Ars Electronica 2003 - Exhibition

CODE - The Language of Our Time
Code=Law, Code=Art, Code=Life
Ars Electronica 2003
September 6-11
Linz, Austria
<http://www.aec.at/code

You are reading the fourth issue of the Ars Electronica 2003 newsletter, providing information about the program of exhibitions at this year's festival, CODE - The Language of Our Time.

Ars Electronica 2003 - 4th Announcement: Exhibitions

1. Update: CODE Exhibitions

2. Update: CAMPUS

3. Update: Cyberarts

4. Update: ARS ELECTRONICA Center



1. UPDATE: CODE EXHIBITIONS


Brucknerhaus: Sunday, September 7, 2003 to Thursday, September 11, 2003 from 10 AM to 7 PM
Ars Electronica Center: Sunday, September 7, 2003 to Thursday, September 11, 2003 from 10 AM to 9 PM


*The Universal Datawork*
*datawork:man*

Richard Kriesche has conceptualized his experimental set-up entitled *The Universal Datawork* as a redefinition of the grand idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk within the context of the informational reordering of reality. In contrast to the traditional understanding of the Gesamtkunstwerk which, as the expression of supreme artistic consummation, aimed to achieve the unification of the senses fused together with the arts, *The Universal Datawork* takes as its basis the findings of biogenetics and the segmentation of the natural sciences as well as the informational fractalization of mankind to reveal the shared bio-cosmic data structures and the universal form of all living creatures. Code, understood as the definitive key to the understanding of images, becomes the art of understanding reality.

*datawork:man* focuses on the foundations of human existence and art, and their metamorphoses under the novel circumstances of Information Society, a simultaneously philosophical and artistic encounter with the tradition and the future of the artistic process. The work of Casey Reas, on the other hand, is relatively lively and straightforward. The artist is a representative of the generation that grew up with software and for whom artistic work without this medium would have been inconceivable from the very outset.

*MicroImage*

*MicroImage* by Casey Reas does not analyze the cosmos surrounding us; rather, it creates its own microcosm, a software ecosystem in which thousands of software organisms interact. In response to environmental change, they gather or disperse depending on their programmed behavior. The organisms are displayed in the form of colored lines connecting their current positions with their previous ones, which is how their movements become visible in static, animated images. In the context of *MicroImage*, "genesis" means that none of the overall structures that result from the interaction of the mini-programs is predetermined or planned; instead, they emerge individually as the outcome of the movements that every organism goes through.

*CODeDOC II*

*CODeDOC II* is the sequel to an online exhibition that New York's Whitney Museum commissioned Christiane Paul to curate for *artport*, a website that functions as a portal for web-art. Participating artists / groups are Ed Burton, epidemiC, Graham Harwood, Jaromil, Annja Krautgasser & Rainer Mandl, Joan Leandre, Antoine Schmitt and John F. Simon Jr. *CODeDOCII* has been conceived as a process-oriented display focusing on how art is done and shown. The essential common element of the exhibited works is the free availability of the software that was programmed to create them.

Additional exhibits making up the CODE Exhibition are:


*Visually Deconstructing Code*
Ben Fry

*F00D*
John Maeda

*Epigenetic Painting*
Roman Verostko

*Bitforms Gallery*
Steve Sacks

*Music Creatures*
Marc Downie

*24!*
Michael Aschauer, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Lotte Schreiber

*Audiopad*
James Patten / Ben Recht

*co.in.cide*
Heimo Ranzenbacher / Ars Electronica Futurelab



2. UPDATE: CAMPUS


Linz University of Art and Industrial Design: Saturday, September 6, 2003, 1:30 PM to 7 PM; Sunday, September 7, 2003 to Thursday, September 11, 2003, 10 AM to 7 PM.

2.1. Portal Project: Teleklettergarten

The reciprocal interaction that takes place between interface and human individual will be illustrated by means of a colossally outsized input device-a Kletterwand (a climbing wall like the ones alpinists use to train for a vertical ascent) hooked up to a monitor. Visitors go through a training program to acquire software development skills. These programmers then work in collaboration with climbers who, as their human input-aids, range up, down and across the spacious interface, climbing to different points on the keyboard that is their oversized programming environment. Conventional input devices-keyboards, for instance-are usually small and do not provide ample space for the human body. Through its very dimensions, the *Teleklettergarten* prompts reflection upon our everyday communication with machines.

2.2. Exhibition

The Department of Media and Art at Zurich's University of Art, Media and Design (HGKZ) shows the work of young artists doing the media art of tomorrow. The CAMPUS Exhibition is being held in cooperation with the Linz University of Art, which has made three floors of its facility available as the presentation venue.

2.3. Movieline

The HGKZ's Movieline also offers a cross-section of student productions, which make it clear that enhanced digital tools are having a growing impact on the creative work of young student filmmakers.


3. UPDATE: CYBERARTS


O.K Center for Contemporary Art: Saturday, September 6, 2003 to Thursday, September 11, 2003, 10 AM to Midnight
O.K Center for Contemporary Art: exhibition run extended from Friday, September 12, 2003 to Sunday, September 21, 2003; Tuesday-Thursday: 4 PM to 10 PM; Fridays 4 PM to Midnight; Saturdays/Sundays: 10 AM to 6 PM


Cyberarts 2003 presents the prizewinners in the PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA's Interactive Art category.


GOLDEN NICA / INTERACTIVE ART
*Can You See Me Now?*
Blast Theory / Mixed Media Lab (UK)

*Can you see me now?* by the British artists' collective Blast Theory in collaboration with the University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Lab plays with the omnipresence of human beings on the basis of various portable electronic devices-cell phone, GPS, wireless LAN and digital camera-and with the superimposition of real and virtual spaces.
The field of play is a section of the city-both on the virtual level in the form of a city map, and as a real space on site. The opposing participants are online players as well as four runners in real space who have been equipped with mobile devices. The runners' task is to find the online players who remain in hiding in virtual space. When a runner tracks down a player, then it's "Game Over!" for him.


AWARD OF DISTINCTION / INTERACTIVE ART
*Tsukuba Series*
Maywa Denki (J)

Maywa Denki is an electronic Gesamtkunstwerk. Ingenious engineering, wit, inventiveness and musicality combined with an inimitable performance style characterize this project.
This studio's creations-all highly diverse, custom-developed musical instruments that are played by motors and electromagnets-demonstrate wittiness and know-how. With live performances, Maywa Denki has been filling concert halls in Japan and abroad.


AWARD OF DISTINCTION / INTERACTIVE ART
*nybble-engine-toolZ*
Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer (A)

*Nybble-Engine-Toolz* is a peer-to-peer server network. The installation transforms network processes into three-dimensional abstract films and projects them in a movie-theater setting onto a semicircular 180