Ars Electronica Center
Encyclopedia
Electronic art
Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media or, more broadly, refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electronic music...
s run by Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...
situated in Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, at the northern side of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
opposite the city hall of Linz. It has been built on the right side of the Nibelungenbrücke.
Museum 1996–2008
The building is also known as the "Museum of the Future" and is one of the most important sights in Linz. The most modern techniques from the technology sector are presented to the museum's many visitors. The museum has six floors filled with creative work from hi-tech laboratories all over the world.Museum exhibits
The top of the AEC is called the "Sky Media Loft", which is mainly used as a coffee house or bar of the museum. It can also be rented out for meetings or events. The bar has occasionally been used as the studio for the Newscast of the local TV branch of the Austrian national TV organization ORFORF
ORF may refer to:* ORF , the Austrian public service broadcaster.* Open reading frame, a portion of the genome.* The IATA airport code for Norfolk International Airport in Norfolk, Virginia.* ORF format , Olympus raw image file format....
. The speciality of the "Sky Media Loft" is the marvellous view over the Nibelungenbrücke and the main place of Linz at the other side of the Danube which functions as background of the Newscasts.
The second floor is also the floor where people can "Get in Touch" with the exhibits. There are Musicbottles filled with different sorts of music or Pingpongplus which is a Ping-Pong game on a desk with virtual Water on its surface waiting for the visitor to be explored.
The first floor offers the world that had been hidden from our eyes. In the "Hidden Worlds" various machines are translating our voice and our words into virtual symbols or colours and everyday life articles can be moved on a screen if they are touched.
The little room between the first and the ground floor one of the main attractions is offered. The flight simulator
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...
"Humphrey" allows to dive into a world only made up by bits and bytes. The virtual reality goggle gives the user the right view of the flight and the person taking the trip is connected to the computer by cables fixed all over the body. It is possible to fly everywhere and to see the movements of the hands, feet and the landscape if the visitor raises the head or looks down.
The entrance or the so called "Login Gateway" of the museum is on the ground floor and leads the newcomer directly to the Telegarden
Telegarden
The TeleGarden was a telerobotic community garden for the Internet. Starting in the mid-1990s, it allowed users to view, plant and take care of a small garden, using an Adept-1 industrial robotic arm controlled online....
where a robot is looking after a flower patch. Every ticket is provided with a bar code
Barcode
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...
that gives information about the time the visitor stepped into the museum. After the visit the ticket can be put into a computer near the Exit and it gives statistic information about the things that happened in the world during the span of the stay in the AEC. The List that is printed out gives information about how many people died or were born during that time or how many accidents have been caused by drunken drivers.
The last floor is called "Virtual Reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
" and it can be found in the basement of the building. The CAVE
Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to three, four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube...
is another attraction of the museum. The cube with 3 meters side length is used as a screen to project the virtual world. There are always groups of about 10 that dive into a world were no physically laws do not have any meaning. Additionally, the 3D eyeglasses give the impression of a bodyful environment.
Museum 2009–present
The new Ars Electronica Center, which was designed by Treusch architecture ZT GmbH, opened its doors on January 2, 2009 after roughly two years of construction work and an approximate cost of 30 million Euros. It now has 3000 square meters for exhibitions, 100m2 for research and development, 400m2 for workshops and conferences, 650m2 for catering and another 1000m2 square meters of public space for various types of events, e.g. Red Bull Upside Down on February 12, 2010.The new AEC consists of the original building, a new "twin-tower", the main exhibition hall called "Main Gallery" and the new space for the Ars Electronica Futurelab. The whole building is covered with a 5000 square meter glass skin that consists of 1100 glass panels. Each panel is equipped with an LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
Bar that allows to change its color. Therefore the whole building acts as a giant display. Artists can create their own visualisations which will be shown on various occasions, especially during the Festival Ars Elecronica.
The restaurant is located at the third floor of the new building and is calles CUBUS, referring to the buildings's cubic shape
Museum exhibits
With the new building came a new thematic orientation inside of Ars Electronica. Life sciences, global developments (e.g. climate change, population growth, environmental pollution) and the exploration of the universe are just a view of various new topics.The museum can be separated into the following areas:
Main Gallery
Main Gallery with approximately 1000 square meters houses the main exhibition called "New Views of Humankind", which focuses on topics like biotechnology, robotics, rapid prototyping and the human body. It is separated into the following four so-called "Labs":- Brain-Lab: This area focuses on the human brain, perception and advances in medicine.
- Bio-Lab: In this Lab, the focus lies on biotechnologyBiotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
and its applications. - Fab-Lab: This Lab deals with new possibilities offered by 3D printers and rapid prototypingRapid prototypingRapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using additive manufacturing technology. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications...
. - Robo-Lab: As the name suggests, this Lab deals with robotica as well as different prothetic systems.
Main Gallery contains a special area for children which is not thematically connected to the main exhibition.
Geo City
Geo City focuses on global developments caused by humankind, like growth in population and the extraction of natural resources. Those global developments are connected with possible local reactions, which is visualized in an interactive City Information System called Sim-Linz.Artists, Creators, Engineers
This is the area for temporary exhibitions consisting of the first and second floor of the original building and focuses on the interdisciplinary aspects of Ars Electronica and its contributors. Detailed informations about current and future exhibitions can be found at the official web site.Deep Space
The Deep Space is a multifunctional presentation room that offers a wide range of possibilities. It consists of two walls (front and floor) with dimensions of 16:9 meters which serve as screens for 8 Galaxy NH-12 projectors by BarcoBarco
Barco N.V. is a display hardware manufacturer specialising in video projectors, LCD projectors, DLP projectors, LCoS projectors, LED displays, video walls, flat panel displays, automated luminaires, digital lighting and lighting controls....
. The range of projects ranges from high-resolution videos to scientific (3D) visualisations like a flight out from the solar system to the whole known universe and artistic projects. Dates of special events involving Deep Space presentations can be found at the official web site.
Opening hours, guides, fees and guided tours
Opening hours- Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 9 am - 5 pm
- Thursday: 9 am - 9 pm
- Saturday, Sunday: 10 0am - 6 pm
- Monday closed (except public holidays)
For those who are frightened to be faced with a world too complex and confusing, there are "Infotrainers" to help visitors through the exhibits. The "Infotrainers" are not machines, but humans who can answer questions immediately and show visitors around more than 3000 square meters of exhibition area.
The entrance fee, as of 2010, is 7€ for adults and 4€ price for children and others eligible for reduced fees. A full-year pass is available as well and is priced 25€ full and 15€ discounted.
Discounts for families and groups are available as well. More information can be found at the official web site.
Guided tours are offered every day, with starting times at 11 am and 2 pm. Custom tours can be booked appointed at different times and in various other languages.
More information about guided tours and bookings can be found at the official web site.
FutureLab
The same building holds the Ars Electronica FutureLab, a place for researching and trying out new cyberarts technologies. See also the Prix Ars ElectronicaPrix Ars Electronica
The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music...
, a yearly award ceremony given out by Ars Electronica at their cyberarts festival. Since 2004, one of the awards at the Prix Ars Electronica brings a young innovator or team of innovators to the FutureLab for a summer to develop a budding idea or technology in electronic media.