Futurelab

In the context of the Austrian-wide research night “Long Night of Research”, the Ars Electronica Futurelab invited the public to take a look behind the scenes and to participate in a range of activities connected to the lab’s main research interests.

Christopher Lindinger, director of the lab’s Research and Innovation Group, and the group’s co-director Roland Haring guided the visitors through the Futurelab and introduced them to some recent projects in the fields of artistic research, exhibition design and contract research.

At the Deep Space, Roland Haring presented future scenarios of artificial worlds and games with a special focus on the Deep Space itself. In this regard, he also demonstrated how the lab’s research efforts help to transform this unique space into the ultimate playground, where the boundaries between reality and fiction dissolve. One prominent example of recent Futurelab research, the brain-computer-interface-based game “BrainBattle”, was presented by Veronika Pauser. In another part of the research night’s program, Martina Mara discussed new developments in the field of robotics and introduced the visitors to some of the robots at the Ars Electronica Center.

On May 21, TECHNO LOG 12 will take place at the Ars Electronica Center. It is dedicated to the topic of “Interface Human Being – Challenge Machine”.

In their keynote speeches, internationally renowned experts Dr. Ulrich Eberl and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Peter Purgathofer will provide an insight to the global corporation Siemens’ visionary considerations, ranging from recent developments in research laboratories to upcoming market-ready technologies.

In the second part of the programme, four themed presentations will examine further details regarding the event’s topic. The last part of the event consists of either a guided tour through the Ars Electronica Center, in order to experience the future, or participating in innovation workshops in the context of the FFG-funded research project CADET.

TECHNO LOG 12 is a cooperation of Ars Electronica Futurelab, Center for Advances in Digital Entertainment Technologies (CADET) and the University of Applied Science  Salzburg.

Further information about the event, the presentations and CADET are provided at www.technolog.at and www.cadet.at.

A Project of the City of Linz Municipal Enterprises

There is probably no other city in Austria that has undergone such a dramatic transformation in recent years as Linz. Today, the Province of Upper Austria’s capital is modern, open, socially conscious, public spirited and green. Now, the City of Linz has created an exhibition that showcases these developments in a very innovative way. LINZ CHANGES delivers unusual and fascinating insights into just what it is that makes Linz such a great place to live and work. Eleven interactive installations arrayed on 700 m² of exhibition space were conceived and executed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab; the construction was done by Messemanagement Linz GmbH; Linz’s ANY:TIME architectural bureau came up with the physical design.

This installation’s focus is set on the Borealis Linz Donau Marathon of LIVA, the biggest running sports event in Upper Austria, which has developed into a spectacular and respected event in the European runners’ scene within six years. Starting with 5.600 runners in the year of 2002, more than 15.000 runner took part in the event in 2011. The event attracted an audience of 100.000 people.

The Finger Marathon invites visitors to test their sports abilities. 1 to 4 perople can run a section of the marathon distance with their fingers.

Before the game, a playing piece is personalized with a picture, then all avatars appear at the starting line and the countdown begins. The runners start to run, they are shown from the side, in the background sights of Linz are shown. The marathon starts at the Voest Bridge and ends at the Main Square.

After all runners have passed the finishing line, a short awards ceremony animation takes place, and the player’ results become part of the Highscore. There are daily winners and all time winners.

LILO is a local railway in Upper Austria, which was opened in 1912, covering the route Linz – Eferding – Waizenkirchen – Peuerbach – Neumarkt. In the context of the Urfahraner Markt, LILO celebrates its 100-year existence with a book presentation at the Exhibition tent “Linz verändert” on May 1, 7.00 pm.

The E-locomotive “Liesl” will be on display for all of the week. The locomotive E 22 002 was first used in 1912 as a freight train on the newly built Linzer Local Railway as Nr. 1. After purchasing stronger locomotives in the 1930s, she was only used occasionally. Today it is used as a nostalgia train.

Linz in Numbers presents different facts about the city and the work of “Unternehmensgruppe Linz” (UGL). The slide shows displayed on the screens can be selected by topic: Future Linz, Social Aspects, Life, Education, Traffic, Infrastructure, Health, Sports & Leisure, Culture. The visitors can skim through the facts, according to their interests.

Through another button you get an overview of each of the UGL companies, as well as the common mission statement.

In addition, the results of the citizens survey2011 are presented. The visitors can click through 20 teasers, which display important results. In case of further interest, the statistics themselves and an explanation by Mag. Dietmar Bartl, head of the city research department of Linz, are provided. On slide 21, the method of the survey are explained in detail.

Graduate students from the Royal College of the Arts, a collective of Irish Scientists, Science Gallery members, and Ars Electronica Futurelab joined a workshop to discuss the topic of Synthetic Biology. Creative process prepared by the RCA sparked creative collisions between the designers, scientists and artists, and inspired scenarios, biomachines, and mutant products for future projects.

As part of his residency, Julius is making interventions at the CERN laboratory. The first intervention took place in one of the hidden spaces at CERN where no one ever goes: the underground tunnels which have housed the archives of the organisation since 1954.

22 physcists were led in complete darkness through the  winding tunnels to another small, enclosed space which they had never seen before. They were placed in different positions in the room, being warned that other people could be in there too – their only sense of the space  and who might be there being generated when they spoke. Unable to see, deprived of their visual sense, they were asked to describe what they saw in this dark-space, after they had listened to an old recording of Bertrand Russell discussing Plato and his save of representation.