Living in Paradox
Ars Electronica, the historic festival of new media, is preparing to open its twenty-sixth edition. Two key words: Hybrid and Freedom
Domenica Quaranta
Tomek Baginski, Fallen Art (Golden Nica “Computer Animation /Visual Effects”). Bozzetto per Character sketch for Zabok © Tomek Baginski / Platige Images
“The first hybrid is human. And living in paradox. A mix of mind and matter, [...] humankind is in a permanent state of hybridization, consciously and unconsciously. Why then focus on such a pervasive condition? Because new drivers of hybridization have emerged that make the hybrid condition always more evident – and more uncomfortable for some.” These new factors are, according to Derrick De Kerckhove, globalization and digitalization, two red threads that stitch together the variety of themes and initiatives that characterize the latest edition of the Ars Electronica Festival, which will take place at Linz (Austria) September 1 through 6, 2005.
After the memorable events of the twenty-fifth year, Ars Electronica starts out with an open and cross-disciplinary reflection on hybrids, in the conviction that «no other term provides such a consummately appropriate and comprehensive description of the highly paradoxical current state of our world, one that is characterized by interrelationships, which, among other things, are extraordinarily contradictory», as declares Gerfried Stocker (Director, with Christine Schopf of Ars Electronica). A hybridization is born by manipulating the codes on which our current lives are founded, from linguistic to digital, and atomic to genetic, and which we can verify at all levels: in biotechnology as in “culture jamming”, in nanotechnology as in innumerable post-production practices, in new languages created by the flow of immigration as well as by on-line communication, in new hybrid and multifunctional hybrids, in the breaking down of barriers that separate states, disciplines, roles and styles.
The first hybrid is human. And living in paradox. A mix of mind and matter, [...] humankind is in a permanent state of hybridization
Therefore, it is an ambitious mission that the Festival proposes to tackle, using the well-tested formula found in high profile discussions, expositions and performances. It makes Ars Electronica an inescapable tour de force not only for those interested in new media art but also those who simply wish to have the keys to interpretation of the present and the near future. This year Symposium will take a central role once again, supervised and moderated by Derrick de Kerckhove, long-time director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology at the University of Toronto. In four sessions planned for 2-3 September, the symposium will attempt to understand if hybridization is destined to become a permanent characteristic of the globalized world, determine the factors that guide hybridization and verify their economic, political and cultural embodiments, analyzing the identifying hybridizations and the transformations of the body.
Tomek Baginski, Fallen Art sketch for the Doctor © Tomek Baginski / Platige Images
Performances and Campus Exhibition will be entrusted, as previously, to a “host” institution, in this case the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology of Bangalore (India) and to its director Geetha Narayanan. The exhibition, titled “Tana-Bana – Designing Substantive Freedoms” and hosted by the University of Artistic and Industrial Design of Linz, gets its inspiration from the contradictions that characterize Indian society (where high level technological research cohabits with a society that is still underdeveloped: the first world with the third), to affirm the role of art, design and new technologies in reconstructing the freedom on which one constructs a harmonious social life based on integration and community: a reflection that, from 1996 (year it was founded), has established the basis of the Srishti School’s activities and that aims to position it within the European political debate, offering its new perspective. Srishti School also proposes a live performance in Linz’s main square, which will feature classical musician Tara Kini and director and media artist Shabnam Virmani performing in Linz in association with the Indian folk artist Prahlad Singh Tipaniya who will perform from Malwa, in India: an experiment of real time translation of Indian folk art according to the cultural parameters of the globalized West. Finally, during the Festival, the annual series of the Prix Ars Electronica will conclude by awarding its “Golden Nica”, the coveted Oscar of new media art, with the CyberArts 2005 Exhibition, accompanied by the presentation of the winners’ own work.
These latter, recently released, were chosen from over 2900 projects coming from 71 countries. Among the winners, stand out, the Polish film Fallen Art, a superb animation with a black humour that tells the tale of the happenings in a military base gone mad (Computer Animation / Visual Effects); project Akshaya, a development program that within three years has opened 6000 internet points in India available for use to the local population (Digital Communities); and Processing, the innovative programming language developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry and now used by a vast network of researchers, artists and students (Net Vision). Among the 12 “Awards of Distinction” projects of large popularity were chosen, from the Incredibles by Pixar to the Free Software Foundation, from the really famous yugop.com, by Yugo Nakamura, to Vote.auction.net by Ubermorgen, that during the American elections offered the voters the opportunity to put their vote up for auction; but the all Italian surprises too such as Telestreet and New Global Vision, an online database of independent video material. All this, Gerfried believes, is the sign that new media art now stretches over a broad spectrum of ideas and is no longer using itself as a sole reference.
