Tiempos exponenciales. Exponential times.

Montxo Algora / Director ArtFutura

Fue hace ahora 20 aos. A finales del 89 viva en California y desde Barcelona me ofrecieron la posibilidad de organizar un festival de arte y tecnologa. Era el ao en el que todo el mundo techie en California hablaba de lo mismo: Realidad Virtual. Recuerdo una tarde de domingo en casa de Timothy Leary en Sunbrook Drive planeando el festival como quien planea un viaje: Timothy llam a Eric Gullichsen (de Autodesk) quien propuso traerse un casco de Realidad Virtual (el primero que se mostrara en Espaa), William Gibson se apunt desde Vancouver y Rebecca Allen propuso a Scott Fisher que entonces trabajaba en el Ames Research Center de la NASA, el centro puntero en investigacin de Telepresencia y VR. Vine a Barcelona y durante varios meses le tomamos prestadas las antiguas oficinas a Javier Mariscal (con quien siempre tendremos una deuda de gratitud). Nos dej un ordenador IBM que funcionaba con MS-DOS y con el que nos pasamos tres meses batallando. Era el invierno del 89 y los mensajes, los envibamos por correo. Correo-correo. Tardaban en llegar 10 das a Estados Unidos. Eso y el telfono (carsimo entonces) eran las nicas dos formas de comunicarse. En la segunda edicin todo cambi: De repente tenamos fax. Y alucinbamos como un documento introducido en una extraa mquina aqu, sala al mismo tiempo al otro lado del ocano, all. Eso y la videoconferencia en blanco y negro montada con Electronic Caf fueron los hitos de se ao. Fue cuando explot la primera guerra del Golfo y tuvimos a todos nuestros invitados -desde Laurie Anderson a Mark Pellington- viendo como caan las bombas en verde sobre Bagdad.

No fue hasta la tercera edicin, del ao 92, cuando nuestros invitados californianos vinieron hablando de una cosa extrasima llamada Internet. Es ms, Kevin Kelly (que al ao siguiente lanzara junto a Chris Anderson la revista WIRED) nos ofreci una conferencia que fue un ejemplo de clarividencia y de fe en el futuro de la Red. Red con maysculas. Pocos imaginbamos entonces que el mundo se transformara de una forma tan rpida en los prximos aos. Fue hace veinte aos y nuestro mundo ha cambiado. Vivimos en, lo que alguien ha llamado, tiempos exponenciales. Cada mes hay 31 mil millones de bsquedas en Google. Cada da intercambiamos ms de 6.000 millones de mensajes de texto. Si Facebook fuera un pas, sus 300 millones de usuarios le convertiran en el tercer pas ms poblado de la Tierra. Y China ser dentro de poco el pas con ms angloparlantes del mundo. El futuro se ha acelerado. En 1984 el nmero de equipos conectados a Internet no llegaba a los mil. En 1990 - cuando comenz ArtFutura habra unas cien mil personas conectadas a la red. En el 95 todo explot: Ms de 16 millones. Y actualmente el nmero de usuarios de Internet supera los 1.668 millones. Desde finales de los aos 50, la Ley de Moore se cumple regularmente y cada dos aos se dobla la capacidad de nuestros procesadores. Se calcula que para el ao 2015 crearemos los primeros ordenadores que superarn en inteligencia al ser humano. Y para el ao 2050 tendremos ordenadores - asequibles a cualquiera - y que tendrn, cada uno de ellos, la capacidad y la inteligencia de todos los seres humanos juntos. Vivimos en tiempos exponenciales. Y en ste contexto se hace cada vez ms urgente la pregunta: Qu queremos hacer con nuestras nuevas capacidades?

It was twenty years ago now. At the end of 89, I was living in California and from Barcelona, I was offered the possibility of organizing a festival of art and technology. It was the year in which everyone techie in California talked about the same thing: Virtual Reality. I remember one Sunday afternoon in Timothy Learys house in Sunbrook Drive planning the festival just like someone planning a trip: Timothy phoned Eric Gullichsen (from Autodesk) who proposed taking a Virtual Reality helmet (the first to be show in Spain), William Gibson joined in from Vancouver and Rebecca Allen proposed Scott Fisher who was then working in NASAs Ames Research Center, the leading center in investigation into Telepresence and VR. I came to Barcelona and, for a number of months, borrowed an office from Javier Mariscal (to whom we will always be grateful). He lent us an IBM computer that ran on MS-DOS which we spent the next three months fighting with. It was the winter of 89 and the messages we sent by mail. Snail-mail. They took ten days to get to the USA. This and the telephone (very expensive then) were our only means of communication. For the second edition, everything changed: suddenly, we had fax. And we were amazed at how a document put into that strange machine here, appeared at the same time on the other side of the ocean, there. That and the videoconferences in black and white organized with Electronic Caf were the heights of that year. It was when the first Gulf War broke out and we had all our guests from Laurie Anderson to Mark Pellington watching the bombs fall on Bagdad in green.

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It wasnt until the third edition, 1992, when our guests from California came over talking about this strange thing called Internet. Whats more, Kevin Kelly (who launched the magazine WIRED along with Chris Anderson the following year) offered us a conference that was an example of clairvoyance and faith in the future of the network. Network in capital letters. Few of us imagined then that the world was going to change so much and so quickly over the following few years. It was twenty years ago and our world has changed. We live in, what somebody has called, exponential times. Every month, there are 31 thousand million searches in Google. Every day, we exchange more than 6,000 million text messages. If Facebook were a country, its 300 million users would make it the third most populated country on Earth. And China will very soon be the country with the highest number of English speakers in the world. The future is coming faster. In 1984, the number of computers connected to Internet didnt even amount to a thousand. In 1990 when ArtFutura started there were some one hundred thousand people connected to the network. In 95, it exploded: more than 16 million. And, at present, the number of Internet users is more than 1,668 million. Since the end of the 50s, Moores Law has regularly been fulfilled and every two years, the capacity of our processors is doubled. It is calculated that by the year 2015, we will have created the first computers that exceed the human being in intelligence. And by the year 2050, we will have computers available to all that will each have the capacity and the intelligence of all human beings all together. We are living in exponential times. And in this context, there is a question that is more and more urgently demanding an answer: What do we want to do with our new capacities?

ArtFutura como experimento, 20 aos de conjugacin en futuro presente. ArtFutura as an experiment, 20 years of being conjugated in future present.
Alejandro Sacristn
Se me plantea que reflexione en este 20 aniversario de ArtFutura sobre mi visin acerca de la muestra ms importante de nuestro pas sobre arte y tecnologa, 3D, creacin audiovisual y new media. Mi visin es personal, no puede ser de otro modo. En estos 20 aos en los que he hecho o sido de casi todo respecto de ArtFutura: comisario, director ejecutivo, gerente administrador a mi pesar, director de produccin, cronista en los medios, espectador, usuario, ponente, creativo, currante, tengo que decir que en cada edicin siempre ha habido un momento, una situacin en donde he sentido que era parte del futuro presente, ese tiempo real tan difcil de aprender. En los 90 ArtFutura ha sido uno de los pocos lugares en Espaa en los que exista ese espaciotiempo donde arte, ciencia y tecnologa convivan, jugaban al ajedrez, se entrecruzaban de manera natural. Donde era posible ver cada ao una pequea muestra internacional del arte electrnico, del arte tecnolgico, de lo que se estaba haciendo en ese momento ah fuera a nivel mundial, y a veces tambin aqu dentro. En ArtFutura se han presentado muchos trabajos e instalaciones de manufacturacin creativa multidisciplinar, interdisciplinar y transdisciplinar. Tambin ArtFutura ha seguido la evolucin de la Web en tiempo real: Comunidades Virtuales en 1995, Internet como Cyborg en 2000, La Red como lienzo en 2002, Realidad Aumentada en 2004, La prxima Web en 2007. Y dio el protagonismo a los videojuegos que stos merecen, aunque un poco tarde. Ocio Digital (1999) y siguientes, afortunadamente. ArtFutura quizs debera incluir una seccin ACT (interrelacin entre arte, ciencia y tecnologa) permanente. Cada edicin de ArtFutura ha tenido un tema principal, una denominacin que daba ttulo a cada una de ellas. De los 20 ttulos, la mitad tienen que ver con una tecnologa determinada en el marco ACT o con una forma artstica directamente emparentada con dicha tecnologa: Vida Artificial, Realidad Aumentada, Realidad Virtual, Robots y Knowbots, La prxima Web, y otros. Desde que recuerdo me he repetido a m mismo como si se tratase de un mantra que el arte electrnico es, ante todo, un experimento. ArtFutura ha dado buena cuenta de ello en estos aos. Pero ahora debemos decir claramente que el arte electrnico o el digital (que est incluido en el primero) era un experimento. El momento digital del arte segn proclama Roy Ascott ha quedado atrs, la teora lo ha asimilado y la prctica lo ha absorbido. An reconociendo esto ArtFutura debe seguir siendo lugar de encuentro de lo digital, del arte digital y del arte digital de masas (VDFX, Cine 3D digital, videojuegos), aquella muestra que acoja las mejores imgenes digitales pero tambin el ecosistema selvtico de informacin y activismo en el que se est convirtiendo la Web. Y adems ArtFutura nunca debe dejar de ser un experimento, un espacio en el que fluya el futuro. Que siga siendo un lugar para abrir nuevos cauces de expresin que alberguen nuevas visiones, nuevas emociones, nuevas esperanzas1. El arte tecnolgico del siglo XXI ha de trabajar con nuevas tecnologas como la biotecnologa, las neurociencias y la nanotecnologa, que son convergentes con una tecnologa de la informacin y de la comunicacin ya madura, y abordar temas como el problema de la identidad moderna, la biologizacin de las mquinas, la sociedad sincrtica, la interrelacin arte, ciencia y tecnologa, la evolucin cyborg, el metaverso social, el lifelogging, la Web 2.0, 3.0 como realidad aumentada y entorno de activismo socio-poltico, los espacios de autonoma digital ciudadana, la tecnotica, la inteligencia ambiental, el hardware libre, etctera, etctera. Y ArtFutura deber ser escaparate y lugar de debate de todo ello. On ArtFuturas 20th anniversary, I have been asked to reflect on my view of the most important exhibition in our country of art and technology, 3D, audiovisual creation and new media. My view is personal; it couldnt possibly be anything else. Over these 20 years in which Ive done or been almost everything as far as ArtFuturas concerned: curator, managing director, chief administrator, to my regret, product manager, feature writer for the press, spectator, user, speaker, creative, worker, I have to say that in every edition there has always been a moment, a situation in which Ive felt that I was part of the future present, this real time thats so difficult to seize. In the 90s, ArtFutura was one of the few places in Spain where there was that space-time where art, science and technology coexisted, they played chess, they interwove in a natural way. Where, every year, it was possible to see a little international show of electronic art, of technological art, of what was being done at the time internationally, and sometimes here. In ArtFutura, a lot of works and installations of multidiscipline creative manufacture, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary have been presented. ArtFutura has also followed the evolution of the Web in real time: Virtual Communities in 1995, Internet as Cybog in 2000, The Net as a Canvas in 2002, Enhanced Reality in 2004, The Next Web in 2007. And it gave the prominence to videogames that they deserve, although a little late. Digital Leisure (1999) and the following, fortunately. Maybe ArtFutura should include an AST section (correlation between art, science and technology) permanently. Every edition of ArtFutura has had a leading theme, a denomination that gave a title to each of them. Of the 20 titles, half of them have something to do with a technology determined in the framework of AST or with an artistic form directly related to the technology referred to. Artificial life, Enhanced Reality, Virtual Reality, Robots and Knowbots, The Next Web, and others.

1.- Montxo Algora. Catlogo Realidad Virtual. Art Futura. 1990.

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Ever since I can remember, Ive repeated to myself, as if it were a mantra, that electronic art is above all an experiment. ArtFutura has made this very clear over these years. But now, we should clearly say that electronic art or digital art (which is included in the first) was an experiment. The digital moment of art as Roy Ascott proclaimed is in the past, the theory has been assimilated and the practice absorbed. Although recognizing this, ArtFutura should continue to be a meeting place for the digital, for digital art and for the digital art of the masses (VDFX, 3D digital cinema, videogames), a fair that not only includes the best digital images, but also the sylvan ecosystem of information and activism which the Web is changing into. And, what is more, ArtFutura should never stop being an experiment, a space in which the future flows. It should continue to be a place to open new channels of expression that house new versions, new emotions, new hopes1. Technological art of the 21st century should work with new technologies such as biotechnology, neurosciences and nanotechnology which are convergent with a now mature technology of information and communication and deal with themes such as the problem of modern identity, biologization of machines, the syncretic society, correlation art, science and technology, cyborg evolution, social metaverse, lifelogging, the Web 2.0, 3.0 as enhanced reality and social-political environments, the spaces for digital citizen autonomy, technoethics, environmental intelligence, free hardware, etcetera, etcetera. And ArtFutura should be a display of and place for debate on all of this.

1.- Montxo Algora. Catalogue Virtual Reality. ArtFutura. 1990.

La Reinvencin del Futuro The Reinvention of the Future

Javier Candeira

Dos aparcaderos aguardan a todo proyecto con el adjetivo "futuro" o "futura" en el nombre: la nostalgia y presente. La nostalgia tiene su propia mquina del tiempo, y muchos sentimos aoranza por aquellos futuros de nuestro pasado, que ya no volvern porque, en toda fecha y lugar siempre ha sido cierto que "el futuro ya no es lo que era". En su versin ms sublimada, estos futuros fallidos entran a formar parte de nuestro inconsciente colectivo y retornan como visiones alteradas, fantasmagoras semiticas como la que William Gibson describi en su cuento "El continuo de Gernsback". Este es el destino de las mochilas cohete y los coches voladores, los reactores nucleares de bolsillo y las bases lunares amuebladas con material de oficina de diseo italiano. Son notas a pie de pgina de la cultura popular, cuentos cautelares contra las ambiciones pronosticadoras. Nos recuerdan que los futuros con xito se convierten en presente, y el resto es historia, real o fabulada. El otro punto de equilibrio que se puede encontrar un proyecto de futuro no es el vertedero de la historia, sino la marisma del da a da. A los 20 aos de su primera edicin, ArtFutura puede presumir de haber estado en la vanguardia de la interconexin entre la tecnologa y la creacin. Pero ahora la vanguardia est en todas partes. El futuro que, segn William Gibson, ya haba llegado pero an no estaba lo bastante distribuido, se preanuncia milisegundo a milisegundo a travs de la red. Internet es como un grifo que lo abres y sale futuro apto para consumo, en cualquier domicilio del mundo industrializado, siempre que a uno le valga un futuro muy, muy cercano. Ese es el reto y oportunidad de ArtFutura mirando hacia adelante. Un ao entre festival y festival es mucho tiempo de latencia cuando su propio pblico se instala cada vez ms en la retroalimentacin en tiempo real. Por eso sugiero que, a partir de ahora, ArtFutura abandone las ideas de futuros cercanos, y piense en el Gran Porvenir, que deje de pensar en los prximos

cinco aos y piense en el prximo siglo, los prximos mil siglos. Y para ello, la frmula sera adoptar a la vez un talante ms prctico y otro ms estrambticamente raro. Que se desdoble en dos ramas, una de ellas con "ms ciencia" y la otra con "ms ficcin". El talante prctico y la aplicacin de ms ciencia puede servir en la bsqueda de respuestas que nos permitan prolongar este presente tan tecnohalageo, respondiendo a la pregunta clave: "todo esto est muy bien, pero quin lo paga?". Llammoslo "enfoque Siglo Veintids", tambin conocido como "llegaremos al Siglo Veintids?" A finales de 2009, Internet consume tanta energa como Suecia. Qu pasar cuando los pases en vas de desarrollo emulen los hbitos de consumo de este presente nuestro que ellos ven en su futuro? De dnde sacaremos la energa? Sustituiremos los combustibles fsiles por biodiesel extrado de algas, o por energa solar fotovoltaica? De dnde sacaremos los materiales escasos, como los metales trans-lantnidos, tan necesarios para nuestras nuevas tecnologas sostenibles? Estas preguntas no son nuevas, pero s son ms acuciantes ahora que en 1989. Sera un error adoptar un Maltusianismo ingenuo y solamente reductor: la solucin no es volver al cultivo de la tierra en pequeas comunidades. Necesitamos una visin que se enfrente a los problemas tecnolgicos con ms y mejor tecnologa, no con menos. Y si bien los problemas sociales no tienen soluciones tecnolgicas, las soluciones sociales no pueden ignorar la naturaleza de las motivaciones humanas: confort, autoafirmacin, seguridad, necesidades que cada vez ms cubrimos mediante tecnologa. Para cada una de sus propuestas, ArtFutura podra intentar tambin responder a la pregunta: "s, muy bien pero, todo esto, quin lo paga?", con el subtexto constante de indagar cmo la cultura tecnolgica e industrializada puede sobrevivir a los prximos cien aos sin agotar el planeta.

El segundo enfoque consiste en que ArtFutura realice lo que Jos Cervera llama "donar su cerebro a la ciencia-ficcin", y se arriesgue a explorar ideas posiblemente descabelladas. El futurista Jim Dator suele decir que "cualquier idea sobre el futuro debera parecer ridcula", criterio que debera ser el listn a superar en esta segunda vertiente del festival. Ciudades hinchables. Trasplantes de cerebro. Nanotecnologa domstica. Animales inteligentes. Civilizaciones de Kardachef que utilizan toda la energa disponible de una estrella tras desmantelar los planetas y usarlos como materiales para construir una esfera de computronio. Cualquier proyecto sin riesgo de convertirse en un producto comercial en los prximos cien aos debera tener cabida en este espacio especulativo a muy largo plazo. Por qu debera ArtFutura encargarse de estas dos tareas? Muy sencillo. Hace 20 aos, nadie ms en Espaa trataba cara al pblico los temas que Montxo Algora y su equipo decidieron abordar, convirtiendo la especulacin cientfica y artstica en un espectculo de masas. Hoy, empresas y ciudadanos conspiran diariamente en pergear ese futuro inmediato que ArtFutura ha contribuido a acercar a nosotros. Esto deja un hueco sin cubrir: el de la reflexin y la reinvencin del futuro a medio y largo plazo. Por favor, Montxo, podemos reinventar ArtFutura?

