Tags: Ars Electronica | artes digitais | Golden Nica

HA'Aki

Iriz Pääbo (SE/CA) / National Filmboard of Canada

www.nfb.ca/haaki

“HA'Aki” is an expressionistic short film whose images and soundtrack were created simultaneously. Filmmaker Iriz Pääbo (CA) uses the term “animbits” to describe the cinematic vocabulary with which she depicts an ice hockey match. Though she herself isn’t all that big a fan of this sport—one that can get excessively raucous at times—the artist let herself be inspired by Eric Nesterenko, a hockey star of the 1960s and ‘70s. The result is a wonderfully unorthodox interpretation of Canada’s national sport. “HA'Aki” was awarded the Golden Nica in the COMPUTER ANIMATION / VISUAL EFFECTS category.

DIGITAL MUSICS

This new version of “Speeds of Time” is a sculptural sound map of the bells of Big Ben. A network of microphones starting from the clock tower itself and spreading out to surrounding rooftops and terraces around Parliament Square and beyond simultaneously trace the contours of the temporal deformation of the bells. The speed of sound is 1116.4 feet per second. When you take into consideration the distances of all the microphone locations and divide those distances by the speed of sound, the result is a sequence of natural acoustic delays creating a multi-dimensional sound image of Big Ben that is actually a live sound map of this part of London.

HYBRID ART

“Natural History of Enigma” is Eduardo Kac’s account of the common origin of species. He extracted a gene from his own DNA and then used it to replace its counterpart in the DNA of a petunia. The result of this gene transplantation is a new form of life: “Edunia,” a cross between a human being and a petunia. To perform this engineering feat, Eduardo Kac didn’t choose just any old gene; he selected the one responsible for identifying foreign bodies. The fact that, following this gene transplantation, the new element was then “recognized” as the organism’s own also underscores the fact that a new form of life had been created thereby. “Natural History of Enigma” is the recipient of the Golden Nica in the HYBRID ART category.

INTERACTIVE ART

The “Nemo Observatory” is captivating in a way that is simultaneously disconcerting and hypnotic. Lawrence Malstaf (Belgium) utilizes five fans and a walk-though PVC cylinder to create a localized cyclone. Thousands of bits of polystyrene fly about through the air, with the observer situated right in the middle of it all—literally in the eye of the storm. Regardless of whether he/she focuses on particles whirling all about or looks past the flurry of material off into the distance, the tempestuous circumstances seem to exert an extraordinarily calming effect. This high-energy spectacle suddenly becomes a uniform, almost spellbinding sensory impression. With his “Nemo Observatory,” Lawrence Malstaf has succeeded in producing a high-impact allegory—an apt symbolic representation of our ever-more-rapidly changing world and our attempt to maintain our composure amidst the storm. The Golden Nica in INTERACTIVE ART goes to “Nemo Observatory.”

DIGITAL COMMUNITIES

HiperBarrio

http://hiperbarrio.org

“HiperBarrio” is a community of young bloggers that developed out of what were initially two independent initiatives in Medellín, Colombia: Álvaro Ramírez’ video blogging workshops and the media workshops of Juliana Rincón and Jorge Montoya. They then joined forces to form four groups whose activities included blogging, workshops and events. The ConVerGentes group has succeeded in establishing itself locally as well as getting integrated into international networks. Thanks to a very active lineup of offerings, “HiperBarrio” is in the process of expanding its activities both on site and far beyond. In going about this, the proprietors formed a partnership with the Universidad Católica del Norte. “HiperBario” has been singled out for recognition with the Golden Nica in the DIGITAL COMMUNITIES category.

Media.Art.Research Award.

DThis year's Media.Art.Research Award goes to Simon Shaw-Miller, an art historian and senior lecturer at Birkbeck College in London, for his unpublished manuscript entitled “Eye hEar: Music, Art, Film & the Culture of Synesthesia.” This detailed and comprehensive treatment of the visual aspects of music revives the interdisciplinary concept of synaesthesia, particularly focusing on its career in the early 19th and 20th centuries. Furthermore, Shaw-Miller proposes a methodology with which differences among transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary practices can be understood. Especially effective is the work’s combination of detailed case studies and theoretical investigations of the aesthetic differences between visual and acoustic artforms. His almost encyclopedic approach displays the great breadth of the author’s knowledge of various epochs and genres as well as of philosophical aesthetics. This text proceeds further along the theoretical and historical path that Shaw-Miller set out on in “Visible Deeds of Music: Art and Music from Wagner to Cage,” a work published in 2002 by Yale University Press. In each instance, the special way of considering the respective subject is that of the art historian who “looks at” music. This makes possible a degree of interdisciplinarity that is not always recognized by the established disciplines involved in these subjects—for instance, art history, musicology, media studies and philosophy.

u19 – freestyle computing

“In the Depths” deals with three fish that have grown weary of the eternal darkness of the deep sea and set out in search of light. Or, to be precise, a mysterious “Big Light” that’s said to be located somewhere far above them. On the way there, the trio meets up with another fish who tells them of the danger lurking up there in the form of human beings. Nevertheless, the three pay no heed to the warnings and continue on their way. And indeed: no sooner do they arrive at the surface than they nearly fall victim to the keels and propellers of passing tankers, but they manage to avoid the lethal hazards and finally catch sight of the blazing bright light of the sun. Then, they spontaneously decide to transport the “Big Light” back with them to the bottom of the sea. They shoot a harpoon into the sun and begin to tow it under, but as soon as it’s submerged in the sea’s watery billows, the glowing sphere is extinguished. Now, all that remains for the three friends is the return voyage back to the eternal darkness of their home deep below the ocean’s surface.

[the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant

Open_Sailing_Crew

http://www.opensailing.net

“Open Sailing” is the vision of an organic architecture that constitutes a laboratory for techno-social experiments. As nothing less than a process for surmounting all possible natural and human-generated catastrophes, this ambitious undertaking’s aims include fostering the human spirit of inventiveness and strengthening social solidarity. The ultimate mission of “Open Sailing” is to take on challenges like overpopulation, climate change and energy conflicts with do-it-yourself technologies: Instinctive_Architecture, Energy_Animal and Life_Cable are some of the new approaches that are being developed and tested. The immediate objective is facilitating R&D within the mobile, nomadic system of “Open Sailing”—a floating city consisting of solid, well-appointed buildings surrounded by oceanic fields. With navigation controlled by a Swarm_Search_Engine, the floating city is continually steered in the direction of what is at any particular instant the safest location. The physical configuration of the floating platform is constantly undergoing rearrangement to assure the most efficient management of information, energy and other resources. The Linzer version of this organic platform is designed to have a diameter of approximately 30 meters and to provide living space for five persons. “Open Sailing” calls into question the way we are currently populating and exploiting our planet, and asks if it could be possible to coexist in a harmonious interrelationship with one another and with our environment. The developers of “OpenSailing” think that the answer is YES, and are working in Great Britain, France and Morocco on initial prototypes. Implementing the seemingly impossible is not only the declared goal of “Open Sailing” but of voestalpine too. In its efforts to actively advance innovative developments, voestalpine is a congenial partner of the Prix Ars Electronica as a whole and [the next idea] category in particular.

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