Production Science

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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: Eugene Ahn [South Korea] and Hye Ki Min [South Korea]
Topic: Education
Location: New York, NY, USA
Website: www.linkcube.cc

LinkCube is a pair of networked units stationed in public spaces in two international cities and allows people to take pictures together in real-time. Using real-time data exchange, LinkCube creates an immersive experience — one of being together with people who happen to be in affiliated photo booths, but are elsewhere in the world. In this space, the users, who are geographically distant, are presented on screen as if they were right next to each other. This closeness lets users get momentarily acquainted with other humans to whom they would not otherwise be exposed. As the two parties appear in the same picture plane on screen, they position themselves appropriately, posing together in an effort to take a successful photograph. What results is a set of playful interactions. The ultimate photographs serve as a tangible record of this memorable virtual experience.

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: Pierre Proske [Australia]
Tech: Damian Stewart
Software: Arturo Castro
Topic: Happiness
Location: Thimphu, Bhutan

In a response to accusations in 1987 by a journalist that the pace of development in Bhutan was slow, the then King of Bhutan replied “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product”. This signaled his commitment to building an economy appropriate to Bhutan’s culture, based on Buddhist spiritual values, and has since served as a unifying vision for the Bhutanese economy. In a survey in 2005, 45 percent of those Bhutanese surveyed reported being very happy, 52 percent reported being happy and only three percent reported not being happy. Grand Mutual Smiles is a two-way interactive installation that communicates between two parties through the transmission of images of smiling faces. Progressively captured pictures of smiling people are displayed on screens at each installation site. The motivation is to encourage users to communicate across the Internet in a non-verbal and humoristic way — by smiling. The project will present two real-time updating sets of people’s faces at each of the locations – Linz, Austria and Thimphu, Bhutan.

www.digitalstar.net

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: Marianne Schmidt [Germany]
Software Engineer: André Bernhardt
Topic: Progress
Location: 80+1 basecamp and AEC

Digitie is a real-time communication channel that connects two places. For both sides, it is only a little test of courage to put a hand inside the gadget. The two hands of strangers, from far distant places, meet each other real-time on a screen. Then, they can wave, handshake or arm wrestle — all the possibilities of gesticulation and interaction are open. The interlocutors playfully determine their own form of non-verbal communication. The project illustrates the importance and representation of analog, but technological forms of communication by using human hands. How can we generate and receive information of body language, especially of emotions, using digital media?

Project for <a href=”https://www.productionscience.com/?p=51″>80+1</a>. Digitie is a real-time communication channel that connects two places.