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There are two parking lots full of projects that have the adjective future in their names: nostalgia and present. Nostalgia has its own time machine and many of us yearn for those futures of our past which will never come back. Wherever and whatever the date, it has always be true that the future isnt what it used to be. In their most sublime forms, these failed futures become part of our collective subconscious and come back as distorted visions, ghostly semiotics like those described by William Gibson in his tale The Gernsback Continuum. This is the destination of rocket backpacks and flying cars, pocket nuclear reactors and lunar bases furnished with Italian-designed office materials. They are footnotes of popular culture, wary warnings against ambitious predictors. We are reminded that successful futures becomes the present, and the rest is history, real or fable. The other end of the scale that you can find in a project of the future isnt the dumping ground for history, but the marshlands of our day to day. 20 years after its first edition, ArtFutura can boast about having been in the avant-garde of the interconnection between technology and creation. However, now the avant-garde is everywhere. The future which, according to William Gibson, had already arrived, but still wasnt sufficiently distributed is pre-announced millisecond by millisecond by the Net. Internet is like a tap that you open and a future, suitable for general consumption, comes out in any home in the industrialized world, as long as you are on for a very, very close future that is. Looking ahead, this is ArtFuturas challenge and opportunity. A year between festival and festival is a long latent period when your public is getting more and more accustomed to retroalimentation in real time. This is why I suggest that, as of now, ArtFutura abandons concepts related to the near future and concentrates on the Grand Future to come that it ceases merely to think about the

next five years to consider the next century, and the next thousand centuries. And to do this, the formula would be to adopt, at the same time, a more practical reasonable view and another more eccentric one. Divide things into two lines, one being more scientific and the other, more fiction. The practical and reasonable view along with the application of more science could help in the search for answers that permit us to prolong this techno-promising present by answering the question, This is all very well and good, but whos paying? Lets call it, 22nd Century focus, also known as, Will we get to the 22nd Century? By the end of 2009, Internet will consume as much energy as Sweden. What will happen when developing countries emulate the habits of consumption of our present that they see in their future? Where will we get the energy? Will we substitute fossil fuels for biodiesel extracted from seaweed or for photovoltaic solar energy? Where will we get the scarce material from such as the trans-lanthanoid metals that are so necessary for our new sustainable technologies? For each of its proposals, ArtFutura could also try to respond to the question, Yes, very good, but who pays for all of this? with the constant subtext to investigate how our industrialized technological culture will survive the next hundred years without exhausting the planet.

The second focus consists in ArtFutura carrying out what Jos Cervera calls donating your brain to science fiction and taking the risk of exploring ideas that may even be ridiculous. The futurist, Jim Dator, has often said that any idea relating to the future should seem to be ridiculous, criteria that should establish the standard to be improved upon in this second line of the festival. Inflatable cities. Brain transplants. Nanotechnology for the home. Intelligent animals. Kardachef Civilizations that use all the available energy from a star after having dismantled the planets to use as materials to construct a computronic sphere. Whatever project that has no possibility of being commercialized in the next hundred years should find a space in this very-long-term speculative area. Why should ArtFutura take on these two tasks? Its very simple. 20 years ago, nobody else in Spain publicly dealt with the themes that Montxo Algora and his team decided to tackle and turn scientific and artistic speculation into a spectacle for the masses. Today, companies and citizens conspire on a daily basis to outline that immediate future that ArtFutura has contributed to bringing closer to us. This leaves an area to be covered: that of reflection and the reinvention of medium and long-term futures. Montxo, can we reinvent ArtFutura, please?

Las cenas del domingo. Sunday suppers

Jos Luis de Vicente

Siempre he credo que el acto de comunicacin que se establece entre un conferenciante y su pblico puede ser enormemente poderoso, y que aquellos que tienen la oportunidad de subirse al escenario de un auditorio a exponer sus ideas deberan ser conscientes de su responsabilidad. Porque de vez en cuando, si se dan las circunstancias adecuadas, puede que estn cambiando las vidas de los que les escuchan. Yo lo s, porque a m me sucedi. Fue en otoo de 1998. Estaba finalizando una carrera de humanidades que me preparaba para profesiones que no tena la menor intencin de ejercer; senta la ansiedad habitual del que quiere convertir sus pasiones en un proyecto de vida y no tiene ni idea de por dnde empezar. El lugar era un sitio habitual para m, el Teatro Central de Sevilla, una de las mejores herencias que la Exposicin Universal de 1992 haba dejado en mi ciudad. La razn para estar all sin embargo era nueva. ArtFutura haba aterrizado en la capital andaluza tras ocho ediciones entre Madrid y Barcelona, y se instalaba ese ao en las salas y pasillos del Teatro de la Cartuja. Bajo una de las clsicas citas rotundas de Marshall McLuhan (en la era elctrica, todos llevamos a la humanidad entera como piel), por el escenario de ArtFutura pasaron durante aquellos tres das nombres como Derrick de Kerkhove, el mayor discpulo del terico de los media canadiense. Recuerdo muy bien a Derrick, que a lo largo de los aos ha sido un amigo entraable del festival, comentando con gran energa fragmentos de la pelcula de Schwartzeneger Desafo Total, para convencernos de que la era de la simulacin estaba transformando nuestra nocin de la realidad. (Alguien haba tenido que ir corriendo esa maana a un videoclub local para encontrar la cinta).

Tambin estaba all presentando su flamante Museo del Futuro un joven Gerfried Stocker; desde haca dos aos diriga el rumbo de Ars Electronica, una organizacin de referencia para nuestro festival. Y Eduardo Kac, el padre de Alba, el clebre conejo transgnico creado en un laboratorio que, en teora, en condiciones determinadas emita una luz verdosa fluorescente. Kac es todo un ejemplo del modelo de investigador visionario, instalado en la encrucijada entre la ciencia y el arte, que siempre ha encontrado un lugar en los programas de ArtFutura. El impacto de aquellos tres das fue superior a mi timidez patolgica y me anim a escribir a la organizacin del festival, ofrecindome a ayudar en lo que fuese. Casi un mes ms tarde lleg una respuesta. Imposible imaginar que all empezaban nueve aos de viaje intenso y apasionante, hasta la inauguracin, en verano de 2008, de la exposicin Mquinas y Almas en el Museo Nacional Reina Sofa de Madrid. Un evento como un festival se compone cada ao de tantos elementos distintos que al final, nunca significa lo mismo ni para todos los que lo visitan, ni para todo los que lo organizan. Durante todo este tiempo, mi visin preferida de ArtFutura ha sido la de entenderlo como un contexto de exploracin y una plataforma divulgativa que pudiese poner en contacto ideas nuevas con pblicos no especializados, pero enormemente curiosos. Al no estar dedicado a cubrir una disciplina concreta, nuestra suerte ha sido poder explorar siempre las ideas y reas de actividad que ms nos interesaban en cada momento. De la aparicin de zonas de creatividad emergente, como los videojuegos o el nuevo cine digital, a lneas de discurso que han cruzado varias ediciones, como la narracin que, desde Realidad Aumentada (2004) a La Prxima Web (2007), quiso contar cmo se estaban transformando las relaciones entre espacio digital, espacio urbano y espacio social.

Supongo que un texto como este es el lugar adecuado para hacer recuento de momentos favoritos y rescatar las imgenes que aun permanecen en tu retina, pero me estoy quedando sin espacio. Me caben algunos fotogramas sueltos: las palabras y las voces de Bruce Sterling, Howard Rheingold o Steven Johnson; el Animaris Percipiere de Theo Jansen, echando a caminar ante el asombro del pblico en la plaza del Mercat de las Flors; un memorable recorrido por la vida y la obra del gran artista japons Toshio Iwai que acab con el auditorio puesto en pie; el nerviosismo y el temor en el estreno de Can You See Me Now?, el juego urbano aumentado de los britnicos Blast Theory: meses de preparativos colgando del hilo de una conexin a Internet que no acababa de arrancar.... Mi momento favorito sin embargo siempre sido el mismo, ao tras ao. Sucede la noche de clausura del festival, cuando la ltima actividad ha finalizado y el ltimo de los espectadores cruza la puerta y vuelve a casa. El equipo tcnico empieza a desmontar, y mientras nos marchamos a cenar a todos nos inunda una mezcla de euforia y agotamiento extremo. Y es en las cenas de esos domingos, cuando ha terminado un ciclo y el papel vuelve a estar en blanco, cuando todos empezamos a imaginar y alguien dice: y si el ao que viene...? No hay otra sensacin igual a esa.

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I have always thought that the act of communication that is established between a lecturer and his public can be enormously powerful, and that those who have the opportunity of going on stage at an auditorium to present their ideas should be aware of their responsibility. Because, from time to time, given adequate circumstances, they may be changing the lives of those who are listening to them. I know because it happened to me. It was in the autumn of 1998. I was finishing a degree in humanities that was to prepare me for professions I had no intention of taking up; I felt the habitual anxiety of one who wanted to convert his passions into a project for life and had no idea where to start. The location was a place I frequently visited, the Central Theater, Seville, part of the best legacy the Universal Exhibition of 1992 had left my city. The reason for being there, however, was new. ArtFutura had landed in the Andalusian capital after eight editions between Madrid and Barcelona and that year, it was in the rooms and corridors of the Theater of the Cartuja. Under the classic resounding quotation from Marshall McLuhan (In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin), on the ArtFutura stage appeared, over those three days, names such as Derrick de Kerkhove, the greatest disciple of the theoretician of the Canadian media. I have a vivid memory of Derrick, who over the years has been a very close friend of the festivals, commenting with great energy fragments of the Schwartzeneger film Total Recall so as to convince us that the age of simulation was transforming our notion of reality. (Someone would have had to have run off to the video club that morning to find the tape.)

Also there presenting his brilliant Museum of the Future was a young Gerfried Stocker; for two years then, he had been directing the course being taken by Ars Electronica, an organization of reference for our festival. And Eduardo Kac, the father of Alba, the celebrated transgenic rabbit created in a laboratory that, in theory, in determined conditions emitted a greenish fluorescent light. Kac is a fine example of the model investigator-visionary, installed at the crossroads between science and art that has always found a place in the programs of ArtFutura. The impact of those three days was stronger than my pathological shyness and I plucked up enough courage to write to the organization of the festival to offer whatever help they needed. Almost a month later, a reply arrived. It was impossible to imagine that there an intense and passionate nine-year journey would begin and that would last to the opening, in the summer of 2008, of the exhibition Souls and Machines in the National Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid. An event such as a festival is made up each year of so many different elements that, in the end, it never means the same either for those who visit it, or for those who organize it. For all this time, my preferred vision of ArtFutura has been that of understanding it as a context of exploration and a platform to promote new ideas and put them into contact with a non-specialized, but enormously curious public. Not being dedicated to covering any particular discipline, we have always been lucky enough to be able to explore the ideas and areas of activity that have interested us most at all times. From the appearance of zones of emerging creativity, such as videogames or the new digital cinema, to lines of discourse that have crossed various editions, such as the narration that, from Enhanced Reality (2004) to The Next Web (2007), I wanted to talk about how the relationships between digital space, urban space and social space have been changing.

I suppose that a text like this is a good place to remember my favorite moments and recover the images that are still on my retina, but Im running out of space. Theres just room for the odd moment: the words and the voices of Bruce Sterling, Howard Rheingold and Steven Johnson; the Animaris Percipiere by Theo Jansen, starting to walk in front of an astonished public in the square in front of Mercat de les Flors; a memorial review of the life and work of the great Japanese artist Toshio Iwai that finished with a standing ovation; the nerves and terror during the premier of Can You See Me Now?, the enhanced urban game from the British Blast Theory: months of preparation hanging by the tread of an Internet connection that wouldnt quite connect My favorite moment, however, has always been the same, year after year. It comes about on the festivals closing night when the last activity has finished and the last spectator has left to go home. The technical team starts dismounting and, while we go off to supper, we are all filled with a mixture of euphoria and extreme exhaustion. And, it is at the suppers of these Sundays, when a cycle has finished and the page is blank once again, when we all start to dream and someone says, and what about next year inviting? Theres no other sensation like that.

20 aos. 20 years.
Carolina Lpez

Game Over, Continue?

Dani Snchez-Crespo

En un momento de saturacin de informacin y overbooking de festivales quizs sea difcil imaginar el espacio que vino a cubrir ArtFutura en sus primeras ediciones. De festival pionero en Espaa, a festival de referencia en nuestro pas, ArtFutura ha encontrado su lugar en el cambiante panorama del arte asociado a las nuevas tecnologas. Como no poda ser de otro modo, el festival, con el incombustible Montxo Algora al frente, ha apostado por la innovacin en sus contenidos. La extraordinaria exposicin Mquinas y Almas (MNRS, 2008) comisariada por Montxo Algora y Jos Luis de Vicente recogi y produjo para la ocasin el trabajo de algunos de los artistas ms visionarios del panorama actual, siendo una buena muestra de lo que ArtFutura ha mostrado a lo largo de estos aos. Mi relacin con el festival se remonta al 1993. El festival de Sitges me ofreca crear mi propia seccin de animacin (Animat) e invit a Montxo a presentar un especial de trabajos en 3D de su ArtFutura Show. Desde entonces he compartido con Montxo-ArtFutura, lugares comunes como el CCCB y nuestra pasin por la animacin. Desde el ao pasado tengo el placer de formar parte del equipo de comisarios, despus de haber colaborado un par de aos en el programa de Resfest (que ArtFutura acogi durante los 4 ltimos aos antes de desaparecer). Felicidades a Montxo y al equipo por la energa y el conocimiento compartido durante este tiempo. Gracias por haber abierto en Barcelona y otras ciudades espaolas una ventana al arte y las nuevas tecnologas as como por haber creado un lugar de encuentro.

At a time of information saturation and festival overbooking, perhaps it is difficult to imagine the space that ArtFutura came to cover in its first editions. From pioneer festival in Spain to a festival that has become a reference point in our country, ArtFutura has found its place in the changing panorama of art associated with the new technologies. As it couldnt be any other way, the festival, with the inconsumable Montxo Algora at the helm, has wagered for innovation in its contents. The extraordinary exhibition Souls and Machines (MNRS, 2008), curated by Montxo Algora and Jos Luis de Vicente, collected and produced for the occasion the work of some of the most visionary artists on the present scene and was a good example of what ArtFutura has presented over the years. My relationship with the festival goes back to 1993. The Sitges Festival enabled me to create my own animation section (Animat) and I invited Montxo to present the works in 3D from his ArtFutura Show. Since then, I have shared with Montxo-ArtFutura common places such as the CCCB and our passion for animation. Since last year and after having collaborated for a couple of years on the Resfest program (which ArtFutura accommodated for the last of its four years before disappearing), I have the pleasure of forming part of the curating team. Congratulations to Montxo and the team for the energy and knowledge shared over all of this time. Thank you for having opened a window on to art and new technologies in Barcelona and other Spanish cities and for having created a meeting place.

Yo me met en esto de ArtFutura porque quera ser cool. Reconozcmoslo, en el ao 2001 los videojuegos eran el bicho raro de las artes digitales. Frikis, que diran los modernos. ArtFutura, en cambio, era el eptome de lo cool. Karl Sims. Ken Perlin. Mobius. Rebecca Allen. Esa gente s que haca cosas alucinantes, y no nosotros, que slo ramos chavales moviendo sprites por la pantalla con un joystick. Admitmoslo: el programador de videojuegos era como el que en las fiestas se queda pinchando msica: un colgado. Talentoso, pero colgado a fin de cuentas. As que nos pusimos manos a la obra con Jos Luis y Montxo. Para empezar, nos trajimos a Ernest Adams, a Gonzo Surez y montamos una entrevista que nos qued la mar de friki. Pero no friki como cuando juegas a Dungeons and Dragons y comes nocilla: lo nuestro fue friki contracultural. Friki con discurso, nombre y apellidos. De texto, subtexto y segundas lecturas. Y empezamos a verle el gusto a esto de los videojuegos. Si ramos contracultura, quin sabe, igual algn da seramos cultura de la de verdad. De la que se vende en el Carrefour y paga a la SGAE. Imaginbamos un futuro de ministros que hablaban de videojuegos, mientras en cada hogar de Espaa todos, pequeos y grandes, jugaban a la consola en dulce armona. Con esa visin empezamos a crecer. Conseguimos que Richard Marks presentara Eyetoy en 2003, y la cosa se puso seria. Gran charla, mejor persona, ah, el slo, explicando cmo los juegos superaran los joysticks, cinco aos antes de que llegase la Wii. Le sigui Mizuguchi, que nos dej a todo el equipo pensando, para lo tontos que somos, lo bien que lo hacemos. Si vena Mizuguchi, vendra todo el mundo. Mizuguchi era Dios. O si no, seguro que le conoce y juegan al Rez juntos. Mizuguchi era tan bueno, que hasta bail reggaetn en un coche de camino al Mercat, y segua siendo tan cool. True story.

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Efectivamente, tras Mizuguchi vino Ueda. Un tipo pequeo, silencioso, con cara de pensar mucho en prncipes, princesas, y gigantes a los que escalar. Ueda haca cultura. Arte. O tal vez las dos cosas, o ninguna de ellas. Pero haca unos juegos que nos dejaban a todos emocionados, que al final viene a ser lo mismo. Con Ueda pude empezar a decir a la gente que trabajaba en ArtFutura, y sentir orgullo. Pero no orgullo friki, ni contracultural, sino orgullo del bueno. ramos y somos el mayor exponente del videojuego como cultura de Espaa, un mercado que estaba y est explotando. Prueba de ellos es que hoy el videojuego sigue devorando a todas las otras industrias del entretenimiento sin compasin ni competencia a la vista. Y podra seguir. Masaya Matsuura y su increble conferencia-concierto. La gente de Little Big Planet. Spore. Resistance. Onimusha. Heavenly Sword. Larga es la lista de amigos que ha venido y nos ha hecho ver a travs de sus ojos su mundo de polgonos y gameplay. A todos ellos, gracias. Pero como a toda partida, a esta le llega su final. El ao pasado, la Ministra de Cultura anunciaba la calificacin del videojuego como Industria Cultural. As, en maysculas. A la altura de Bisbal, pero sin el giro y los rizos. Misin cumplida, pienso yo. Hemos llegado a una cima que hace siete aos pareca imposible. Qu mejor momento que ste para pasar el testigo a una nueva generacin, una que suee nuevas cimas y en siete aos ms las alcance? Y es que sa es, para m, la esencia de ArtFutura: ser espectador efmero de cmo los futuros imaginados y soados por locos visionarios se convierten en realidades tangibles. Aunque eso signifique que poca gente recuerde ya la poca cuando yo era joven, y ser desarrollador de videojuegos era friki. Pero no friki cool, ni de contracultura, no. Friki de verdad. Fue un placer.

