I wanna be an media artist ;D

Four days at Linz did the job: I have become a Ars Electronica fan. The event was exciting, diverse and rich nicely mixing workshops, lectures, exhibitions and other events. Linz and St. Florian were pleasant places, the weather was good and the city full of digital media art & music enthusiasts. I did not agree with jury about all the Golden Nica winners and I did not like John Maeda’s session at St. Florian but that was about all the minuses I can share with you.


"The technology of the modern media has produced new possibilities of interaction. (…) What is needed is a wider view encompassing the coming rewards in the context of the treasures left us by the past experiences, possessions and insights."
RUDOLF ARNHEIM, 2000

My top 3 of Ars Electronica06:

1) Tmema (Drawn & The manual input station)
…because Mr. Lieberman & Mr. Levin highlighted that enchanting and wonderful media art work does not have to be a huge indigestible system with fluids, flashing lights and GPS information. Tmema pieces utilize people’s natural creativity – linked with interactivity plus easy composition of music and visuals. Tmema pieces both reproduce old ideas by e.g. Myron Krueger (Videoplace) and mix them with fresh solutions. Also Tmema feat Erkki Huhtamo lecture-performance was great.

2) Greyworld.org
...because the presentation was great! But why haven’t I heard of Greyworld before? I am puzzled. Or actually I have but I didn’t know that they have done way more exciting works than the one (‘hanging balls’) at the London Stock Exchange. Especially I liked the idea of ‘a living wall’ doing all magic tricks. One of their ideas was to use bouquet ( the similar kind of what magicians use) and push the flowers through the wall to make different patterns. It might sound weird but it was super!

3) Toshio Iwai
...because I have been a fan of Toshio Iwai since Prof. Erkki Huhtamo presented his works to us (his former students) at the end of 1990s. Electroplankton (for Nintendo DS) might be the most well know art work of Mr. Iwai. One of his public art pieces can be experienced at Bloomberg show room in Tokyo.

Media art students / media artists from Helsinki University of Art And Design were also well presented. They had set up nice mixture of their works from 2001-2006. QuiQui & Animaatiokone (Perttu Hämäläinen &co), UMBRA (Markku Nousiainen & co) and ‘What you do is what you hear’ (Kalle Mäntsälä & Matthieu Savary) were the top three of Mlab works (IMHO). Also Petri Kola & Minna Nurminen had a hilarious Sankari talk karaoke show at the Rothen Krebsen.

Those four days at Linz were full of benevolence and excitement.