Robot dog spot, organic meat loaf, instructions for heart massage, a “Galactic Garden”, young prizewinners of the Prix competition and international students at a summer university demonstrated the diversity of Ars Electronica at this year’s “A New Digital Deal” festival in Linz. The campus of the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) was a colorful melting pot of art, science, technology and an inclusive society on Saturday.
On the forecourt of the Learning Center, the U19 artists received their prizes and awards from the Prix Ars Electronica, including Isa Mutevelic, Simon Effenberger and David Stummer for the animated film “INCERT” and the Urban Green group from the Euregio HTBLVA Ferlach for the “Bamboo Bicycle”, to which they added more environmentally friendly parts. There were also prizes for the stop-trick animation “The impossible computer game” by students of the BG / ORG antonkriegergasse and one of the youngest participants, the seven-year-old Leopold Kastler with his crane vehicle constructed with Lego-Technic on four chains.
Right next to it, the robot dog Spot became a magnet for visitors. The start-up qapture, located in the Linz Institute of Technology, sent its spot on a training course. The Robodog is normally used for site documentation. Another spot acted as the carrier of the “Magic Eye”, a technology developed at LIT for path planning and map creation in autonomous driving.
In the Learning Center, LIT cooperations with artists could be seen, “a symbiosis that opens up new perspectives,” said Rector Meinhard Lukas, who was impressed in his first summary, “which brought to light the cooperation between JKU and Ars Electronica in the second year “. The most formative is the Festival University, a summer university with 80 international students present, which can offer a program in the middle of the festival like nowhere else.
This year the youth festival “Creae Your World” shared the long space at the duck pond with the volunteer fair, which took place for the first time at the festival. The “Engagement Rally” proved to be a successful combination of both worlds and introduced young people to the various possibilities of volunteering. The FAB’s “Galactic Garden”, an augmented reality walk that people with disabilities helped create and that gave participants superpowers using masks, provided funny images.
The Soundpark revealed a special atmosphere with its soundscapes in the middle of the old trees on the campus. “A place to linger that subtly raises a few questions,” said creative director Martin Honzik. Embedded in it is “Triopic spectacle” by a group from the University of Innsbruck, which is building a real, a mixed and a virtual domain. With VR glasses you can explore the worlds, influence the interfaces and move a robot.
Along the Keplerhall, the organic farmers’ market in the morning offered very real and physical delights and culminated in the sound experience “Do you feel stressed” before a homage to Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment with cats waited around the corner: “Schrödinger’s advice” by Philipp Blume and Zanshin, that should actually be shown at the Burning Man Festival in the USA as early as 2020 – as the first Austrian project – and will actually travel there in 2022.
(SERVICE – Ars Electronica Festival 2021 “A New Digital Deal” until September 12, JKU Linz, daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. http://ars.electronica.art/newdigitaldeal)
–