I got involved in this ArtFutura thing because I wanted to be cool. Lets face it, in 2001, videogames were the weirdo in digital art. Freaky is what the more up-to-date would say. ArtFutura, on the other hand, was the epitome of cool. Karl Sims, Ken Perlin, Mobius, Rebecca Allen. These people did do amazing things, not us, we were just kids moving sprites around the computer screen with a joystick. Lets admit it: the videogame programmer was like the one who ended up putting the music on at parties: a deadbeat. Talented, but brainless. So we put our shoulders to the wheel with Jos Luis and Montxo. To start with, we brought Ernest Adams, Gonzo Surez over and set up an interview that turned out to be really freaky. But, not freaky like when you play Dungeons and Dragons while eating nutella: ours was countercultural freakiness. Freaky in the true sense of the word and with discourse. In text, under-text and with hidden meaning. And we started to acquire the taste for videogames. If we were counterculture then, who knows, maybe one day wed be culture of the real kind. The sort thats sold in Carrefor and pays the SGAE (The Spanish Society of Authors Composers and Publishers). Lets imagine a future in which ministers talked about videogames while, in every Spanish household, everyone, young or old, played at the console in sweet harmony. With this vision in mind, we started to grow. We managed to get Richard Marks to present Eyetoy in 2003 and things started to take off. Great talk, better person, there, alone, explaining how videogames would go beyond joysticks five years before the arrival of Wii. He was followed by Mizuguchi, who left us all thinking, well, we do things pretty well for the fools we may be. If Mizuguchi came, everyone would come. Mizuguchi was God. Or if not, they surely knew each other and played Rez together. Mizuguchi was so good that he even danced reggaetn in the car on the way to the Mercat (our venue), and just kept on being really cool. True story.

Indeed, after Mizuguchi, Ueda came. A small guy, quiet, with the look of one who thinks a lot about princes, princesses and giants, the sort you climb up. Ueda created culture. Art. Or perhaps both things, or neither of them. But he created games that excited all of us so much that it turned out to be the same thing. With Ueda, I was able to start telling people that I worked in ArtFutura and feel proud of it. Not freaky pride, or countercultural, but the positive sort of pride. We were and we are the best exponents of videogames as culture in Spain, a market that was and is exploding. The proof of this is that today videogames are still devouring all of the other entertainment industries without compassion or competition in sight. And I could go on. Masaya Matsuura and his incredible conference-concert. The people from Little Big Planet. Spore. Resistance. Onimusha. Heavenly Sword. Long is the list of friends who have come and let us see, through their eyes, their worlds of polygons and gameplay. To all of them, thank you. But as with all games, this one is reaching its end. Last year, The Ministry of Culture announced the classification of videogames as a Cultural Industry, with capital letters. On a par with Bisbal (David), but without the spins and curls. Mission accomplished, Id say. Weve reached the summit that, seven years ago, seemed an impossibility. What would be a better time than this to pass the baton on to a new generation, one that dreams of new summits and in another seven years reaches them? And this is, for me, the essence of ArtFutura: to be an ephemeral spectator of how futures imagined and dreamed of by crazy visionaries become tangible realities. However, this means that not many people will remember the time when I was young and being a videogame developer was freaky. But not freaky cool, or counterculture, no. Really freaky. Its been a pleasure.

El secreto de ArtFutura. ArtFuturas secret.

Roberta Bosco y Stefano Caldana

Longevo, meditico y exitoso. ArtFutura el ms pionero festival espaol dedicado a las nuevas tecnologas aplicadas al arte, el entretenimiento y la cultura, cumple veinte aos. Veinte aos en los que ha acogido creadores y proyectos muy dispares, sin perder nunca su enfoque abierto al gran pblico, un pblico que no diserta y reflexiona sobre la tecnologa, mas que la vive intensa y cotidianamente a travs de sus juegos, telfonos, ordenadores y otras interfaces. En estos aos ArtFutura se ha caracterizado por destacar a su antojo determinados creadores y propuestas, ms all de las modas y las tendencias, sean dominantes o minoritarias. Y eso porque a lo largo de estos veinte aos, ArtFutura ha sido y sigue siendo sinnimo de Montxo Algora, su fundador y director. Adems de conseguir superar crisis, competencias y otros avatares, Algora ha impreso al festival su huella personal, apostando decididamente por un modelo descentralizado, abierto y popular en el sentido ms positivo del trmino. En vez de organizar una mega exposicin en una gran ciudad, Algora ha optado por difundir el festival a travs de un potente programa de vdeos, que ha llegado a proyectarse simultneamente en diez sedes de otras tantas ciudades. Una estrategia que revela la voluntad de mimar el pblico y no slo l de las capitales.

A pesar de haber trado a Espaa como conferenciantes, varios pesos pesados de la escena digital, ArtFutura no se ha querido nunca definir como un referente intelectual ni por buscar el reconocimiento del mundo del arte institucional. Por el contrario ha siempre perseguido el contacto y la difusin, a travs de un enfoque ldico y condescendiente con la cultura digital ms asequible al gran pblico, a menudo no especializado, pero muy curioso y con mucha gana de conocer, experimentar y divertirse. Otros eventos de este tipo ofrecen programas de debates que se convierten en una arena para el enfrentamiento entre la gente del medio y a menudo resultan incomprensibles por los no iniciados; tertulias repletas de lenguaje institucional y acadmico, donde los ponentes se lucen por sus conocimientos y no por su afn de dialogar con la audiencia y a menudo ni siquiera con los dems participantes. En cambio ArtFutura, con sus programas que mezclan obras de arte y vdeos de autor con productos surgidos en mbito comercial y producciones cinematogrficas de animacin digital sper taquilleras, ha conseguido abrir una ventana y establecer un dilogo a diversos niveles. Sus debates se han convertidos en charlas animadas, abarrotadas tambin de familias y nios, ilusionados por poder contactar con los creadores de las ardillas y ogros de sus pelculas favoritas.

Adems de participar en el programa de conferencias de varias ediciones, nuestra aportacin a ArtFutura se ha plasmado en dos exposiciones temticas: Digital Jam (2001) y Web as Canvas (2002), ambas an disponibles en la web del festival. Digital Jam1 es una seleccin de once proyectos concebidos para Internet, que reflejan las diversas tendencias de la investigacin artstica centrada en el aspecto colaborativo del proceso creativo on line. Web As Canvas 2 (La Red como lienzo) rene diez propuestas artsticas concebidas para la red, metafrica y prcticamente considerada como el nuevo lienzo y escenario de la creacin contempornea. Para Web as Canvas, que se exhibi en el hall del Centro de Cultura Contempornea de Barcelona, ArFutura produjo la obra del colectivo barcelons area3, World Wall Painters, una aplicacin para The Carnivore Project, que aquel mismo ao se expuso tambin en el festival Ars Electronica de Linz, donde gan un Golden Nica. As que deseamos un feliz aniversario a ArtFutura, para que cumpla muchos ms y con el deseo que contine en su accin de difusin y divulgacin de la cultura digital y que vuelva tambin a participar en la produccin de obras inditas de artistas ms alejados de la industria del ocio digital.

1 Digital Jam: http://www.artfutura.org/2001/digitaljam.html 2 Web as Canvas: www.artfutura.org/02/expo_lared.html

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Long-lived, high profile and successful. ArtFutura, the most pioneering Spanish festival dedicated to the new technologies applied to art, entertainment and culture, is twenty years old. Twenty years in which it has welcomed disparate creators and projects while never losing its focus of being open to its public, a public that does not expound and reflect on technology, but which lives it intensely on a day-to-day basis thanks to games, telephones, computers and other interfaces. Over these years, ArtFutura has become noted for the particular way in which it has highlighted certain creators and proposals regardless of fashion and tendencies or whether they were dominant or minority. And this is because throughout these twenty years ArtFutura has been and continues to be a synonym of Montxo Algora, it founder and director. In addition to managing to overcome crises, competition, and other occurrences, Algora has printed his personal stamp on the festival, decidedly wagering for a decentralized model, open and popular in the most positive sense of the term. Instead of organizing a mega exhibition in a large city, Algora has chosen to diffuse the festival by means of a powerful program of videos which have been projected simultaneously in ten venues in ten cities. A strategy that shows a desire to pamper the public and not only that of the capitals.

In spite of having brought various heavy-weight speakers from the digital scene to Spain, ArtFutura has not wanted to be considered an intellectual reference point or to seek recognition from the institutionalized art world. On the contrary, it has always pursued contact and diffusion by means of a ludic and understanding focus on the digital culture most accessible to the public at large, often not specialized, but highly curious and which has a great desire to discover, experiment and have fun. Other events of this sort offer programs of debates that become an arena for confrontation between people who work in the medium which often turn out to be incomprehensible for the uninitiated; chats full of institutional and academic language in which the speakers stand out for their knowledge and not for their desire to enter into dialogue with the audience and often not even with the other participants. On the other hand, ArtFutura, with its programs that mix works of art and independent videos with products from the world of box-office success digital animated productions from the commercial film industry, has managed to open a window and establish a dialogue on various levels. Its debates have become lively chats packed with families and children keen to make contact with the creators of the squirrels and ogres in their favorite films.

In addition to having participated in the conference programs of various editions, we have contributed to Art Futura in two thematic exhibitions: Digital Jam (2001) and Web as Canvas (2002), both are still available on the festivals web. Digital Jam1 is a selection of eleven projects conceived for Internet and which reflect diverse tendencies of artistic investigation centered on the collaborative aspect of the creative process online. Web as Canvas2 unites ten artistic proposals conceived for the net, metaphorically and practically considered to be the new canvas and stage for contemporary creation. For Web as Canvas, which was exhibited in the hall of the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, ArtFutura produced the work by area3, a collective from Barcelona, World Wall Painters, and an application for The Carnivore Project, which that same year was also exhibited in the festival Ars Electronica in Linz where it won a Golden Nica. We wish ArtFutura a happy anniversary and many more with the desire that it continues with its task of diffusing and circulating digital culture and that it also participates in the production of unedited works by artists distanced from the digital leisure industry.

1 Digital Jam: http://www.artfutura.org/2001/digitaljam.html 2 Web as Canvas: www.artfutura.org/02/expo_lared.html

Mis 20 aos cerca de ArtFutura. My 20 years with ArtFutura.

Santi Fort

Aunque mi relacin con Montxo empieza un poco antes del propio Festival, all por el ao 1989 pude ayudarle generando unos grficos por ordenador para su exposicin "Pjaros de fuego", que aunque no recuerdo que tuviera muy buenas crticas en su momento, fue todo un anticipo de lo que nos poda deparar el arte producido con medios digitales. Lo recuerdo con mucho cario ya que por aquel entonces estaba envuelto en producciones de imagen sinttica para publicidad o televisin y poder trabajar en contenidos de carcter experimental era muy gratificante. Hay que reconocer que desde el 85 ya haba en Barcelona algunas muestras de arte generado por ordenador, bsicamente recopilaciones de lo que se poda ver en SIGGRAPH: selecciones de imgenes estticas y de vdeos de animacin. Pero fue en el 90 cuando Montxo plasm su manera de ver esta fusin de arte y tecnologa que con los aos ha devenido tan importante y con tantas ramificaciones de tipo tico, social e incluso industrial. Debido a mi trabajo, estaba por aquel entonces muy metido en tecnologa punta para creacin audiovisual, ya iba a congresos internacionales y me hizo mucha ilusin que se pudiera ver aqu en Barcelona todo eso que an tena mucho de mgico. Pero es que fue espectacular. No me lo poda creer. Se trajo a William Gibson, a Timothy Leary, a Rebecca Allen... Eran personas con unas ideas totalmente revolucionarias. Tanto que algunas de ellas 20 aos despus siguen siendo solo ideas iluminadoras de un futuro cada vez menos lejano, o en algunos casos han sido superadas por otras an ms visionarias, que tambin se han podido escuchar en el propio festival. Pero es que fue una poca que pareca que todo iba a ser posible, unas Olimpiadas en Barcelona, una Expo en Sevilla...

Realmente, te sentas muy bien siendo de Barcelona. Pero en esa poca yo aun no colaboraba con el Festival. Asista, iba a las estupendas fiestas que se organizaban, incluso en el 91, trabajando para el antiguo estudio de animacin Animtica, pionero en Espaa en muchos aspectos, y con Rafa Galdo como realizador, pude colaborar con ArtFutura generando la cabecera del Festival en formato estereoscpico, muy popular hoy en da en las pelculas de animacin, pero todo un reto tecnolgico y de lenguaje en esos aos. Recuerdo que utilizamos un recurso visual que acabbamos de imaginar para una cabecera para un programa de La 2 dedicado al videoarte. Eran tiempos emocionantes. Ya entonces todo empezaba a ir muy rpido. Despus el Festival se fue a Madrid y ms tarde aun a Sevilla y he de reconocer que le perd un poco la pista. Lea sobre l, vea los reportajes en televisin, pero no lo tena por algo mo. Fue en el ao 2001 cuando volvi a Barcelona y no s bien bien como fue que me encontr colaborando con la organizacin en la seccin de animacin por ordenador. Me haca mucha ilusin poder trabajar para el Festival, con el cario que le tena y la ilusin que me haca que volviera a celebrarse en Barcelona. Y as hasta hoy. Y es que da mucho gusto estar en el proyecto. Aunque parezca un tpico es como una pequea familia que dedica unos meses al ao a montar un Festival que mantiene el tipo en una poca con tantas expectativas como la que vivimos. A mi entender, 20, son un montn y hay muy pocos festivales de este tipo en el mundo con este recorrido. Montxo puede estar muy orgulloso. A l se lo debemos.

My relationship with Montxo started a little before the Festival itself; back in 1989, I helped him create some computer graphics for his exhibition Birds of Fire. Although I remember that it didnt receive very good reviews at the time, it was an indication of what art produced by digital means could hold in store for us. I remember it with great fondness as at that time, I was heavily involved in productions for advertising and television and to be able to work with contents of an experimental nature was very rewarding. It should be acknowledged that since 1985, there have been various shows of art created on computers in Barcelona. They have basically been compilations of what you could see in SIGGRAPH: selections of static images and animated videos. However, it was in 1990 when Montxo crystallized his way of seeing this fusion of art and technology that with the years has come to be so important and with so many branches of an ethic, social and even industrial nature. Due to my work, I was then deeply involved in the latest technology for the creation of audiovisuals, I would go to international congresses and I was thrilled that you could see all of that which then still contained a lot of magic here in Barcelona. It was just outstanding. I couldnt believe it. It brought William Gibson, Timothy Leary, Rebecca Allen... They were people with completely revolutionary ideas. So much so that some of them, 20 years later, are still no more than ideas of a future that is becoming less distant, or in some cases, ideas that have been superseded by others even more visionary in nature and have also been talked about in the same festival. However, it was a time in which it seemed that everything was going to be possible, Olympic Games in Barcelona, an Expo in Seville

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The truth was that you felt good about being from Barcelona. But at that time, I still wasnt collaborating with the festival. I attended; I went to the fabulous parties that were organized, even the one of 1991. While I was working for the old animation studio Animtica, pioneer in Spain in many ways, with Rafa Galdo as producer, I was able to collaborate with ArtFutura by creating the banner for the Festival in stereoscopic format which is very popular today in animated films, but was a very much a technological challenge in those times. I remember that we used a visual resource that we had just created for a banner for a program on La 2 (Spains second public television channel) dedicated to video art. They were exciting times. Then, things started going really fast. After that the Festival went to Madrid and later on to Seville and I must admit that I lost track of it to an extent. I read about it, saw the reports on television, but I didnt see it as being mine. It was in 2001, when it came back to Barcelona, and I dont really know how, but I found myself collaborating with the organization in the computer animation section. I was thrilled by being able to work for the Festival I was so fond of and delighted that it had come back to Barcelona. And Im still here today. And its a great pleasure being part of the project. Although it may seem trite, its a little family that dedicates some months of the year to setting up a Festival that holds its own in these times of such great expectation in which we live. As far as Im concerned, 20 are loads and there are few festivals of this sort in the world with a track record like this. Montxo should be proud. Its to him that we owe it all.

Queja pblica, carta abierta. Public complaint, open letter.

Vicente Matallana LaAgencia

Lo que uno altera mediante el recuerdo tiene sin embargo una realidad, sea o no conocida. Cormac McCarthy, La carretera.

Sueos de silicio, pantallas negras con letras verdes, computadoras que ronronean por el sonido de los ventiladores, lneas interminables de comando, los libros de Gibson y la certeza de todo un mundo paralelo, ya no por descubrir, sino por crear. Internet era todo texto. Tiempos de utopa y distopa que presagiaban todo lo bueno y todo lo malo que estaba por venir, tiempos de color de rosa por el filtro de mis gafas para evitar la radiacin de los monitores. ArtFutura lleg en el ao 1994 a Madrid y acababa de ser publicado The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog de Ed Krol en el que se describa, quiz por primera vez al pblico, los funcionamientos de la World Wide Web y el CERN haba anunciado recientemente que sera gratuita para todos, sin ningn tipo de honorarios. Esa patente hubiera producido ms dinero que la del tetrabrik. En esos das se germin "LaAgencia", no de forma intencionada, sino por las malas influencias de "Libres Para Siempre", los cuales me haban cedido una habitacin de poco ms de 6 m2 en su estudio, y habindome convencido, (aunque ellos afirmen lo contrario), de hacerme cargo de la gestin y produccin de sus obras, me llevaron a ArtFutura. All no tenamos Internet, desde casa yo usaba una lnea heredada de mi fugaz paso por Philips Crypto, posiblemente una de esas primeras 10.000 que hubo en Espaa con Servicom, aquellas que se pagaban por cada minuto de conexin. Unos amables seores de holanda corran con los gastos; no pregunten ms, sigo bajo un contrato de confidencialidad de 20 aos.

