As my time was limited i headed to the main ars electronica centre first. Here, the first exciting installation i saw was 'Humphrey 2' involving a man flying virtually through Linz. The technology was similar to a flight simulator, although the user controls the simulation. Slight arm and leg movements allow the user to glide through the city - and even under water. Various feedback from people who tested this said they did actually feel weightless as if they were flying.
Next we were called to the 'cave' by Dan Sandin. We all put on some LCD glasses and travelled through various 3D worlds, from Linz to Rome. There were three screens which emerced you in the visualisation. The technology was pretty impressive, however the graphics were sparse and i ended up feeling quite nauseous.
The 'diorama table' by Keiko Takahashi was quite fun to play with, there were various ropes and shapes that could be arranged to trigger a variety of virtual animations, such as flowers and water. The concept was that real objects could communicate with new fantasy worlds through an overhead camera. Although we didn't see this happen, apparently, if a sweet is put on to the table, the tracking system recognises the new object and an animated dog eats the sweet.
Another fun installation was the 'phantasm' by Takahiro Matsuo, and was one of my favourites in this section. The concept is simple, which I appreciated but it was aesthetically pleasing. The installation was at the back of the ars electronica centre, cordoned off by white netting. There was a red LED ball and a sensor camera above the installation. The ball could be thrown anywhere around the netting and virtual animations would follow the ball real time.
After this we made our way to another museum in the city, that claimed they could take a photograph of your eye and then when the photograph is processed with the help of technology they could visualise the last memory you were thinking of. we felt quite apprehensive about this, although this kind of technology is supposedly used on murder victims to visualise what their murderer looked like.
The camera:
The photograph of the memory:
Personally, I really don't know how they could claim that this was real, because the photograph did not trigger anything from my memory, and this was the same for my two friends i was with at the time. It was although they had a file of archive images which they then manipulated together with a photograph of our own eye to make it appear more realistic.
The next day i visited the OK centre where most of the entries for the interactive, hybrid art entries were held. This was the most interesting part of Ars Electronica because the work entered was so advanced, it was pretty impressive.
My favourite was the 'golden nica' of the digital musics category called 'reactable' by Sergi Jorda, Gunter Geiger and the Music Technology Group, Barcelona. The entry could have been part of the hybrid art genre, or even interactive art as the table was pretty versatile. The table adopts quite a user friendly interface, with graphics that people of any language, any age and any ability could access with no difficulty. It can be used, by 1, 2 or up to 10 people, and it gives the users a chance to compose a song together.
Here is the video i made whilst i was watching people use the reactable table, which demonstrates how easy it is to use, and the amazing results that can be achieved when people work together. There was no communication between the people that were using the table, it was purely made through mutual understanding and experimentation. The table has even now been used by Bjork on one of her tours around Europe.
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