(since i forgot to bring along my charger and my camera died at the dawn of day two, this movie is not exactly representative. anyway, audiovisual mushup.)


Last Friday Mathias and I set off for Linz, this years European Capital of Culture (along with Vilnius), and home of Ars Electronica, famous festival for art, technology and society.


http://www.aec.at/festival_about_en.php


Since thirty years this event has been the most prominent stage for Digital Art. The Festival is a mixture of exhibitions, performances, lectures, symposiums, concerts, films and parties. Ars often exhibits exotic, experimental and cutting edge technology (what others may call “the future”) in an interactive, participative way – thus attracting lots of press and enjoying huge popularity. Since some years Ars also awards a Prix (A wad of money and a “Golden Nica” statuette) for “Cyber Art” – this is considered the Oscar for Electronic Art. As the mayor of Linz confessed in his speech at the Award Ceremony Gala, it is this festival alone, that has transformed the industrial town of Linz into a cultural centre.


Anyway. Despite Ars’ popularity and it’s consequent misgivings, this is THE place for us to meet great people and to be inspired. In our hot phase of camp-preparation we’re frantically reaching out to “experts” in art, science, philosophy, economy and (this will be especially important) prototyping. We want to provide our 30 camp-residents with the best assistance we can get. And, yes, of course we also spread the word of Palomar5.


We met with curators, Students and Tutors from MIT and UDK, trend scouts, philosophers, writers, product and fashion designers, media artists, an anthroposophic IT-woman, one open source evangelists and a couple of eToy special agents.


A couple of links for you. People we met, projects we found interesting:


http://missioneternity.org/


http://www.v2.nl/


http://www.lentos.at/en/45_1769.asp (go see this!!!)


http://rebell.tv/


http://www.rt80.net/portfolio/overview/


http://www.juliusvonbismarck.com/


http://web.media.mit.edu/~ishii/


http://sambaron.blogspot.com/


http://www.joachimsauter.com/


http://www.bareconductive.com/home.html


http://www.fortlaan17.com/nl/kunstenaars/malstaf/index.lasso


http://www.schmiede.ca/


http://skylla.klingt.org/