ArtFutura fue, tanto o ms responsable del disgusto que les di a mis padres al decirles que iba a montar una empresa dedicada en exclusiva a la gestin, produccin y desarrollo de arte electrnico, tal y como se llamaba en aquellos das, antes de que empezara la marea de nombres para definir lo indefinible, todo lo que puedes buscar y crear desde la Ciencia y la Tecnologa al margen del ms mnimo atisbo de lgica humana. Cuando este verano vino a visitarnos Montxo con Luca y Leo en Alicante, yo no poda dejar de pensar en Arsnico por Compasin, ya que, mi hermana y yo, siempre hemos credo que en casa se ha asesinado mucho con extrema educacin y mi madre estaba extremadamente educada con Montxo. Creo que, aun ahora, mi madre hubiese preferido que siguiese trabajando para esos seores tan amables holandeses de los que no puedo decir ms debido a los motivos anteriormente citados. Los textos de aniversario siempre tienen un tufo de nostalgia. Este texto quiero que se interprete como una reivindicacin, una queja, una demanda por haber arruinado una prometedora carrera profesional con contrato indefinido; la ma. Llevo esperando desde hace 15 aos una disculpa de Montxo, que no solo no llega sino que, por el contrario, parece que a este seor le gusta seguir con la broma, ya que de la mala influencia ha pasado a la presin directa, enredndome sistemticamente en sus nuevos proyectos. Creo recordar que el primer proyecto que produje fue el de "Libres Para Siempre" para ArtFutura. No se si eso tiene una base real o no, no importa, me gusta recordarlo as.

What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not. Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Dreams of silicon, black screens with green letters, computers that purred due to the sound of their fans, never ending lines of commands, books by Gibson and the certainty of a complete parallel world, not to be discovered, but to be created. Internet was exclusively text. Times of utopia and dystopia that foretold the good and bad of what was to come, rose-colored times filtered through my tinted glasses that helped me avoid the radiation from the monitors. ArtFutura arrived in Madrid in 1994 just after the publication of The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog by Ed Krol which described, perhaps for the first time in public, how the World Wide Web worked and CERN had recently announced that it would be free for all with no form of fees. This patent would have generated more money than that of tetra pak. Over those days "LaAgencia" was germinated, not intentionally, but by the bad influences of Libres Para Siempre, who had given me a room little larger than 6 m2 in their studio, and having convinced me (although they insisted to the contrary) to take on the management and production of their works, they took me to ArtFutura. There, we didnt have Internet, at home I used a line inherited from my fleeting collaboration with Philips Crypto, possibly one of those first 10,000 that there were in Spain with Servicom, those which you paid for every minute you were connected. Some kindly folk from Holland paid for all of that; dont ask anymore, were still under a 20-year confidentiality contract.

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ArtFutura was principally responsible for the distress my parents went through when I told them that I was going to set up a company dedicated exclusively to the management, production and development of electronic art as it was called in those days. That was before the flood of names started to define the indefinable, everything that you could investigate and create with Science and Technology on the limit of the smallest of inklings of human logic. When Montxo, Lucia and Leo came to visit us in Alicante this summer, I couldnt stop thinking about Arsenic and Old Lace given that my sister and I have always thought that many have died at home from extreme politeness and my mother was extremely polite to Montxo. I believe that even now, my mother would have preferred that I had continued to work for those very kind Dutch folks of whom I cannot say more for the reasons previously mentioned. Anniversary texts always have a whiff of nostalgia. I want this text to be understood as a complaint, a protest that my promising professional career with an indefinite contract was ruined. Ive been waiting for fifteen years for an apology from Montxo that not only doesnt arrive, but, on the contrary, it seems that this gentleman likes going on with his joke. Its now gone beyond bad influence to direct pressure and systematically getting me tangled up in his new projects. I seem to remember that the first project that I produced for ArtFutura was Free for Ever. I dont know if this is based on reality or not and I dont care, I like to remember it this way.

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

Pau Alsina Raquel Renn

Ya son veinte aos los que el Festival ArtFutura ha ido desplegando en paralelo al avance de las tecnologas de informacin y comunicacin (TIC) en todos los mbitos de nuestra cultura y sociedad. Ciertamente hoy podemos afirmar que las tecnologas digitales son omnipresentes y han cambiado radicalmente la forma en que vemos y vivimos el mundo que nos rodea. Nunca antes unas tecnologas de comunicacin se haban implantado tan rpidamente en la cultura y la historia del festival as lo atestigua. A lo largo de todos estos aos, ArtFutura ha ido haciendo eco de este impacto creciente de las tecnologas digitales, reflexionando sobre los cambios sucedidos y por suceder, augurando el futuro que nos espera y las utopas, distopas o realidades que nos acompaan en este apasionante trayecto. Hoy, algunos de esos presagios o augurios que se lanzaron en los aos noventa han sido superados con creces, otros han fracasado estrepitosamente, algunos se han cumplido a la perfeccin, otros an esperan la llegada de un momento propicio para materializarse. La voluntad de futuro ha ido llenando las pginas de la historia del festival con una carga de optimismo renovado ao tras ao y que hoy, desde nuestra mirada retrospectiva, nos permite dibujar tanto sus aciertos como sus errores. Un observatorio de innovacin y creatividad emergente que permite lanzar anlisis y prospectivas sobre el pasado, el presente y el porvenir. Inscritas en esta voluntad de futuro encontramos solapadas diferentes aproximaciones tecnoflicas -donde las tecnologas digitales ejercen un papel radicalmente revolucionario en la cultura y la sociedad-, con aproximaciones ms realistas donde el anlisis en tiempo real de los cambios introducidos por las TIC corresponde a una objetividad sosegada- as como con otras aproximaciones tecnofbicas donde las TIC son percibidas como un potencial peligro para la humanidad y el mundo-. En su edicin de 1997, el festival centr la atencin precisamente en "El futuro del futuro", especulando sobre las expectativas de crecimiento de Internet, augurando un panorama en el que en 2000 habra cuatrocientos millones de usuarios en Internet. La realidad es que hoy, en el 2009, encontramos un cuarto de la poblacin mundial, es decir 1,5 billones de usuarios, conectados a Internet rompiendo la prediccin ms optimista que se pudo hacer en aquel momento.

Paul Virilio, profeta del tecnofatalismo ms crtico, fue uno de los invitados de una edicin en la que la esperanza de progreso y voluntad de futuro convivan con la desconfianza antes los retos a los que se enfrentaba la humanidad con las nuevas tecnologas y ciencias reestructurando las relaciones establecidas. Otros participantes de la edicin, Arthur y Marilouise Kroker, afirmaban que "La Red es el espejo digital que devuelve a nuestros cuerpos nmadas el reflejo de su destino a medida que ste se externaliza en un mundo de inteligencia artificial, genes recombinantes, y flujos de datos." Y, mientras, ese mismo ao 1997 se inauguraba en la ciudad alemana de Karlsrhe la que con el tiempo se convertira en la joya de la corona de los centros dedicados al arte y la cultura digital de las siguientes dcadas, el Zentrum fr Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), que junto con el recin creado Ars Electronica Center, en la ciudad austriaca de Linz, se convertiran en dos de los centros de referencia indiscutible a nivel internacional. Dos dcadas de festival han hecho posible tratar todo tipo de cuestiones relacionadas con las transformaciones ocasionadas a raz de la introduccin de las TIC en todos los mbitos de la cultura y la sociedad. Han hecho posible observar la popularizacin masiva de ciertas tecnologas antes restringidas a crculos elitistas muy reducidos. Han permitido constatar los cambios epistemolgicos, antropolgicos, sociolgicos y hasta ontolgicos que nos han trado las innovaciones que han ido transformando nuestra cotidianidad. Han ido observando el auge y el decaimiento de unas tecnologas mientras asistan a la consolidacin de otras tecnologas con las que hoy en da nos sera prcticamente imposible no contar. Han asistido a la naturalizacin de ciertas tecnologas que hoy se han vuelto invisibles -por ejemplo equiparando el ordenador a una simple lavadora o a unas sencillas gafas- cuando anteriormente eran percibidas como sumamente artificiales. ArtFutura es expresin y muestra de las contradicciones latentes de nuestra cultura, unas contradicciones que hoy percibimos que ya no lo son en cuanto no estn hechas de polos opuestos sino de zonas de confluencia y vecindad en un rico y frtil continuum de manifestaciones culturales de todo tipo. Quedaron atrs las frreas dicotomas entre la cultura popular y la alta cultura, entre la industria y la cultura, entre la cultura artsticohumanstica y la cultura tecnocientfica, entre el

entretenimiento y la experiencia significativa, entre el consumidor pasivo y el creador activo, entre lo comercial y lo alternativo e independiente, entre tradicin e innovacin, entre tecnologa y cultura, entre muchas posturas aparentemente enfrentadas que, en el nuevo marco presente se encuentran ya en un mismo plano, dentro de un mismo ecosistema diverso, que las hace tremendamente frtiles. Mientras una nueva era se anunciaba con la simblica cada del muro de Berln en 1989, John Perry Barlow describa un ao despus el ciberespacio como aquel lugar en el que ests cuando hablas con alguien por telfono, y las metforas cmo mente global, inteligencia conectada o segunda piel que nos trajo McLuhan se sucedan para intentar explicar y comprender los adelantos que las TIC nos prometan en el desarrollo incipiente de lo que iba estructurando a la World Wide Web. Apenas haca unos aos que se haba comenzado a producir la eclosin masiva de los ordenadores personales accesibles al conjunto de la poblacin. Las interfaces grficas de usuario, con la metfora de la oficina ordenando la informacin -que hoy continuamos usando- estaban a la orden del da, y la informtica grfica avanzaba a pasos de gigante en paralelo al incremento de la potencia de clculo de los ordenadores. Sobre lo virtual y lo fsico En este contexto, poblado por pioneros y visionarios que construan nuevas herramientas tecnolgicas en la medida en que imaginaban sus nuevos usos posibles, se fragu el festival ArtFutura, con el objetivo de propiciar nuevas formas globales de entender el arte y la vida, y nuevas vas de expresar nuestras visiones y nuestras emociones tal y como declaraba su director Montxo Algora en la primera edicin en 1990 dedicada a la Realidad Virtual. Era un momento emocionante en el que se empezaba a consolidar la exploracin sistemtica de las posibilidades de creacin mediante computadoras, desde las animaciones digitales hasta las primeras instalaciones interactivas, tanto en el territorio del arte vinculado a los centros de cultura contempornea, como en el territorio de la industria y el entretenimiento. Se pudieron ver desde las primeras obras de pioneros como John Lasseter/Pixar o William Latham hasta los experimentos de Karl Sims o Masaki Fujihata y su arte algortmico.

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Now, it has been twenty years that the Festival ArtFutura has been moving forward in parallel with advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) in all aspects of culture and society. It is true that today we can affirm that the digital technologies are omnipresent and have radically changed the way in which we see and live in the world around us. Never before has communication technology become implanted so quickly in our culture and the history of the festival bears witness to this. Throughout these years, ArtFutura has been echoing this growing impact of digital technologies, reflecting on the changes that have arrived and on those to come, foretelling the future that is awaiting us and the utopias, dystopias or realities that accompany us in this passionate trajectory. Today, some of those premonitions or predictions that were launched in the nineties have become more than true, others have been complete flops, some have complied perfectly, others are still waiting for the right moment to materialize. The will of the future has been filling the pages of the festivals history with a great deal of optimism that has been renewed year after year and that today, from our retrospective view, allows us to outline as much predictions that have become reality as those which were erroneous. An observatory of innovation and emerging creativity that permits us to launch analysis and prospective conclusions on the past, present and future. Deep down in this future will, we find different overlapping technophilic approximations where digital technology exercises a radically revolutionary role in culture and society - with more realistic approximations where the analysis in real time of the changes introduced by ICT correspond to a gentle objectivity in the same way as with other technophobic approximations where the ICT are perceived as a potential treat to humanity and the world. In its edition of 1997, the festival centered attention precisely on The future of the future, speculating on the possibilities of the growth of Internet predicting a panorama in which, in 2000, there would be four hundred thousand users of the network. The reality is that today, in 2009, we find a quarter of the worlds population, which is to say 1.5 billion users, connected to Internet breaking the most optimistic prediction that could have been made at that time.

Paul Virilio, the most critical of technofatalist prophets, was one of the guests of an edition in which the hope of progress and future will coexisted with the distrust of the challenges which humanity confronted with the new technologies and sciences restructuring established relationships. Other participates of that edition, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, affirmed that The Network is a digital mirror that returns to our nomadic bodies the reflection of their destiny as it externalizes in a world of artificial intelligence, recombinant genes and data flow. And, while, in this same year 1997, in the German city of Karlsrhe the Zentrum fr Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) was opened which was to become the jewel of the crown of the centers dedicated to art and digital culture of the following decades and which along with the recently created Ars Electronic Center, in the Austrian city of Linz, was to become one of the two indisputable centers of reference on an international level. Two decades of festivals have made it possible to deal with all sorts of questions related to the transformations caused as a result of the introduction of ICT in all aspects of culture and society. They have made it possible to observe the massive popularization of certain technologies which were previously limited to a highly reduced elite. They have enabled us to evaluate epistemological, anthropological, sociological and even ontological changes that have brought us the innovations that have been transforming our daily lives. They have been observing the boom and malaise of some technologies while attending the consolidation of other technologies with which today, it would be practically impossible to do without. They have attended the naturalization of certain technologies that today have become invisible for example, bringing the computer into line with a simple washing machine or simple spectacles- when before, they were perceived as something particularly artificial. ArtFutura is an expression and display of the latent contradictions of our culture, contradictions that today, we do not necessarily perceive as being so much from poles apart, but from zones of confluence and neighborhood in a rich and fertile continuum of cultural manifestations of all sorts. That leaves the ferrous dichotomy between popular culture and high culture, between industry and culture, between artistic-humanistic culture and

the technoscientific culture, between entertainment and a significant experience, between passive consuming and active creation, between the commercial and the alternative and independent, between tradition and innovation, between technology and culture, between a lot of apparently confronted postures which, in the present new framework, now find themselves on the same plane, within the same diverse ecosystem that makes them tremendously fertile. While the new era was announced by the symbolic fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, John Perry Barlow described, a year later, cyberspace as being that place in which you are when you speak to someone on the telephone, and the metaphors such as global mind, connected intelligence or second skin that McLuhan brought us came about to try to explain and understand the advances that the ICT were promising us in the incipient development of what was structuring the World Wide Web. It was barely years ago when the massive boom in personal computers accessible to all of the population came about. The graphic interface of the user with the metaphor of the office computer the information which today we continue using it was on the agenda, and the graphic capacities advanced at giant steps in parallel to the increment of the calculation potential of computers. The virtual and the physical In this context, populated by pioneers and visionaries who created new technological tools at the rhythm they imagined their new possible uses, the ArtFutura festival came into being with the objective of offering new global forms of understanding art and life and new ways of expressing our visions and emotions just as the festivals director, Montxo Algora, declared at the first edition in 1990 dedicated to Virtual Reality. It was an emotive moment in which the systematic exploration of the possibilities of computer-assisted creation had started to become consolidated from digital animation to the first interactive installations as much in the territory of art linked to centers of contemporary culture as in the territory of industry and entertainment. This can be seen from the early works by pioneers such as John Lasseter/Pixar or William Latham to the experiments carried out by Karl Sims or Masaki Fujihata and his algorithmic art.

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

Jaron Lanier acababa de acuar el trmino Realidad Virtual (RV) - un oxmoron que alude a las tecnologas de comunicacin que permiten la interaccin con estmulos sintticos generados en tiempo real - y contribua con ello decisivamente a la popularizacin de sus posibilidades. Mientras, escritores como William Gibson en su novela Neuromancer (1984) continuaban especulando sobre el significado social y cultural que todo ello podra aportar a nuestra civilizacin. Esa primera edicin del festival pudo precisamente contar con la participacin de Gibson as como tambin con un autntico pionero de la RV, Scott Fisher de la NASA, miembro del equipo creador del primer sistema hipermedia, el Aspen Movie Map (1978). Artistas y cientficos juntos imaginando el futuro an por trazar en el desarrollo del potencial creativo de las tecnologas. Rebeca Allen en el catlogo de 1990 escriba: "Todas estas capacidades tcnicas nos dejan con la responsabilidad de crear modelos de realidad que proporcionen nuevos caminos para mejorar la condicin humana. Debemos continuar combinando la intuicin y la expresin artstica con la compresin cientfica para que de este modo podamos descubrir nuevas perspectivas de la realidad". Pero el hecho es que hoy en da la RV tiene un uso ms restringido a instalaciones artsticas y aplicaciones industriales de simulacin y acadmicas para la investigacin, y las promesas iniciales se han reconducido hacia espacios de interaccin ms asequibles, como los mismos videojuegos o las nuevas posibilidades aparecidas con la realidad aumentada (RA) que ms adelante (2004) tambin fueron objeto de estudio del festival. Se ha pasado de la desmaterializacin de la RV a la rematerializacin de la RA y las posibilidades de las TIC en la cultura, donde el mundo fsico y el virtual no pueden entender ya como universos inconexos (...) y el espacio urbano, el espacio social, y el espacio ntimo se ven cada vez ms complementados por el espacio de la informacin tal como escriba el subdirector del Festival, Jos Luis de Vicente, en aquella edicin. Los lenguajes de programacin como el VRML y posteriormente el X3D proponan por aquel entonces una idea de mundo virtual que pronto

se vio superada por la pragmaticidad interactiva de los videojuegos. Este hecho aport un claro ejemplo de la idea que los entornos virtuales devienen ms populares si se priorizan las relaciones y la interaccin (con otros jugadores o con las mquinas). Eso quedara patente con la aparicin de Internet y los videojuegos distribuidos online, convocando a la interaccin de miles de usuarios repartidos por todo el mundo, y que fue objeto temtico en la edicin del festival en el ao 2001. Los videojuegos, que rpidamente fueron introducidos en la programacin de ArtFutura como entorno privilegiado de experimentacin con los nuevos medios, han aportando interaccin, velocidad y eventos, es decir acciones con objetivos marcados. Si en un principio el entorno virtual que presentaban no era tan sofisticado como la RV inmersiva pronto fueron evolucionado y hoy podemos afirmar que llegan a influenciar las narrativas y los temas del propio cine de accin. Montxo Algora afirmaba ese ao 2001 que "los videojuegos no slo se han convertido en la ms poderosa de las industrias del entretenimiento. Su innegable impacto sobre la cultura contempornea y su capacidad para generar paradigmas que luego son reproducidos y reciclados por otras reas de la creacin digital han consolidado a esta forma de expresin con treinta aos de historia como un medio artstico legtimo en el espacio comercial." En este sentido, el festival ArtFutura siempre se ha distinguido por el hecho de mezclar propuestas provenientes de entornos artsticos y propuestas del mundo del entretenimiento, haciendo posible observar la evolucin de las problemticas de ambas en trminos sociales, tecnolgicos y cognitivos, As, en la edicin dedicada a la Realidad Aumentada (2004), se planteaba el concepto como sintetizador de un nuevo estadio en la historia de la cultura digital: la rematerializacin progresiva de lo digital en el espacio fsico. Una tecnologa y un concepto que presenta un mundo virtual para enriquecer, que no para eliminar, el mundo real. Howard Rheingold, que aos atrs defendi con total optimismo las posibilidades transformadoras de la realidad virtual, defendi en la edicin de 2004 el triunfo del poder de las "multitudes inteligentes" y la fusin entre informacin virtual y espacio fsico. Rheingold afirmaba: "No puedo decir con certeza si estos veinte aos han mostrado que los cambios en nuestras mentes y vidas posibilitados por los ordenadores es lo mejor

