robot Mk.2

Hiroo Iwata (JP)

This video installation shows the largest movable robot in the world. Large humanoid robots, such as Gundam or Macros, are popular in Japanese animation and Manga. What if robots of this kind appeared in the real world? The existence of real large-scale robots may inspire the audience to be courageous. Thus, it has potential as an art form. The Big Robot Project aims to develop the world’s largest rideable robot. The Big Robot Mk.2 is an extension of the *Big Robot Mk.1* which was exhibited at Ars Electronica 2016.

Sentientia

Dorin Cucicov (MD)

Sentientia attempts to reconstruct the experience of a sentient creature that learns to interact with the external world. Inspired by Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, Sentientia sends audio signals to its environment and waits for a response to establish an emotional connection. Emotional combinations are generated by the machine and transformed into sound. Once the system understands that it has a mind and is conscious of its surroundings, will it start looking for entities like itself to create social networks of emotional intelligence?

Insert & Play

Jeon Hess (KR)

*Insert & Play* is a microwave that functions as a moving image projector to provide a viable media player. While the project is a celebration of technology and industrial progress, it is also a reminder of nostalgic actions; insert and play—a ritual between man and machine on the verge of extinction.

Sausageface

Isabella Auer (AT)

*Sausageface* is fun, annoying, catchy, maybe also a subtle critic on ideals of beauty, consumer society and politics, but it’s definitely a “valid form of abstraction,” as Erwin Wurm once said in an Interview.

Define Sentience

MA Interactive Technologies of Performative and Media Arts, CINETic (The International Center for Research and Education in Innovative Creative Technologies), University of Theatre and Film “I.L. Caragiale,” Bucharest, Romania.

Define Sentience explores the impact of technological advancement on human emotions and social interactions. The project is the result of research conducted at the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative Creative Technologies (CINETic) in Bucharest. CINETic’s mission is to develop knowledge and to innovate at the international level in the fields of performing arts and film, as well as in the fields that lead to their growth and transformation. The knowledge acquired in theatre and film is expanded through research within interdisciplinary projects that bring together art, science and technology.