Post City – Ars Electronica Festival 2015
3. – 7. September 2015
Post-Building, Bahnhofplatz 11, 4020 Linz

Interface Cultures Student Exhibition and Seminar at Ars Electronica 2015

Faculty: Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Michaela Ortner, Reinhard Gupfinger and Marlene Brandstätter

What is “Post-Post” ?

Post-media, post-web and post-digital are the new buzzwords of our times. Media are now available everywhere and anytime; in fact, it is becoming difficult to switch them off and remain “off-grid.” Smart devices, geo media and surveillance systems are spinning a dense panoptic web all around us. [1] The physical world is becoming increasingly infiltrated by digital technologies, while social networks have turned us into “smart mobs” whose behavior can be foreseen and pre-calculated.

It has become the norm to have almost all facets of our lives augmented by media. Post-media merely means that media are now an integral part of our technological lifestyle.

Herlander Elias states that in this post media world nothing is ever finished and “update is the default setting.” [1] According to him, our screen civilization is so accustomed to interaction and connectivity that interfaces have become invisible; we do not even notice them.

But there is a downside to all of these increased interactions and connections: we need to constantly pull, save, collect, publish, edit and connect, but we are also beginning to realize that all of this is not really necessary. A kind of protest movement is emerging in this “post-Google” and “post-Snowden” world, where the old is the new new and being passive and critical is the new trend.

So how about being post-post, instead of being post-media? Being beyond something else is a sign of progress, but what about being beyond being beyond? Are we really there yet?

This year’s Interface Cultures student project exhibition constitutes a provocative answer to the new post-media trends. The projects that are presented can be futuristic, retro, post-, pre-, post-post or just art. While we of course need to be aware of new technological and societal trends and to reflect on them, we do not need to feel obliged to follow all of them. Being post-post is our artistic answer.

[1] Herlander Elias, Post Web-The Continuous Geography of Digital Media, Formalpress, 2012.

“Post-Post” Student Exhibition

The location of this year’s student exhibition in Interface Cultures is interesting in many ways: it is the former headquarters of the Austrian Post Office in Linz. Last year this company moved out and this year the Interface Cultures students have moved in. There, 23 international students will exhibit art works which they realized during the past year of studies.

Opening time:
3rd – 7th September
Open daily from 10:00 to 19:00

“Post-Post” Seminar

Besides featuring these student projects, we will also hold a small international seminar. There, scholars and artists such as Prof. Herlander Elias from University of Beira Interior in Portugal, Prof. Machiko Kusahara from Waseda University in Tokyo, Prof. Erkki Huhtamo from UCLA in the USA, Prof. Ryszard W. Kluszczyński from the University of Lodz in Poland and Prof. Stahl Stenslie of Aalborg University in Denmark and Prof. Christa Sommerer and Prof. Laurent Mignonneau will discuss the latest trends in media art. They will also reflect on the topic of post media and interface criticism from an artistic point of view.

5th September 2015
from 14:00 to 15:30 at Post City, Knowledge Capital District.

 

Performance Night

Fri. 4.9.2015, Post City, Gleishalle

8.20 p.m. to 8.35 p.m. “Unify” Jürgen Ropp, Arno Deutschbauer
9.15 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. “Looper” Jens Vetter

Music Monday

Mon. 7.9.2015, Post City, Gleishalle

11.30 a.m.  Performance self-luminous by Yen Tzu Chang

In the exhibition:
2.20 p.m. / Netz by Jens Vetter
2.40 p.m. / LARD by Oliver Lehner