o lo peor que hemos hecho con la tecnologa del microchip, pero s puedo decir con certeza que esos amplificadores, herramientas y comunidades han cambiado mi forma de pensar, aprender y comunicarme." Recordemos que ese fue el ao de la "noche de los mviles", donde los ciudadanos espaoles, al cambiar informacin rpidamente sobre la desinformacin alrededor de los sucesos del 11M incidieron directamente en los resultados de las elecciones estatales en un trmino de 24 horas. Desde la irrupcin de las primeras redes comunes con el Groupe Special Mobile (GSM) que har posible una red celular de mbito europeo (1992), hasta el lanzamiento comercial de los mviles de tercera generacin, o UMTS (2001), se ha ido produciendo un avance espectacular de la transmisin de informacin mediante las telecomunicaciones inalmbricas. La fusin del espacio virtual de informacin y el espacio fsico donde nos movemos ya era una realidad contrastada, y proyectos como "Can You See Me Now", del colectivo Blast Theory, que participaron en la edicin, atestiguan las posibilidades reales para materializar esta realidad aumentada. Durante esa edicin del festival ya no se habl tanto de predicciones y perspectivas del futuro, sino del hecho que la cultura digital empezaba a ser una realidad popular, al margen de cualquier reducto especializado. Este impulso continuado de sumisin del espacio virtual al espacio fsico, destinado a aumentar las posibilidades de este ltimo, se inscriba muy dentro de los mismos principios que persiguieron muchos pioneros de las tecnologas de informacin y comunicacin como Vanevar Bush o Douglas Englebart. La humanizacin de las TIC pasaba por su rematerializacin y rediseo en base a las formas ms prximas de relacin con el mundo, las cosas y los humanos. La realidad fue "aumentada" adhirindole informacin ubicada en el espacio virtual de informacin, los objetos pasaron a contener ms informacin de la que en principio apareca en el mismo objeto. La popularizacin de los sistemas de GPS, sistemas globales de posicionamiento, abra nuevas posibilidades de relacin con el territorio que

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Jaron Lanier had just coined the term Virtual Reality (VR) an oxymoron that alludes to the communication technologies that allow interaction with synthetic stimuli created in real time and contributed decisively to the popularization of its possibilities. Meanwhile, writers such as William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer (1984) continued to speculate on the social and cultural significance of what it could all bring to our civilization. That first Edition of the festival was able to count on precisely the participation of Gibson as well as with an authentic pioneer of VR, Scott Fisher from NASA, member of the team that created the first hypermedia system, the Aspen Movie Map (1978). Artists and scientists working together imagining a future yet to be outlined in the development of the creative potential of the technologies. Rebecca Allen, in the 1990 catalogue, wrote, All of these technical capacities leave us with the responsibility of creating models of realities that bring new paths to improve the human condition. We should continue to combine intuition and artistic expression with scientific compression in order to be able to discover new perspectives of reality. However, the fact is that nowadays VR has a use more limited to artistic installations, industrial applications for simulation and academic investigation, and the initial promises have been redirected towards more accessible spaces of interaction such as videogames or the newly appeared possibilities of Enhanced Reality (ER) and the possibilities of ICT in culture, where the physical and virtual worlds cannot now be understood as unconnected universes () and urban space, social space, and intimate space are becoming to be seen more and more complemented by information space as wrote the Festivals assistant director, Jos Luis de Vicente, in that edition. Programming languages such as VRML and later X3D proposed for that time an idea of a virtual world that would soon see itself exceeded by the

interactive pragmaticity of videogames. This was a clear example that the virtual environments would become more popular if relationships and interaction (with other players or with other machines) were prioritized. This became evident with the appearance of Internet and videogames distributed online which convoked the interaction of thousands of users from all around the world and was a major theme at the 2001 edition of the festival. Videogames, which quickly became introduced in the program of ArtFutura as a privileged environment for experimentation with the new mediums, have offered interaction, speed and events which is to say, actions with marked objectives. If, in the beginning, the virtual environment that they represented was not as sophisticated as immersive VR, they soon evolved and today, we can affirm that they even influence the narratives and the themes of action cinema itself. Montxo Algora stated that 2001 that videogames had not only become the most powerful of the entertainment industries, but that their unquestionable impact on contemporary culture and their capacity to create paradigms which are later reproduced and recycled by other areas of digital creation have consolidated this form of expression with thirty years of history into a legitimate artistic medium within the commercial world. In this way, the festival ArtFutura has always stood out because of the way in which it mixes proposals that come from artistic backgrounds and proposals from the world of entertainment making it possible to observe the evolution of the difficulties of both in social, technological and cognitive terms. In this way, in the edition dedicated to Enhanced Reality (2004), the concept as synthesizer of a new arena in the history of digital culture was raised: the progressive rematerialization of the digital in physical space. A technology and a concept that presents a virtual world to enrich, and not to eliminate, the real world. Howard Rheingold, who years before had defended with complete optimism the transforming possibilities of virtual reality, defended, in the 2004 edition, the triumph of the power of the intelligent multitudes and the fusion between virtual information and physical space. Rheingold stated, I cannot say with certainty if these twenty years have demonstrated that the changes in our minds and lives made possible by computers is the best or

the worst that we have done with the technology of the microchip, but I can say with certainty that those amplifiers, tools and communities have changed my way of thinking, learning and communicating. Lets remember that it was the year of the night of the mobiles, in which Spanish citizens, upon exchanging information at high speed on the disinformation concerning the events of March 11, directly influenced the results of the general elections that were to take place 24 hours later. Since the irruption of the first common networks with the Groupe Special Mobile (GSM) that would make a European cellular network possible (1992), to the commercial launch of third generation mobile telephones, or UMTS (2001), there has been a spectacular advance of the transmission of information by means of cordless telecommunications. The fusion of virtual information space and physical space in which we move around was a reality contrasted and projects such as Can you see me now, from the collective Blast Theory, which participated in the edition, bore witness to the real possibilities of materializing this enhanced reality. During this edition of the festival, there was not so much talk about predictions and future perspectives, but about the fact that digital culture was starting to become a popular reality outside the restrictions of any limiting specialization. This continued impulse of submission of virtual space to physical space, destined to enhance the possibilities of this last one, was inscribed well within the same principals that pursued many pioneers of information and communication technology such as Vanevar Bush and Douglas Englebart. The humanization of the ICT went from their rematerialization and redesign in base to forms that were closer and more able to relate to the world, things and humans. Reality was enhanced by adding information placed in the virtual space of information, the objects went on to contain more information than that which in principal appeared in the same object. The popularization of the GPS systems, global positioning systems, opened new possible ways of relating to the territory that was becoming

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

devena globalmente informatizado. A su vez, comenzaron a utilizarse ms tecnologas como los identificadores por radiofrecuencia, los RFID, un sistema de almacenamiento y recuperacin de datos remotos que usa etiquetas con el objetivo de transmitir la identidad de un objeto (similar a un nmero de serie nico) mediante ondas de radio. La edicin de 2005 del festival tuvo como tema estos "Objetos Vivos, Espacios Sensibles", y parta del hecho que "la experiencia del ciudadano contemporneo, adems de las calles que pisa y las construcciones que habita, depende cada vez en mayor medida de las frecuencias electromagnticas que le dan cobijo y a las que tiene acceso. Esta dimensin invisible, el espacio hertziano, ha pasado de ser slo una preocupacin de ingenieros de telecomunicaciones y organismos reguladores a convertirse en un rico terreno de anlisis cultural, de tensiones polticas, y de exploracin artstica." tal como anunciaba Jos Luis de Vicente. Uno de los invitados de la edicin fue el escritor y "visionario del diseo" Bruce Sterling, que describa la forma en que el espacio y los objetos empezaban a poseer caractersticas "inteligentes" que les conferan nuevas formas, materias e incluso movilidad. De la misma manera, se presentaban propuestas que pretendan dar forma fsica a la materia incorprea de la red, los bits, la energa bsica de las mquinas. Tambin estuvieron presentes los proyectos de la ILM (Industrial Art & Magic) que enseaban la evolucin histrica de los efectos visuales para producciones de cine y vdeo. Y en el otro extremo, en el diseo orgnico y funcional de objetos que pretendan transmitir "vida", se pudo contar con la intervencin del artista Theo Jansen con sus Strandbeests, sus bestias de la arena o criaturas absolutamente artificiales que se integran al paisaje natural como unas ms y evolucionan a partir de estudios sobre sus comportamientos que empiezan con los algoritmos y terminan en las playas de Holanda.

Sobre los medios y la sociedad Pero paralelamente a este viaje que nos ha llevado de la Realidad Virtual a la Realidad Aumentada, de la virtualizacin de la realidad al aumento de la realidad mediante tecnologas virtuales, nos encontramos con otros aspectos como el papel de los medios de comunicacin en la sociedad y la cultura. No es casual que la segunda edicin del festival (1991) se centrara en el concepto de Cibermedia, focalizando la atencin en las posibilidades que los nuevos soportes mediticos podan ofrecer, principalmente a partir de lo que se llamaba la "Mquina Universal de las imgenes". Antoni Mercader, participante en esa edicin, afirmaba entonces que "el advenimiento de la Mquina Universal de las imgenes (ordenador + vdeo) y la complejificacin de los media han contribuido a la aceleracin del conflicto y a la agudizacin de la inflacin. Conflicto hecho de combate, de oposicin prolongada, de inquietud. Inflacin, opuesta a ponderacin, hecha de proporciones excesivas y de calidades sobradas, de aumento del potencial. Ahora ya no son relevantes ni la imprenta, ni la fotografa, ni el cine; ni lo son tampoco los monasterios, las ediciones de estampas, la prensa ilustrada: ahora, lo relevante es la Mquina Universal (ms que la rueda, ms que el pincel) y los media (ms que el tren, ms que el avin). De ellos deriva la amplificacin de los conflictos y la progresin del radio de accin y el impacto de las imgenes." En el ao 1991, Tim Berners-Lee anunciaba la creacin de la World Wide Web, un proyecto del CERN que permita interconectar varias redes a nivel global, facilitando la difusin y expansin que sucedera en los prximos aos, hasta la eclosin producida entre 1996 y 1997. Este crecimiento exponencial se debi a la ausencia de administracin central, as como de la naturaleza no propietaria de los protocolos de Internet, que posibilita la interoperatividad abierta as como la imposibilidad de un control monopolstico desmedido. Segn estimaciones actuales a principios de 2009 Internet contaba con 1,5 billones de usuarios, la implantacin en nuestra cultura y sociedad ha sido en este sentido espectacular, con progresiones tan impresionantes que en el ao 1991 eran absolutamente impensables, y toda prediccin se qued insuficiente.

En la edicin del festival dedicada a los CiberMedia, tericos y artistas como Derrick de Kerckhove, Perry Hoberman o Laurie Anderson especularon sobre el futuro de los medios de comunicacin bajo el impacto de las TIC. Resonaban por todas partes las palabras de Marshall McLuhan afirmando que "en esta era electrnica nos vemos traducidos cada vez ms en informacin, acercndonos a la extensin tecnolgica de la consciencia". Derrick de Kerckhove nos recordaba otras palabras de McLuhan "introduciendo nuestros cuerpos fsicos en nuestros sistemas nerviosos extendidos, con los media elctricos hemos establecido una dinmica mediante la cual todas las tecnologas anteriores, que son meras extensiones de las manos, los pies, los dientes y la temperatura corporal (controles), todas esas extensiones de nuestros cuerpos, incluyendo ciudades, sern trasladadas a sistemas de informacin". Las transformaciones ocasionadas por los nuevos medios avanzaban a nivel social tambin y en su primer ao Internet ya contaba con 25.000 ordenadores conectados. La mente global o el pensamiento colectivo dejaban de ser una idea utpica, para convertirse en una propuesta con cara y forma definida: la web. As, instituciones como el Whitney Museum comenzaban a otorgar relevancia a las prcticas artsticas digitales adquiriendo por primera vez una obra de net.art para su coleccin, The World First Collaborative Sentence de Douglas Davis, no casualmente, una obra colaborativa que combinaba distintos medios y discursos, algo que la web haca posible. La progresiva socializacin de los nuevos medios como Internet y los ordenadores llev a centrar la edicin de 1995 en las Comunidades Virtuales. Aunque las comunidades virtuales ya existan desde el 1978 con las BBS (y ms tarde con FidoNET, etc.) con el surgimiento de la Internet la expansin de las posibilidades de interconexin permiti una mayor conexin con la sociedad. Se crearon redes virtuales a todos los niveles, desde lo ms especfico hasta lo que se ha llamado posteriormente de social media.

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globally computerized. In turn, more technologies started being used such as radio-frequency identification, RFID tags, a system of storing and processing information by the use of tags with the objective of transmitting the identity of an object (similar to a number in a unique series) by means of radio waves. The 2005 edition of the festival had as its theme these living Objects, Sensitive Spaces and was based on the fact that the experience of the contemporary citizen, in addition to the streets they walk and the buildings they inhabit, depends to an increasing extent on the electromagnetic frequencies to which they give shelter and to which they have access. This invisible dimension, the hertzian space, has gone from being nothing more than a preoccupation for telecommunication engineers and regulating bodies to become rich terrain for cultural analysis, of political tensions, and artistic exploration, as announced by Jos Luis de Vicente. One of the guests at that edition was the writer and visionary of design Bruce Sterling, who described the form in which space and objects started to possess intelligent characteristics which gave them new forms, materials and even mobility. In the same way, proposals were presented that intended to give physical form to the incorporeal material of the network, the bits, the basic energy of the machines. Also present were the projects of the ILM (Industrial Art & Magic) that showed the historic evolution of visual effects for film and video productions. And, in the other extreme, in the organic and functional design of objects that were intended to transmit life, we were able to enjoy the intervention by the artist Theo Jansen with his Strandbeests, his beasts from the beach are absolutely artificial creatures that integrate into the natural landscape as one more and that evolve based on studies of their behavior that begin with the algorithm and finish on the beaches of Holland.

Means and society However, along with this journey that has taken us from Virtual Reality to Enhanced Reality, from the virtualization of reality to the enhancement of reality by virtual technological means, we find ourselves with other things to consider such as the role of the media in society and culture. It was by no simple chance that the second edition of the festival (1991) centered on the concept of Cybermedia and focused attention on the possibilities that the new media supports could offer, principally based on what was called the Universal Image Machine. Antoni Mercade, participant in this edition then stated that the coming of the Universal Image Machine (computer + video) and the complexitization of the media have contributed to the acceleration of the conflict and to the intensification of the inflation. A conflict created by combat, by prolonged opposition, by uncertainty. Inflation, opposed to consideration, based on excessive proportions and throwaway qualities of an enhanced potential. Now, printing, photography and cinema are no longer relevant nor are monasteries, editions of cards, the illustrated press: now, it is the Universal Machine (more than the wheel, more than the paintbrush) and the media (more than the train, more than the airplane). From these come the amplification of the conflicts and the increase in the circle of action and the impact of the images. In 1991, Tim Bernes-Lee announced the creation of the World Wide Web, a project from CERN that would permit the interconnection of various networks on a global level and facilitate the diffusion and expansion that would take place over the following years until it flourished between 1996 and 1997. This snowball effect was due to the absence of central administration along with the ownership-free nature of Internet protocols which made open interoperability possible along with the impossibility of an excessive monopolistic control. According to present estimations, at the beginning of 2009, 1.5 billion users were connected to Internet. Its implantation in our society has been spectacular in this sense with such impressive progressions that would have been unthinkable in 1991 when all predictions made fell short.

In the edition of the festival dedicated to Cybermedia, theorists and artists such as Derrick de Kerckhove, Perry Hoberman and Laurie Anderson speculated on the future of the media under the impact of the ICT. The words of Marshall McLuhan resounded all around when he stated that in this electronic age, we see ourselves more and more translated into information that leads us to the technological extension of consciousness. Derrick de Kerckhove reminded us of some other words from McLuhan introducing our physical bodies in our extended nervous systems, with the electric media we have established dynamics by which all of the technologies of before, which are merely extensions of our hands, feet, teeth and corporal temperature (controls), all of these extensions of our bodies, including cities, will be translated to information systems. The transformation occasioned by the new mediums advanced at a social level as well and in its first year, 25,000 computers were connected to Internet. The global mind or collective thought ceased to be a utopian idea to become a proposal in a defined form: the web. As a result, institutions such as the Whitney Museum started to give relevance to digital artistic practices by acquiring, for the first time, a work of net.art for its collection, The Worlds First Collective Sentence by Douglas Davis, and not by chance, a collaborative piece that combined different mediums and discourse, something the web made possible. The progressive socialization of the new mediums such as Internet and computers led to centering the 1995 edition in the Virtual Communities. Although virtual communities have existed since 1978 with BBS (and later with FidoNET, etc.) with the arrival of Internet, the expansion of the possibilities of interconnection permitted greater connection with society. Virtual networks were created at all levels from the most specific to that later called social media.

