Archive for 80+1 Locations

80+1 – A journey around the world in 80 days

Production Science played an integral part in the realisation of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. The project formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09. As well as organising a virtual journey around the world, we were responsible for the construction of a temporary building in Hauptplatz, Linz and the collection of interactive art from around the world within. Our scope of work included project, budget and construction management and operation of the building for three months. We also constructed the technical framework for the ‘Global Window’ – a collaborative space designed to connect people and places worldwide in order to debate and share issues and create and explore social connections. More details: 80+1

80+1: White Shadow

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artists: Team4040
Concept and Production: Jesus Cabrera Hernandez (ESP),
Jona Hoier (AUT), Ulrike Gollner (AUT), Ebru Kurbak (TUR),
Sho Kuwabara (JPN), Tiago Martins (POR), Michael Probst (AUT),
Jeldrik Schmuch (AUT), Onur Sönmez (TUR)
Topic: Migration
Location, Mexico City, Mexico
Website: http://www.team4040.net/whiteshadow

White Shadow is a telematic sundial connecting people from Mexico City and
Linz through their shadows. Linz and Mexico City are physically 8 hours
apart. At any given time people in these two cities are experiencing
opposite phases of the day and night cycle. As nighttime falls in Linz, its
shadows fade out and the shadows in Mexico City grow longer. It is during
these hours that the shadows of a monument (appearing in white) and passer-by migrate from Mexico City to the Hauptplatz in Linz. It mimics the original shadow in size and shape, emulating a sundial. This white shadow provides the backdrop for projecting the silhouettes of passers-by in Mexico. As people in Linz step into the white shadow, their own shadows will also fall on it and meet the ones from Mexico.

80+1: WIA < > WIA (Water in Africa < > Water in Austria)

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about the 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artist: Melissa Fatoumata Touré [Mali]
Tech: Zoumana Habib Tounkara, Djelimady Samaké, Ballaké Touré, Sibiri Touré, Soumano Dieneba Touré [Mali]
Topic: Water
Location: Koulouninko, Mali
URL: website

Even if life is very different in Europe, there is the one issue that makes the very different in Africa and Europe: water. Our installation will compare the usage of water in Koulouninko (Mali) with the usage of water in Linz. There is one public well with the hand pump in Koulouninko (outside the capital city, Bamako) where we have attached a sensor that counts the amount of water the people pump. The data is then sent via Internet to Austria. Then, at a public toilet in Linz, the amount of water able to be flushed is determined by the amount of water that people in Koulouninko drink. If people in Linz want to flush more water than is used in Mali, then people in Austria have to pay for it. Their money is donated to an African well-drilling project.

Though the Wia Wia project was quickly revealed to be a fiction staged by anonymous artists, we find that it nevertheless does an outstanding job addressing several key aspects of 80+1 and have therefore decided to go ahead with it as proposed.

The project concept, even if it doesn’t actually take place, gets across to visitors in Linz in a very direct and effective way the reality of the global water crisis that will be severely exacerbated in the near future.
The visual staging of the project in the form of a collage of graphic material gathered online also dovetails nicely with an essential part of the 80+1 project’s mission—namely, implementing and reflecting the effectiveness of purely virtual relational and informational networks.

Moreover, the entire proceeds of the project will benefit a water project that’s active in the real world, and very successfully for that matter, though it, in turn, uses the internet as its main communications platform.

80+1: Urbanet: Johannesburg-Linz

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artists: Stephen Hobbs [South Africa] and Marcus Neustetter [South Africa]
Topic: Civil Society
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

The Hobbs/Neustetter team aims to introduce the European audience to the harsh, unusual and often abrasive social and economic conditions that produce a contradictory experience of the city and its various suburban realities. As a backdrop to their presentation, the polarities of apartheid and democratic change in South Africa vie for recognition. In other words, many conditions within the city today either perpetuate the previous order of the apartheid city or challenge to transform it in a new and confrontational way.

