Ars Electronica presents: Data Bodies Space

Data, Bodies, Space shows an intriguing mix of different animation art practices, dealing with the “glitches” of our digitality-virtuality-reality condition. The selected shorts fast-forward to a future which is fascinating and frightening at the same time. In The Needlecast Rhapsody we witness a technology that can upload humans to distant locations in the galaxy. Moirai–Thread of Life also shows a journey to different cosmic dimensions and touches on quantum physics to explain notions of fate. Posthuman Hospital and My Mind As/Is Your Memory, My Body As/Is Your Substance take one to a nightmarish posthuman dystopia, whereas Rehousing Technosphere gives a more hopeful look into a new planetary ecology in a more-than-human future in which the digital is omnipresent yet endued with haptic and sensual properties. La Limite est une facade depicts a mesmerizing journey of fluidity and metamorphosis with a poetic approach, whereas CIRCVS MAXIMVS and Interchange feature a humorous take on virtual, computer-animated worlds and their relationship with the “real” world, highlighting the entanglements of power and control.

Program:

The Needlecast Rhapsody, Jonathan Armour (IE), 6’

Moirai – Thread of Life, Ina Conradi (US/SG) und Mark Chavez (US), 6’

The Posthuman Hospital, Junha Kim (KR), 7’

My Mind As/Is Your Memory, My Body As/Is Your Substance, Jieyuan Huang (CN/AT/DE), 3’

Rehousing Technosphere, Wang & Söderström (SWE), 6’

La Limite est une facade, Dorian Rigal Minuit (FR), 7’

CIRCVS MAXIMVS, Maxime Chudeau (FR), 3’

Interchange, Ryotaro Sato (JP), 8’

About the collab:

The 2023 Ars Electronica Animation Festival is a diverse showcase that invites spectators to discover current artistic productions in the field of digital animation. The selection has been mostly compiled of the submissions at Prix Ars Electronica 2023, which shifted its focus this year from Computer Animation to the landscape of New Animation Art. Several exciting programs give witness to the diversity of this renewed category, not only in terms of storytelling techniques, conceptual explorations and technological innovation, but also in terms of their commitment to social change and new political imaginaries.

From the 1,120 submissions, around 30 projects were selected for Ars Electronica Animation Festival, featuring a broad spectrum of styles and techniques: AI-generated images, cinematic deepfakes, hybrids between games and animations, animated documentaries and experimental-abstract works. This diverse selection invites new ways of thinking about how we experience the digital-virtual-real world we live in.

The Ars Electronica Animation Festival ON TOUR, organized by Ars Electronica in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, comprises five of the festival programs: Electronic Theatre, featuring works honored by the Prix Ars Electronica jury, Austrian Panorama, highlighting current works of local artists, Young Animations featuring shorts from the Prix Ars Electronica’s u19-create your world category, and two thematic compilations titled AI & Human and Data, Bodies Space.