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

Aos ms tarde, cuando Internet estaba consolidndose como medio revolucionario en muchas partes del mundo, posibilitando nuevos canales giles de distribucin de la informacin a nivel planetario, el festival explor las ideas que quedaron latentes en 1991, para centrar la temtica del festival en "La Segunda Piel" (1998). La segunda piel se presentaba como un concepto desarrollado por Marshal McLuhan, quien afirmaba que la red elctrica estaba presente en el mundo pero tambin en el cuerpo humano. Segn el autor, "la electricidad funciona como el tacto. Si los medios son extensiones de nuestro cuerpo, las redes amplan los sentidos". Esta segunda piel planteaba la importancia de las emociones en la comunicacin con las mquinas, mientras a su vez exploraba la interconexin profunda existente entre los medios de comunicacin y los humanos y su cosmovisin. Al ao siguiente (1999), la reflexin sobre la forma en que estos nuevos medios de comunicacin cambiaran las pautas de conducta de los hombres llev a centrar la temtica del festival en "El Ocio Digital". Las profundas transformaciones que estaban sucediendo en las industrias creativas a raz de la irrupcin de las TIC auguraban cambios radicales en los sistemas de creacin, produccin y distribucin, as como en el sistema de recepcin, es decir el comportamiento de los humanos en relacin a los medios. Surgan preguntas acerca de si las personas estaran dispuestas a salir de su casa, con sus televisores de alta definicin y "hipnotizadas por 500 canales de TV" para visitar los tradicionales sitios de entretenimiento como los parques temticos o los museos, por ejemplo. Las distopas del ocio digital ensimismado en el hogar domstico no contaron con la aparicin y rpida consolidacin de las tecnologas ubicuas que posibilitaban una mayor integracin entre espacio virtual y espacio fsico. Algunos aos antes, la "guru" del marketing y tendencias de comportamiento de los consumidores Faith Popcorn previ que las personas iban a vivir en sus casas, con los ms modernos aparatos multimedia, como recluidos en una concha ensimismada y aislada del mundo exterior. Hoy en da, los nuevos aparatos tecnolgicos permiten

una movilidad que combinan la conexin y la experiencia fuera de las casas. Ya no es necesario elegir entre casa (interacciones virtuales) y calle (interacciones "reales"). Una vez ms el desarrollo de las tecnologas sigue el camino de adaptarse a la vida social "no-digital", pero al mismo tiempo cambindola drsticamente. Dos aos ms tarde Apple lanzaba el iPod como dispositivo porttil de almacenamiento y reproduccin de msica digital, que entre noviembre y finales de diciembre del 2001, ya haba vendido 125 mil unidades en todo el mundo siguiendo una progresin espectacular que contribuy a acelerar los cambios en las formas de consumo musical. Sobre la consciencia y la vida Otro de los grandes temas de ArtFutura a lo largo de estos aos ha sido los cambios sucedidos en el mbito de la consciencia, as como en la vida misma, a raz de las nuevas posibilidades cognitivas y perceptivas que nos aportan las nuevas tecnologas. Ya en el ao 1992 el festival fij su atencin en la idea de una Mente Global, centrndose en las nuevas redes telemticas de comunicacin global. El foco de inters estaba en las relaciones entre el individuo y la red global de informacin, partiendo de las nuevas posibilidades que se anunciaban con la conexin simultnea de ordenadores y la velocidad de transmisin de informacin facilitada por las nuevas tecnologas. El investigador Roy Ascott present sus estudios sobre redes mentales colectivas y Terence McKenna habl de los rituales chamansticos y la relacin con otra idea de temporalidad. Tecnologa, literatura de ciencia ficcin, rituales msticos de expansin de la conciencia, biotecnologa eran el punto de partida para una reflexin sobre la nueva concepcin de mente como memoria colectiva. En esta edicin Terence McKenna defina la mente global con una acertada metfora: "Las dunas tienen la interesante particularidad de que se asemejan a su fuerza creadora, el viento. Cada uno de sus granos de arena podra ser comparado a los bits de un ordenador. El viento sera entonces el input que dispone los granos de arena hasta convertirlos en una plantilla a menor escala dimensional de un fenmeno superior, en este caso el propio viento. Ello no tiene nada de mgico y ha sido bien explicado: el viento, una fuerza variable en el tiempo, moldea la forma de la duna, una estructura variable en el espacio."

Pero si en 1992 el tema fue la Mente Global, en 1993 las utopas y realidades de la Vida Artificial centraron la edicin, justo el ao en que otro festival de referencia, Ars Electronica trataba el tema igualmente impactado por los recientes desarrollos en esas tecnologas. La creacin de organismos que simulasen organismos vivos traa a primera lnea de discusin las tensiones entre tecnologa y naturaleza, una discusin muy arraigada en el imaginario cultural, especialmente en boga en el siglo XIX, cuando la evolucin de las mquinas abra la posibilidad de soar con un futuro donde el hombre dominara totalmente la naturaleza. Este arte gentico que promulgaba la Vida Artificial obligaba a nuevos planteamientos, y causaba sorpresa y hasta incomodidad, pero tal como deca William Latham "siento que es irnico que alguien pueda poner una aspiradora en una peana o colocar una cabeza de cabra en un recipiente de cristal y llamarlo arte; sin embargo cuando se utiliza un ordenador para crear arte, la gente cuestiona la definicin." La euforia sobre las posibilidades que se anunciaban desde las nuevas tecnologas de animacin generativa hasta las biotecnologas era clara en aqul momento, y de hecho, 3 aos ms tarde nacera Dolly, la oveja clonada que impactara en la opinin pblica del mundo entero. Hablar de criaturas artificiales implica pensar en la concepcin de naturaleza, hombre y sus posibles relaciones. Los monstruos presentes en la cultura popular son la combinacin de opuestos (hombre+lobo, vivo+muerto, hombre+insecto) que se salen del orden que garantiza que somos elementos distintos y el hombre, sin lugar a dudas, superior. Stelarc, uno de los artistas invitados a esta edicin nos enseaba lo contrario, sus performances que evidencian la fragilidad del cuerpo humano y su falta de preparacin para vivir y adaptarse en los nuevos ambientes, como por ejemplo el universo extraterrenal. Stelarc llevaba as a las ltimas consecuencias la misma relacin con la tecnologa al transformar su propio cuerpo en receptculo de dispositivos electrnicos que utilizan sus msculos como fuerte de energa y sus pulsiones cerebrales, la tecnologa parasitando su propio cuerpo.

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Years later, when Internet was consolidating itself as a revolutionary medium in many parts of the world allowing new agile channels for the distribution of information at a planetary level to be introduced, the festival explored the ideas that had been left behind in 1991 to center the festivals thematic in The Second Skin (1998). The second skin was presented as a concept developed by Marsal McLuhan, who stated that the electric network was present in the world, but also in the human body. According to the author, electricity functions like touch. If the mediums are an extension of our body, the networks amplify our senses. This second skin suggested the importance of our emotions in our communication with machines while, at the same time, it explored the deep interconnection that exists between the media and humans and their view of the world. The following year (1999), the reflection on the way in which these new means of communication would change mans general conduct led to centering the festivals theme in Digital Leisure. The profound transformations that are taking place in the creative industry as a result of the irruption of the ICTs are bringing about radical changes in the creation, production and distribution systems as well as in the reception system, which is to say the behavior of humans in relationship to these means. Questions arise such as will people be prepared to leave their homes and their high definition televisions with which they are hypnotized by 500 TV channels in order to visit the traditional venues of entertainment such as theme parks or museums, for example. The dystopias of digital leisure absorbed in the home did not count on the appearance and speedy consolidation of the ubiquitous technologies that made a greater integration between virtual space and physical space possible. Some years earlier, the guru of marketing and consumer behavioral tendencies Faith Popcorn predicted that people were going to live in their houses with the most modern multimedia appliances like recluses engrossed in a shell and isolated from the exterior world. Nowadays, the new technological apparatus

permits a mobility that combines the connection and the experience out of the house. Now, it is unnecessary to choose between home (virtual interactions) and the street (real interactions). Once again, technological development adapts to existing (non-digital) social life, but, at the same time, changes it drastically. Two years later, Apple launched the iPod as a portable device for storing and reproducing digital music. Between November and the end of December, 2001, 125 thousand units had been sold in the world following a spectacular progression that contributed to accelerating the changes in the ways of consuming music. Consciousness and life Another of ArtFuturas important themes over the years has been the successive changes in the area of consciousness, including within life itself, as a result of the new cognitive and perceptive possibilities that the new technologies have brought us. In 1992, the festival fixed its attention on the idea of a Global Mind and centered on the new telematic networks of global communication. The focus point of interest was in the relationships between the individual and the global information network stemming from the new possibilities that were announced with the simultaneous connection of computers and the velocity of the transmission of information facilitated by the new technologies. The investigator, Roy Ascott, presented his studies on collective mental networks and Terence McKenna talked about shamanistic rituals and their relationship with another idea of temporality. Technology, science fiction literature, mystic consciousness expanding rituals, biotechnology were the starting point for reflection on the new concept of the mind as collective memory. In this edition, Terence McKenna defined the global mind with an acute metaphor, The dunes have the interesting peculiarity of resembling their creating force, the wind. Every grain of sand could be compared to the bits of a computer. The wind would be, therefore, the input that the grains fulfill until they are converted into a screen on a minor scale dimension of a superior phenomenon which, in this case, is the wind itself. There is no magic involved and it has been well explained: the wind, a variable force in time, models the form of the dunes, a variable structure in space.

However, if in 1992, the theme was Global Mind, in 1993 the utopias and realities of Artificial Life were the center of the edition, just the year in which another festival of reference, Ars Electronica, dealt with the theme because of the recent impacting developments in technologies related to the area. The creation of organisms that simulated living organisms brought to the front line of discussion the tensions between technology and nature, a debate deeply rooted in cultural fantasy and that was especially in fashion in the 19th century when the evolution of machines made way for the possibility of dreaming of a future in which man completely dominated nature. This genetic art that promulgated Artificial Life obliged the creation of new approaches and caused surprise and even discomfort, but as William Latham said, I feel that it is ironic that someone can put a vacuum cleaner on a pedestal or place a goats head in a glass jar and call it art; however, when a computer is used to create art, the public question its definition. The euphoria about the possibilities that were announced as of the new generative animation technologies to the biotechnological was clear in that moment, and, in fact, three years later, Dolly was born, the cloned sheep that impacted public opinion all over the world. To talk about artificial creatures implies thinking about the conception of nature, man and their possible relationships. The monsters present in popular culture are a combination of opposites (man+wolf, life+death, man+insect) that come out in an order that guarantees that we are different elements and that man, without a doubt, is superior. Stelarc, one of the artists invited to this edition, showed us the contrary. His performances made the fragility of the human body and its lack of preparation to live and adapt to new environments, such as, for example, extraterrestrial space, evident. In this way, Stelarc took the same relationship with technology to its ultimate consequences by transforming his own body into a receptacle of electronic devices which used his muscles and brain pulsations as a source of energy, technology as a parasite on his own body.

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

Partiendo de los sueos y realidades aportadas por las tecnologas de vida artificial, aos ms tarde, el festival pas a centrarse en las viejas y renovadas utopas de creacin de un hombre artificial. En 1996 la temtica escogida fue la de "Robots & Knowbots" donde se discutieron los avances en torno a los intentos de creacin de un hombre artificial, o la figura del hbrido hombremquina, presente en el imaginario social mucho antes de las tecnologas que hicieron posible los primeros robots. Tambin se trataron los knowbots, un concepto que se aplicaba a los robots sin cuerpo fsico, presentes en la web, rastreando fuentes de informacin generadoras de conocimiento. Adems se presentaron diferentes debates sobre las nuevas propuestas tecnolgicas como la Televirtualidad, la banda ancha y la convergencia de distintos medias (telfono, TV, etc.) en la red. En esa edicin Hans Moravec afirmaba que "al utilizar los recursos ms eficientemente, un ciberespacio maduro del futuro lejano ser efectivamente ms grande que el universo fsico presente. Mientras que solamente una fraccin infinitesimal de la materia y espacio existentes realiza un trabajo interesante, en un ciberespacio bien desarrollado cada bit estar archivando un dato til o ser parte de una computacin relevante." Las utopas y distopas de los robots fueron tratadas en aquella edicin con invitados como Bruce Blumberg, Knowbotic Research, Alex Adriaansens o Chico MacMurtrie entre otros. Desde las fantasas de un Frankestein de Mary Shelley hasta los cyborgs de la NASA, cada aproximacin a los humanos artificiales ha representado la actualizacin de los conocimientos tecnolgicos de cada poca. El aumento de las capacidades de los humanos es de alguna manera el fin ltimo de los esfuerzos por construir un robot a semejanza de los humanos. La idea de red como extensin del pensamiento es lo que la transforma en un Cyborg nuestra parte maqunica de la mente. Una mente cuya conciencia es mltiple y global que fue objeto de la edicin de 2000 centrada en la idea de "Internet como Cyborg". Al mismo tiempo, en este momento se discuta la convergencia de los medios en el entorno digital. Xavier Berenguer afirmaba que "la segunda edad del ciberespacio, en la que ahora nos encontramos,

se distingue por la emergencia de los programas interactivos, o sea de programas que intermedian en el libramiento de contenidos. El gran impulso de estos programas es la red, una red que ahora no es ms que una infraestructura para la produccin, la gestin y la transmisin econmicas, pero que acabar mediatizando la mayora de actividades humanas, entre ellas el entretenimiento y el arte." Pero En qu medida este proceso realmente propone una novedad en trminos de procesos y produccin cultural? Los hackers, los tekkies, sern responsables por subvertir y hacer un uso ms amplio y consciente de la informacin o el poder de las imgenes seguir fascinando y controlando, generando nada ms que formas ms sofisticadas de hipnosis e idolatra? Todas estas cuestiones y muchas ms fueron tratadas en la edicin de 2008, centrada en "Maquinas y Almas" y la interaccin entre las tecnologas y las artes, una edicin que previamente fue desarrollada en una exposicin en el MNCARS en la que se mostraban destacadas piezas de gneros de arte digital de todo tipo, desde el Software Art, net.art, manipulacin de imgenes, Biotecnologa, Vida Artificial, Robtica, Realidad Virtual, Visualizacin de Datos, todos estos trminos que dejan entrever los caminos por donde las artes y las ciencias han confluido y confluyen. Sobre la cultura y la tecnologa Las TIC han transformado la cultura y la sociedad, y en su progresiva implantacin han ido transformando los procesos de creacin, produccin, difusin, distribucin y recepcin de todos y cada uno de los sectores culturales. Solo hace falta observar los cambios radicales que han sucedido en la industria musical o la industria audiovisual, o el incremento exponencial de la industria de los videojuegos y su presencia en sociedad. Lo que hoy se nos muestra como dato evidente en 1994 pareca autntica ciencia ficcin mientras ArtFutura centraba la atencin en la recin aparecida Cibercultura, de la mano de pioneros como Kevin Kelly o Peter Rubin. Entonces ya se empezaba a utilizar el concepto de red como idea de las conexiones entre las diversas actividades individuales y colectivas en la "noosfera". Msica electrnica, vdeos, fotos, animaciones digitales, videojuegos comenzaban a ser menos difciles de producir y compartir y ya

penetraban cada vez ms en el tejido cultural de la sociedad en general. En este ao se haba lanzado oficialmente el navegador Netscape, y Yahoo (que cabe recordar que significaba "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.") presentaba su primera versin, mientras Sony revolucionaba el mercado de los videojuegos con la consola Playstation. Invariablemente la preocupacin latente en todo ello era la pregunta sobre quienes seran los que tendran el derecho de participar en esta Cibercultura, y en qu medida la cantidad cada vez ms grande de informacin disponible se podra compartir libremente al margen de las propiedades privadas de las grandes corporaciones. La defensa de la libertad de la informacin, en lnea con las ideas defendidas por los ciberpunks y hackers, dejaba de ser una idea para un futuro ficcional y empezaba a ser considerada como una problemtica actual y urgente a tratar. El director del Festival, Montxo Algora, escriba entonces con optimismo "La cibercultura est entre nosotros. Es el ltimo movimiento del siglo XX. Sus simpatizantes son los primeros nmadas del ciberespacio: un grupo heterogneo de cientficos visionarios, hackers, msicos, fanticos de la informtica y artistas de imgenes digitales. Sus temas de inters van de la alta tecnologa a los juegos virtuales, del hipertexto a las bebidas inteligentes, de la literatura cyberpunk al internet y a los implantes cerebrales. Su eslogan: "La informacin ha de ser libre". Y es que hay algo que empezamos a vislumbrar al final del milenio: al igual que en un nuevo sistema-neuronalnervioso-electrnico, todo el saber humano surcar pronto las redes digitales." Con el boom de Internet y la popularizacin de los ordenadores como mquinas de creacin, trabajo y ocio, se fue explorando progresivamente una de las potencialidades ms especficas de las TIC: la participacin y creacin colectiva. Si ya en 1994 aparecieron las primeras obras de net.art -como la pionera Handshake de Barbara Aselmeier y Joachim Blank, o File Room de Antoni Muntadas- con el tiempo el potencial de participacin fue dando lugar a nuevas e interesantes exploraciones, que llevaron desde la