This project will take the form of an interactive camera and video screen, concealed within the Hauptplatz. One-on-one interaction with the camera will allow the viewer to scan the Hauptplatz and find various windows hosting a varied range of content on Johannesburg. In the week when the topic civil society is processed, a live phone call will give viewers in Linz access to an inhabitant in Johannesburg to converse about what they both see over the screen.

80+1: Topology of Dubai: The Mapping of Urban Change

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

“Topology of Dubai” highlights the construction crane and its movements that are the very expression of city growth. The collective purposeful movements of the crane operators becomes seemly random expressions when assembled together by the installation. However, their movements are not random, and their patterns of growth will become visible over time. The movements of numerous cranes are captured by streaming video cameras that have a clear view of building constructions sites around Dubai. The cameras will stream video to the Internet for viewing anywhere in the world. In Linz, software analyzes the incoming video to find the current orientation of the crane boom. This orientation data is then used by a 3D printer to construct a sculptural record of the city’s growth.

80+1: The Three Gorges of the Future

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artist:  Zhu Handong [China]
Photographer: Liao Hongbo [China]
Second Life Technician: Zhao Ken [China]
Project Assistant: Zhang Han [China]
Topic: Energy
Location: Three Gorges, China

This project is a combination of Internet, images and interactive devices between the virtual world and the world. The project is based on architecture, cultural objects and natural scenery that were submerged due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The project is an online interaction between Linz and real-time images from six major cities along the route. Viewers will be able to explore the virtual aspect of this community created in Second Life. This allows people in Linz to discover what existed before the dam was built. The Linz audience will be able to feel the present or future influences on Earth and on the residents — they can see the cultural and ethnic shifts that are all caused by the ecological changes in the Three Gorges region.

80+1: TaxiLink

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artists: Lila Chitayat [Israel] and Alon Chitayat [Israel]
Tech: Tal Chalozin [Israel]
Software: Michael Shynar [Israel]
Topic: Cultural Heritage
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Website: www.taxilinkproject.com

TaxiLink Project is an interactive installation that enables users to experience a distant, but authentic taxi ride in Jerusalem. While sitting in the static TaxiLink booth, virtual passengers join a real tour in and around the old city of Jerusalem, and can interact with a real-life taxi driver through live video and audio transmitted from across the world.

80+1: Soundshelters

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artist: Samir Ayyad [Gaza]
Topic: Coexistence
Place: Gaza

Soundshelters is an interactive multi-channel sound space that connects people in Linz and in Gaza. The “real sound” in Linz will be overlaid by sound travelling from Gaza to Linz and vice versa. There may be sounds of fighting or shooting from Gaza to Linz, or perhaps the sound of singing birds from Linz to Gaza. The main goal of Soundshelters is to create a space of mutual understanding, compassion, and maybe even love.

80+1: Movement & Impact

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artists: Sabine Haerri [Switzerland] and Yvonne Weber [Switzerland]
in Collaboration with the Ars Electronica Futurelab
Topic: Traffic
Location: Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland

Movement & Impact is an installation transporting the feeling of vehicles passing the Gotthard Road Tunnel. This road tunnel is a major highway artery where thousands of cars per day drive along this north-south axis in southern Switzerland. The movement and the characteristics of cars, such as direction and size of the car are passed on by use of real-time data from on-the-ground traffic senors. This data will trigger various sensations to an interface in Linz, where the viewer will be able to to sit or lie on a vibrating platform to experience the impact of this level of movement.

80+1: Microbloggingsuit for an Industrial Worker

This project was part of Ars Electronica’s ambitious 80+1 project. It formed part of the Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture Year, and was sponsored by Voestalpina and Linz 09.

Details about 80+1 project
80+1 website

Artist: Flaviu Moldovan [Romania]
Topic: Identity
Location: Pitesti, Romania

In the project “Microbloggingsuit for an Industrial Worker,” the artist wants to provide typical manual laborers with custom-build hands-free communication devices to connect them from any possible place on Earth to Internet. The repetitive work of a car producer, a textile sewer and a check-out person in supermarkets is verbalized as a Twitter message. The project aims to give him or her a voice and attempts to show what his or her work environment is like.