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Based on the dreams and realities brought to us by the technologies of artificial life, years later, the festival came to center itself on the old and renovated utopias of the creation of an artificial man. In 1996, the theme chosen was Robots & Knowbots in which the advances around the attempts to create an artificial man, or the figure of the hybrid man-machine, present in social fantasy long before technology made the first robots, was discussed. Also, knowbots were dealt with, a concept that is applied to robots without physical body and that are present on the web where they drag sources of information and are creators of knowledge. In addition, there were various debates on the new technological proposals such as Televirtuality, broadband and the convergence of different mediums (telephone, TV, etc.) on the net. In this edition, Hans Moravec stated that on using the most efficient resources, a mature cyberspace of a distant future would evidently be larger than the present physical universe. While just one infinitesimal fraction of the existing matter and space would be necessary to carry out an interesting job, in a cyberspace well developed, each bit would be filing useful data or would form part of a relevant computation. The utopias and dystopias of the robots were dealt with in that edition by guests such as Bruce Blumberg, Knowbotic Research, Alex Adriaansens and Chico MacMurtrie among others. From the fantasies of Mary Shelleys Frankestein to the NASAs cyborgs, every approximation to artificial humans has represented the actualization of the technological knowledge of each period. The increase of human capacity has, in some ways, as its main aim the construction of a robot in human likeness. The idea of network as an extension of thought is what transforms our minds into Cyborg. A mind whose consciousness is multiple and global and that was the object of the 2000 edition centered on the idea of Internet as Cyborg. At the same time, at this moment the convergence of the mediums in the digital environment is being debated. Xavier Berenguer stated that the second age of cyberspace, in which we now all find

ourselves, stands out because of the emergence of interactive programs, or rather, programs that intermediate in the release of content. The great impulse of these programs is the net, a net that is now no more than an infrastructure for production, management and financial transmission, but that will end up mediating the majority of human activity among which will be entertainment and art. However, to what extent will this process really propose a novelty in terms of processes and cultural production? The hackers, the trekkies will be responsible for subverting and making a more ample conscious use of the information or the power of the images will continue to fascinate and control and to create nothing more than more sophisticated ways of hypnosis and idolatry. All of these questions and many more were dealt with in the 2008 edition centered on Souls and Machines and the interaction between technology and art, an edition that was previously developed in an exhibition in MNCARS in which outstanding pieces of digital art of all kinds was shown from Software Art, net.art, manipulation of images, Biotechnology, Artificial Life, Robotics, Virtual Reality, Data Visualization. All of these terms that leave a trace of the paths on which art and science have come together and are coming together. Culture and technology The ICT have transformed our culture and society and along with their progressive implantation they have transformed the processes of creation, production, diffusion, distribution and reception in each and every one of our cultural sectors. It is only necessary to look at the radical changes that have taken place in the music and audiovisual industries or the exponential development of the videogame industry and its presence in society. What we see today as being evident, seemed to be authentic science fiction in 1994 when ArtFutura centered its attention on the recently emerged Cyberculture, under the inspiration of pioneers such as Kevin Kelly and Peter Rubin. It was then that using the concept of the network as an idea of connections between different individuals and collective activities in the noosphere started. Electronic music, videos, photos, digital animations, videogames started to be less difficult to produce and share and were

beginning to penetrate deeper and deeper into our culture and society in general. In that year, the browser Netscape had been officially launched and Yahoo (and it should be remembered that it means "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle") presented their first version while Sony revolutionized the videogame market with the console, Playstation. Invariably, the latent preoccupation of all of this was the question about who would be the ones who would have the right to participate in this Cyberculture and to what extent the growing quantity of available information would be freely shared away from the private properties of the large corporations. The defense of freedom of information, in line with ideas defended by cyberpunks and hackers, ceased to be an idea for a fictitious future and started to be considered a present-day problem to be dealt with urgently. The director of the festival, Montxo Algora, optimistically wrote at that time that Cyberculture is amongst us. It is the last movement of the 20th century. Its sympathizers are the first nomads of cyberspace: a heterogeneous group of visionary scientists, hackers, musicians, information fanatics and digital image artists. Their themes of interest run from high technology to virtual games, from hypertext to intelligent drinks, from cyberpunk literature to Internet and to brain implants. Their slogan: Information has to be free. And there is something we are just starting to see at the end of this millennium: just like a new electronic-neuralnervous system, all of human knowledge will soon be ploughed into digital networks. With the boom of Internet and the popularization of computers as machines for creation, work and leisure, one of the most specific and strongest aspects of the ICT was progressively explored: collective participation and creation. If the first works of net.art - such as the pioneer Handshake by Barbara Aselmeier and Joachim Blank, or File Room by Antoni Muntadas - appeared in 1994, with time, the potential for participation made possible new and interesting explorations that

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

creacin colectiva a las comunidades virtuales, que fue tema de la edicin de 1995 tal y como comentamos con anterioridad. Poco a poco, la sociedad tomaba consciencia de las posibilidades reales de las TIC en la medida en que su implantacin se extenda a todos los niveles de actuacin. Esa dinmica tan esencial a la cultura digital volvi a tratarse en la edicin de 2001 bajo el tema de "Arte Colectivo, de la Inteligencia Distribuida a los Juegos en Red". Ese fue el ao del ataque a las torres gemelas de Nueva York, con la omnipresencia de los media en la tragedia y la incertidumbre en relacin al futuro de la paz mundial estaban presentes en al ambiente general. La red de redes se mostr como una herramienta indispensable para la difusin de informacin de todo tipo ante la catstrofe colosal. Mientras, el festival presentaba una seleccin de trabajos artsticos, de diseo, animacin y publicidad, creados en red y de modo colectivo. El principal tema de fondo que se trataba era la cuestin del proceso de creacin colaborativo como algo que obviamente no haba empezado con Internet, sino que se vea incrementado con los nuevos modos de creacin en la web, facilitando su propio desarrollo as como nuevos usos. Esta dinmica colaborativa en el contexto de la cultura digital parta del mismo modus operandi que desde sus inicios persigui la cultura hacker de programacin en colectivo. Los concursos de Demos (demostracin de juegos o aplicaciones informticas) desde el principio cobraron especial relevancia como ejemplo de producto de creacin y uso colectivo que puede ser comprendido tanto como arte en los nuevos media como producto comercializable en el mercado. La edicin de 2001 dio especial importancia al panorama de los videojuegos y los juegos en red, mientras contaba tambin con uno de los desarrolladores del videojuego SIMS (Jamie Doornbois) que en el ao anterior haba sido nmero uno en ventas. Sims, como es sabido, propona un modo distinto de narrativa y formato de juego, que adems, con su posterior lanzamiento como versin en red ese mismo ao, cambiara a la vez los patrones de la interaccin en los juegos online.

Al ao siguiente, el festival continu tratando de forma ms directa los cambios de las relaciones entre cultura y tecnologa. La transformacin de la cultura a manos de las nuevas posibilidades que abran las tecnologas tomaba forma mientras aparecan pantallas con un contraste tan bueno como el papel, y en Europa, 70 millones de usuarios estaban conectados a la Internet. En Espaa se creaba entonces el MediaLab Madrid, con el objetivo de ser un centro de formacin, produccin y difusin del arte y cultura digital, que, aunque nada tena que ver en su forma y orientacin, si recordaba en bucle al pionero Centro de Clculo de Madrid que en los aos 1970 produjo las primeras obras de Computer Art en el Estado. Aquel mismo ao en Estados Unidos tena lugar la primera gran exposicin organizada por una institucin como el San Francisco MOMA, no especializada en arte digital: "010101 Art in Technological Times" comisariada por Steve Dietz. Y el museo norteamericano Whitney lanzaba Artport, un portal comisariado por Christiane Paul dedicado a las obras de net.art y arte digital en general. Era un momento dulce para el arte y la cultura digital que se vea reconocida, y legitimada de alguna manera, por algunas de las instituciones ms representativas de la cultura contempornea. Por esta razn, la edicin de 2002 de ArtFutura propona el tema de "La Red como Lienzo" planteando de forma explcita la relacin entre el arte contemporneo y el arte digital. El concepto de lienzo como espacio donde se propone, produce y expone la obra es la metfora para el espacio digital. Desde el punto de vista de la organizacin, este modo de ver la creacin en lo digital permite expandir las problemticas tpicas de las artes, haciendo posibles nuevos caminos a partir de la interactividad y de la distribucin masiva. Del mismo modo invita a reflexionar sobre los parmetros de la esttica en la creacin digital, las fronteras entre arte y diseo, el papel del artista y de este nuevo pblico que es individual y colectivo a la vez. Si el arte ya no es lo mismo, el artista tampoco. Los nuevos medios de produccin y distribucin generan directamente nuevas cuestiones relativas a los derechos de autor que en aqul ao se hara ms visible con la creacin de las licencias de Creative Commons, como alternativa flexibilizadora de las tradicionales y rgidas licencias de propiedad intelectual,

incapaces de adaptarse a la nueva cultura que artistas y tericos como Cory Arcangel y Pablo Soto, participantes en esa edicin, se encargaron de defender y argumentar. La importancia del momento histrico en curso, en el que la cotidianidad de las tecnologas digitales invitaba a una hibridacin total de mundos -on y off line, digitales y analgicos, culturales y tecnolgicos- llev a continuar incidiendo en la relaciones entre contemporaneidad y digitalidad de la cultura. En el 2003 se lanzaron las "pinturas electrnicas" como producto para el pblico en general y el nmero de PCs vendidos fue entonces de 160 millones, mostrando de esta manera hasta qu punto los productos cien por cien tecnolgicos digitales se convierten en parte fundamental de la vida familiar. En ese contexto, el festival toma como tema la "Pintura Estirada" avanzando en la discusin sobre las relaciones entre las artes tradicionales y las digitales, ahora en un tono ms crtico. Unos de los invitados de la edicin, Lev Manovich, lanzaba estas palabras: "Si existe un mbito social cuya lgica sea similar a la lgica del arte digital, o arte de los nuevos medios en general, en mi opinin este mbito no es el arte contemporneo, ni el arte moderno ni el diseo, sino la informtica". De forma inevitable surgan preguntas sobre la rigidez de las instituciones artsticas (museos, galeras, mercado), as como la conveniencia o no de cambiar las dinmicas establecidas por otras nuevas adecuadas al nuevo contexto. Los blogs, que emergieron con fuerza, proponan mientras tanto nuevas formas de escritura, se trataba de un nuevo modo de comunicar informacin? Qued claro que rpidamente se erigieron como un autntico contrapoder a los medios de comunicacin estndar, y con el tiempo fueron consolidndose: hoy ya hay ms de 71 millones de ellos segn datos de Technorati. Pronto surgieron casos de xito de organizacin ciudadana a partir de ideas difundidas en los blogs, la figura del blogger ya empezaba a ser socialmente reconocida y en los debates se invit a gente del calibre de Meg Hourihan (co-creadora del servicio Blogger), Anil Dash (parte del equipo Movable Type) y Xeni Jardin (editora de Boing Boing).

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ranged from collective creation to virtual communities, which was the theme of the 1995 edition as we have previously mentioned. Little by little, society was becoming conscious of the real possibilities of the ICT as their implantation extended to all aspects of our lives. Those dynamics so essential to digital culture were once again dealt with in the 2001 edition in the theme Collective Art, from Distributed Intelligence to Games Online. This was the year of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York with the omnipresence of the media in the tragedy and the uncertainness of the future for world peace being present in the general atmosphere. The network of networks showed itself to be an indispensable tool for the diffusion of information of all sorts during a colossal catastrophe. Meanwhile, the festival presented a selection of artistic works, design, animation and publicity created on networks and of a collective nature. The main underlying theme dealt with was the question of the process of collaborative creation as something that obviously had not started with Internet, but that had been seen to be developing with the new forms of creation on the web facilitating its own development as well as new uses. This collaborative dynamic in the context of digital culture stemmed from the same modus operandi that the hacker culture of collective programming had pursued since its beginnings. The Demo competitions (game demonstrations or computer applications) from the beginning took on special relevance as an example of a product of creation and collective use that could be understood as much as art in the new media as commercializable product on the market. The 2001 edition gave special importance to the panorama of videogames and games online and also featured one of the developers of the videogame SIMS (Jamie Doornbois) that had been number one in sells in previous years. Sims, as is known, proposed a different form of narrative and game format, which in addition, with its later launch as online version that same year, would change the very nature of interaction in online games.

The following year, the festival continued to deal with the changes in the relationships between culture and technology in a direct way. The transformation of culture by the new possibilities that the technologies opened were taking shape while new screens with a contrast as good as paper were appearing in Europe, 70 million users were connected to Internet. In Spain, at that time, MediaLad Madrid was created with the objective of being a center of information, production and diffusion of art and digital culture, which, although had nothing to do with it in form or orientation reminded us in a way of the pioneer Centro de Clculo, Madrid that in the 70s produced the first works of Computer Art in the State. That same year in the USA, the first large exhibition organized by an institution such as the San Francisco MOMA, not specialized in digital art, took place: "010101 Art in Technological Times" curated by Steve Diet. And the North American museum Whitney launched Artport, a portal curated by Christiane Paul dedicated to works of net.art and digital art in general. It was a good moment for art and digital culture that found itself recognized and legitimatized in some way by some of the most representative institutions of contemporary culture. For this reason, the 2002 edition of ArtFutura proposed the theme The Network as a Canvas presenting in an explicit way the relationship between contemporary art and digital art. The concept of a canvas as a space in which to propose, produce and exhibit the work is the metaphor for the digital space. From the point of view of organization, this way of seeing digital creation allows us to expand on some of the typical problems of the arts and to make new forms based on interactivity and massive distribution possible. In the same way, this invites us to reflect on the parameters of the aesthetics in digital creation, the frontiers between art and design, the role of the artist and of this new public which is individual and collective at the same time. If art is no longer the same, the artist is not either. The new means of production and distribution create new questions concerning copyrights that, in that year, became more visible with the creation of the Creative Commons licenses as being alternative and more flexible than the rigid and traditional copyright licenses that are

incapable of adapting to the new culture that artists and theorists such as Cory Arcangel and Pablo Soto, participants in that edition, took on to defend and debate. The importance of the historic moment being lived in which the everyday of the digital technologies invited us into hybridations of worlds -- on and off line, digital and analogical, cultural and technological led us to continue insisting in the relationship between the contemporariness and digitalness of our culture. In 2003, electronic paintings were launched as a product for the public in general and the number of PCs sold was then 160 million which shows in this way to what point products that were 100 per cent digital technology became, to a certain extent, fundamental to family life. In that context, the festival adopted as its theme Stretched Paint and advanced in the debate on the relationships between traditional and digital arts now in a more critical tone. One of the guests at the edition, Lev Manovich, proposed these words: If there is one social field whose logic is similar to the logic of digital art, or new media art in general, in my view this field is not contemporary art, modern art, or design, but computer science. Inevitably, there were questions about the rigidness of the artistic institutions (museums, galleries, market) as well as the convenience of changing the established dynamics for other newer forms more suitable for the new context. Blogs, which emerged with strength, meanwhile proposed new ways of writing. Are they a new way of communicating information? It quickly became clear that they would stand up as an authentic counterweight to the standard means of communication and with time, they consolidated themselves: Today there are more than 71 million of them according to Technorati. Soon cases of successful citizen organization came about as a result of ideas diffused in blogs. The figure of the blogger started to be socially recognized and to the debates guests of the caliber of Meg Hourihan (co-creator of the service Blogger), Anil Dash (member of the team Movable Type) and Xeni Jardin (editor of Boing Boing) were invited.

ArtFutura: el presente del futuro ArtFutura: the present of the future

Pero al anlisis de las transformaciones de la cultura a raz de las TIC, pronto se le sumaron las nuevas formas de analizar la cultura gracias a las posibilidades de tratamiento informativo que aportaban las tecnologas digitales. Nunca antes el ser humano haba podido procesar tanta cantidad de informacin para convertirla en conocimiento significativo. La cuantificacin de la cultura, la capacidad de recoger, almacenar y procesar cantidades ingentes de datos abra nuevas posibilidades para el anlisis y el conocimiento de la cultura misma. La edicin de 2006 trat precisamente del potencial cognitivo de las visualizaciones de datos, la "Esttica de Datos" centr el tema del festival aquel ao, con intervenciones decisivas de agentes destacados como Andrew Vande Moere, editor de Information Aesthetics. Justo cuando se empezaba a hablar de las web 2.0, con su plyade de definiciones y aplicaciones, se mostraba necesario salir del dominio de la interfaz ms bsica -la imagen puramente visual- para pasar a pensar en los datos y el cdigo como posibilidades creativas y estticas. Ya no se trataba ms de ensear imgenes y contar historias, sino de interrelacionar informacin, tarea nada fcil y que per se ya demanda un tipo de arquitectura tanto tecnolgica como de creacin conceptual muy sofisticada. Mientras se instalaba popularmente la idea de la comprensin de la vida como sistema de informacin y se perfeccionaban las tcnicas de clonacin, en el mbito de los videojuegos, las consolas como la XBox 360 ya haban sido lanzadas al mercado y se esperaba la PS3 con muchas expectativas. El revolucionario mando de control de la Wii de Nintendo, que remita a un juego ms hptico y kintico, fue lanzado ese mismo ao, revolucionado el mundo de los videojuegos y los modos de interaccin, sacando el usuario de la silla y la consola de la mesa. Paralelamente el desarrollador de videojuegos Kawakubo invitado a esa edicin -y figura clave del momento- se defina a s mismo como alguien ms interesado en dar nuevos usos a la tecnologa existente que en descubrir nuevas tecnologas.

De esta forma, las nuevas visiones de la cultura y la sociedad que aportaban las nuevas herramientas hacen posible nuevas interpretaciones ms complejas. La relacin de las tecnologas digitales con el mbito cultural dej definitivamente de centrarse en la ciencia ficcin, las prospectivas y el deseo de futuro, para devenir presente continuo y cotidiano. Al inicio del 2007 se inauguraba en Gijn el centro de arte Laboral, que se intitulaba un Centro de Arte y Creacin Industrial, de proporciones ambiciosas, en un proyecto totalmente destinado a las producciones en las nuevas tecnologas, algo que hubiera sido imposible imaginar algunos pocos aos antes. El texto de introduccin del festival de 2007, "La Prxima Web" empez afirmando que "lo cotidiano ha ganado la partida a lo visionario". La realidad muestra la forma en que las iniciativas individuales han tenido ms impacto en el tejido social que las grandes promesas de tecnologa de punta. Lo que la red ha permitido es la apropiacin de estas iniciativas por parte de una comunidad global, con una diversidad de agentes diferenciados, constitutiva de su riqueza y fortaleza. Steve Johnson especulaba entonces diciendo que la Red est dejando de ser una biblioteca internacional de pginas vinculadas para convertirse en un ecosistema de informacin, en el que los datos circulan como nutrientes en un bosque tropical." Esta inteligencia colectiva de la que tanto se hablaba era ahora quien decida lo que iba a cobrar relevancia, en una verdadera estructura bottom-up.

Una conclusin no conclusiva De "dunas" a "bosque tropical", de "cerebro" a "segunda piel", las metforas que han ido proponiendo tericos y artistas a lo largo de estos aos nos permiten percibir que el universo de la informacin tecnolgica, que durante tanto tiempo ha sido sinnimo de artificialidad, se ha mostrado tan natural y permeable al contexto fsico como los sistemas sociales "no-informticos". Cognicin y comunicacin, conceptos definitorios de lo que se comprende como humano ya no pueden ser estudiados fuera de la tecnologa. La coproduccin de los estratos sociales, cognitivos, comunicativos y tecnolgicos debe ser tenida en cuenta de forma interrelacionada en la constatacin de su interdependencia. Veinte aos del festival ArtFutura trazan un itinerario que ha ido de la realidad virtual a las redes sociales. De la llamada web 2.0 a fenmenos masivos como Facebook muestran la concrecin de algo que ya se anunciaba desde hace dos dcadas, la tecnologa est socialmente construida tanto como lo social esta tecnolgicamente sostenido. Desde el mismo momento de creacin de una tecnologa ha habido tericos que vean la muerte del media anterior. El cine no ha matado el teatro, ni la televisin al cine, y aunque los modos de escritura han cambiado tambin es cierto que el libro electrnico no ha matado al libro, ni las redes sociales han destruido las relaciones interpersonales. ArtFutura ha tenido el acierto de proponer ideas de futuro en las ltimas dos dcadas sin tener que elegir entre real y virtual. Ya sabemos que no se trata de una eleccin o/o, sino de una combinatoria que exige que tanto mundo fsico como virtual se transformen mutuamente, aumentndose en reciprocidad. De esta forma, en su pulsin por intentar prever el futuro, a lo largo de dos dcadas el festival ArtFutura ha permitido comprender el presente de la realidad que se crea frente a nuestra mirada.

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However, to the analysis of the cultural transformations due to ICT soon were to be added new ways of analyzing culture thanks to the possibilities of information treatment that the digital technologies brought. Never before had the human being been able to process such a quantity of information and convert it into significant information. The quantification of culture, the capacity of gathering, storing and processing enormous quantities of data opened new possibilities for the analysis and knowledge of culture itself. The 2006 edition precisely dealt with the cognitive potential of the visualization of data, Data Aesthetics was the center of the festivals theme that year with decisive interventions from outstanding agents such as Andrew Van de Moere, editor of Information Aesthetics. Just when everyone was starting to talk about the web 2.0 with its multiple definitions and applications it became clearly necessary that we would have to move away from the dominion of the basic interface the purely visual image in order to move on to think about the data and codes as creative aesthetic possibilities. It was no longer a question of showing images and telling stories, but of interrelating information which is far from being an easy task and which per se demands a type of highly sophisticated architecture from as much a technological as conceptual creative point of view. While the idea of the comprehension of life as an information system was becoming popularly accepted and the techniques of cloning perfected, in the field of videogames, consoles such as the Xbox 360 had been launched onto the market and the PS3 was awaited with great expectation. The revolutionary control of the Wii from Nintendo that made it a more lively kinetic game was launched in the same year and revolutionized the world of videogames and the forms of interaction getting the users our of their chairs and away from the table console. Along with this, the videogame developer Kawakubo, guest at this edition and key figure of the moment defined himself as someone more interested in giving new uses to existing technology than discovering new technologies.

In this way, the new visions of culture and society that bring us the new tools make new more complex interpretations possible. The relationship of the digital technologies with the cultural field has definitively stopped centering itself in science fiction and a desire of future to content itself in the present continuous and the everyday. At the beginning of 2007, the center of art Laboral was opened in Gijon and called a Center of Art and Industrial Creation. It is a project of ambitious proportions and totally destined to the productions of the new technologies which is something that would have been impossible to imagine not many years ago. The introductory text of the 2007 festival, The Next Web started by stating that the everyday has won the match against the visionary. Reality shows the way in which individual initiatives have had more impact on social structure than the grand promises of the latest technology. What Internet has permitted is the appropriation of these initiatives by a global community with a diversity of differentiated agents making up its richness and strength. Steve Johnson speculated then by saying that Internet is no longer an international library of linked pages, but an ecosystem of information in which data circulates like nutrients in a tropical forest. This collective intelligence of which so much has been said is now who decides what will be relevant in a true bottom-up structure.

An inconclusive conclusion From dunes to tropical forest, from brain to second skin, the metaphors that theorists and artists have proposed over these years allow us to perceive that the universe of information technology, which for so long has been a synonym of artificialness, has shown itself as natural and permeable to the physical context as the social systems non-computerized. Cognition and communication, defining concepts that are understood by a human cannot be studied away from technology. The co-production of social stratus, cognitive, communicative and technological should be taken into account in a way interrelated to the discovery of its interdependency. For twenty years the ArtFutura festivals have marked an itinerary that has gone from virtual reality to the social networks. Everything from the so called web 2.0 to the massive phenomena Facebook show the buildup of what was announced two decades ago that technology is as socially built as the social is technologically sustained. From the very moment of the creation of a technology there have been theorists that have foreseen the death of the previous medium. Cinema has not killed theater, nor has television the cinema and, although forms of writing have changed, it is also certain that the electronic book has not killed the book, nor have social networks destroyed interpersonal relationships. ArtFutura has been correct in proposing ideas of the future over the last two decades without having chosen between the real and virtual. We now know that it is not a question of an election o/o, but of a combination that demands that the physical world as much as the virtual mutually transform and augment in reciprocity. In this way, in its pulsation and intent to foresee the future, over two decades the festival, ArtFutura, has enabled us to understand the present of our reality which is created in front of our eyes.

1990
Realidad Virtual Virtual Reality
11 - 14 Enero / January Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

William Gibson Rebecca Allen La Fura dels Baus Timothy Leary Scott Fisher

Eric Gullichsen Xavier Berenguer Eric Gullichsen Susan Amkraut Michael Girard

ArtFutura comienza con un nico espectculo y un ciclo de conferencias. El espectculo se presenta en el Mercat y consta de una proyeccin de una hora y una performance de treinta minutos titulada Mugra. Es el producto de la colaboracin entre la artista californiana Rebecca Allen y La Fura dels Baus, que posteriormente evolucionar en una de las obras ms completas de la Fura, Noun. Incorpora cuarenta pantallas de vdeo y crean potentes metforas visuales sobre la relacin hombre-mquina. El espectculo audiovisual incluye trabajos ahora clsicos de animacin 3D como Knick-knack de PIXAR y Eurhythmy de Susan Amkraut y Michael Girard, una animacin que ha levantado una enorme expectacin en Siggraph 89 por su sofisticada simulacin de movimiento de grupos. Tambin incluye Capriccio de Zbig Rybczynski, Time de Animtica y una retrospectiva del artista japons Yoichiro Kawaguchi. Muchas de stas imgenes se muestran por primera vez en Espaa. Al final de la proyeccin tiene lugar una actuacin del artista Zush y su grupo Zush-Tres, que han preparado un vdeo especial para la ocasin. Las conferencias tienen lugar en el Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos y en ellas participan el autor William Gibson, la artista Rebecca Allen, el cientfico Scott Fisher y el inclasificable Timothy Leary junto a Luis Racionero, Xavier Berenguer y Eric Gullichsen. Quizs debido a la exigua comunicacin, las conferencias son un fracaso de pblico, con apenas 20 personas en el auditorio. Lo que contrasta con el espectculo del Mercat , que es un gran xito de pblico y crtica. En total, ArtFutura cierra su primera edicin con ms de 5.000 asistentes. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

ArtFutura started as a unique spectacle and a cycle of conferences. The spectacle was present in the Mercat and consisted of a one-hour projection and 30-minute performance titled Mugra. It was a product of the collaboration between the Californian artist Rebecca Allen and La Fura dels Baus, which was later to evolve into one of the most complete works of the Fura, Noun. It incorporated forty video screens and created strong visual metaphors that concerned the relationship man-machine. The audiovisual spectacle included works that are now classics of 3D animation such as Knick-knack from PIXAR and Eurhythmy by Susan Amkraut and Michael Girard, an animation that raised great expectations in Siggraph 89 because of its sophisticated simulation of group movements. It also included Capriccio by Zbig Rybczynski, Time from Animtica and a retrospective of the Japanese artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi. Many of these images were shown in Spain for the first time. After the projection, there was an intervention from the artist Zush and his group Zush-Tres, who had prepared a video specially for the occasion. The conferences took place in the Institute of North American Studies with the participation of the author William Gibson, the artist Rebecca Allen, the scientist Scott Fisher and the unclassifiable Timothy Leary along with Luis Racionero, Xavier Berenguer and Eric Gullichsen. Perhaps due to inadequate communication, the conferences were a failure in terms of attendance, with hardly 20 people in the auditorium which greatly contrasted with the spectacle in the Mercat which was a great success as far as the public and critics were concerned. All together, ArtFutura finished its first edition having received more than 5,000 visitors. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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Megacycles - John Amanatides / Sally Rosenthal - NASA / Pau - Degraf, Wahrman, Algora / Shelly Lake / Zush - Tres

El 11 de Enero de 1990 ArtFutura se presenta en el Mercat de les Flors de Barcelona. Un da antes, en la rueda de prensa, Eric Gullichsen ha mostrado un casco de Realidad Virtual y ha ofrecido a los periodistas la posibilidad de experimentar, por primera vez, la simulacin de entornos 3D en tiempo real.

On the 11 January 1990, ArtFutura was presented in Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona. One day before the opening, in the press conference, Eric Gullichsen displayed a Virtual Reality helmet and offered journalists the possibility of trying it out in order to experience, for the first time, the simulation of 3D environments in real time.

th

La exposicin de ArtFutura de 1990 me parece no slo relevante sino tambin significativa, casi simblica... Se ha terminado el ciclo de unas artes, pero comenzarn los ciclos de otras nuevas. Acaso poner color sobre tela se convierta en venerable artesana, como escribir novelas, filmar pelculas, o cincelar estatuas, pero nuevas formas de arte surgirn por cada una que agote su ciclo. The 1990 ArtFutura exhibition seems to me not only relevant, but also significant, almost symbolic The cycle of some arts has ended, but other new cycles will begin. Perhaps by colouring a piece of material it becomes a highly esteemed handicraft, as with writing novels, making films or chiselling statues, but new art forms will emerge for each one whose cycle wanes. Luis Racionero

1991
Cibermedia Cybermedia
15 - 20 Enero / January Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, Ja Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Laurie Anderson Buzz Perry Hoberman Jim Blashfield Survival Resarch Laboratories Derrick de Kerckhove Mark Pellington

Brad DeGraf Brenda Laurel Patrick Martin Tom DeFanti Antoni Mercader William Gibson

El ao 1991 supone un cambio en el modelo del festival que crece en todos los sentidos. Es el ao en el que se presenta la pelcula estereoscpica Echoes of the Sun. Tambin el ao de la performance de Laurie Anderson y la malograda actuacin de Suvival Research Laboratories. En la entrada del Mercat se instala una exposicin de LEDs de Bill Bell, junto con los pschcolograms de EVL Chicago y las esculturas de Juan Pueyo. Las conferencias vienen marcadas por un homenaje a Marshall McLuhan y la discusin de cmo los medios de comunicacin estn siendo transformados por la llegada de la tecnologa digital. Derrick de Kerckhove, Brenda Laurel, Tom Defanti, Romn Gubern y Electronic Caf participan como invitados. En mitad de las sesiones estalla la primera Guerra del Golfo. Es un ejemplo en caliente de cmo, en la Era Digital, las guerras nunca volvern a verse igual. En el apartado audiovisual, ArtFutura incorpora un programa de televisin que est contando con gran xito en Inglaterra y Estados Unidos: Buzz. Sus creadores (Mark Pellington y Mark Neale) acabarn creando algunos de los ms fascinantes video-clips de los 90 y colaborando estrechamente con U2 y William Gibson. Posteriormente dedicarn un programa a ArtFutura. Se presenta tambin la ltima obra de Zbig Rybzynski The Orchestra, el espectculo de Patrick Martin Psychovision, los trabajos en tiempo real de Degraf/Wahrman, un especial de Jim Blashfield (creador de vdeos para Talking Heads y Michael Jackson) y un experimento de Perry Hoberman (colaborador habitual de Laurie Anderson) que mezcla imgenes estereoscpicas, robots y actores en vivo. Todo sobre una distribucin de escenario que incluye tres pantallas y repetidas incursiones en la estereoscopa. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

1991 brought about a change in the style of the festival that grew in all senses of the word. It was the year in which the stereoscopic film Echoes of the Sun was presented. It was also the year of Laurie Andersons performance and the unfortunate actuation from Suvival Research Laboratories. In the entrance to the Mercat, an exhibition of LEDs was installed by Bill Bell, along with the pscholograms by EVL Chicago and Juan Pueyos sculptures. The conferences were marked by a homage to Marshall McLuhan and the discussion on how the media was being transformed by the arrival of digital technology. Derrick de Kerckhove, Brenda Laurel, Tom Defanti, Romn Gubern and Electronic Caf participated as guests. In the middle of the sessions, the Golf War broke out. It was a living example of how, in the digital age, wars were never going to be seen in the same way again. In the audiovisual section, ArtFutura incorporated a television program that was being very successful in Britain and the United States: Buzz. Its creators (Mark Pellington and Mark Neale) were to end up creating some of the most fascinating video-clips of the 90s and collaborating very closely with U2 and William Gibson. They were later to dedicate a program to ArtFutura. Also presented was the latest work by Zbig Rybzynski The Orchestra, Patrick Martins show Psychovision, Degraf/Wahrmans works in real time, a special by Jim Blashfield (creator of videos for Talking Heads and Michael Jackson) and an experiment by Perry Hoberman (habitual collaborator of Laurie Andersons) who mixed stereoscopic images, robots and actors live. All done on a stage distributed so as to include three screens and repeated incursions in stereoscopy. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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Electronic Caf Videoconference / Bill Bell / Laurie Anderson / Karl Sims - Panspermia / Survival Research Laboratories

Los Nuevos Medios no son puentes entre el Hombre y la Naturaleza: Son la Naturaleza The New Media are not bridges between Man and Nature: They are Nature Marshall McLuhan

1992
Mente Global Global Mind
1 - 5 Abril / April Palau Sant Jordi, Centre dArt Santa Mnica, Barcelona

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, Ja Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Brian Eno Roy Ascott Kevin Kelly Sherry Turkle Rupert Sheldrake

Michael Talbot Terence McKenna Monika Fleischmann Zbig Rybczynski Ars Electronica

Las actividades tienen lugar en el Centre dArts Santa Mnica que tambin acoge una instalacin del artista Brian Eno, que dar una peculiar conferencia titulada El Futuro ser como el perfume. Por su parte, Matt Mullican, presenta sus entornos digitales y Monica Fleishmann describe sus proyectos de Realidad Virtual en el instituto alemn ART+COM. En el apartado audiovisual, ArtFutura presenta el estreno de una nueva obra de Zbig Rybzynski, realizada en vdeo de alta definicin, titulada Manhattan. Y las directoras Sally Rosenthal (Siggraph Electronic Theater) y Christine Schpf (Ars Electronica) presentan los mejores trabajos de sus eventos respectivos. Paralelamente tiene lugar la exposicin Art Inclasificat con trabajos de Alain Fleisher, Miquel Jord, Xavier Hurtado, Franc Aleu, Xavela Vargas, Sergi Caballero y Enric Les Palau. Todo ello junto a una performance de Macromassa y un seminario dirigido por Roy Ascott. La edicin de este ao viene especialmente marcada por la Expo 92 de Sevilla: ArtFutura recibe el encargo del Pabelln de Espaa de producir un proyecto relacionado con la Realidad Virtual. El resultado es Memory Palace (El Palacio de la Memoria), un espectculo audiovisual basado en un texto original de William Gibson y dirigido por Montxo Algora, que cuenta con la produccin musical de John Paul Jones y msica de Peter Gabriel, Gringos y Jumo. En el apartado visual participan Karl Sims, Rebecca Allen, Mark Neale, Julia Heyward y Mark Pellington. La escenificacin teatral es dirigida por Pep Gatell de La Fura dels Baus. El espectculo, que presenta un avance durante ArtFutura en Barcelona, nunca llega a estrenarse en Sevilla. Aunque muchas de sus imgenes resurgirn en las pantallas del siguiente tour de U2. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The activities took place in the Centre dArts Santa Mnica which also accommodated an installation by the artist Brian Eno, who was to give a peculiar conference titled The Future will be like perfume. Matt Mullican presented his digital environments and Monica Fleishmann describes his projects in Virtual Reality in the German Institute ART+COM. In the audiovisual section, ArtFutura presented the premier of Zbig Rybzynskis latest work, produced in high definition video, titled Manhattan. And the directors Sally Rosenthal (Siggraph Electronic Theater) and Christine Schpf (Ars Electronica) presented the best works of their respective events. At the same time, the exhibition Art Inclasificat, with works by Alain Fleisher, Miquel Jord, Xavier Hurtado, Franc Aleu, Xavela Vargas, Sergi Caballero and Enric Les Palau, was shown. A performance by Macromassa and a seminar also took place. That years edition was particularly marked by Expo 92 in Seville: ArtFutura was commissioned by the Spanish Pavilion to produce a project related to Virtual Reality. The result was Memory Palace an audiovisual spectacle based on an original text by William Gibson and directed by Montxo Algora and which included musical production by John Paul Jones and music by Peter Gabriel, Gringos and Jumo. Participants in the visual section were Karl Sims, Rebecca Allen, Mark Neale, Julia Heyward and Mark Pellington. Pep Gatell, from La Fura dels Baus, was the director of dramatization. The spectacle, which was previewed during ArtFutura in Barcelona, was never shown in Seville. However, many of its images reemerged on the screens of U2s following tour. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

36 37

Karl Sims - Liquid Selves / Exposicin Art Inclassificat / Brian Eno / Zbig Rybczynki / Memory Palace - Foto Franc Aleu

Bajo el sugerente ttulo de Mente Global el festival articula un debate sobre las nuevas redes telemticas. Participan Kevin Kelly (editor jefe de la revista Wired), la autora Sherry Turkle (The Other Self), Rupert Sheldrake (creador de la hiptesis de los campos morfogenticos) y Terence McKenna (Food of the Gods). Es un momento histrico: Todava ni existe la World Wide Web, pero visionarios como Kevin Kelly avanzan con lucidez el futuro que nos viene.

Under the suggestive title of Global Mind the festival articulated a debate on the new telematic networks. Among the participants were Kevin Kelly (head editor of the magazine Wired), author Sherry Turkle (The Other Self), Rupert Sheldrake (creator of the hypothesis of morphogenetic fields) and Terence McKenna (Food of the Gods). It was an historic moment: the World Wide Web still didnt exist, but visionaries such as Kevin Kelly lucidly advanced the future that was about to arrive.

La mente global apenas ha comenzando a tener cuerpo. Cuando las seales televisivas se digitalizan, la mente global adquiere ojos. A medida que los bancos de datos se nutren de conocimiento textual, la mente global encuentra su verbo. The global mind is only now acquiring a body. As TV signals become digital, the global mind acquires eyes. As data banks fill up with textual knowledge, it gains verbal skills. Kevin Kelly

1993
Vida Artificial Artificial Life
22 - 24 Abril / April Palau de Congressos, Barcelona

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Moebius Stelarc Peter Dougherty Mariscal Jacques Ninio William Latham Karl Sims

Es el ao 1993 y en pleno sndrome post-olmpico los presupuestos institucionales pasan de mximos a mnimos. ArtFutura se traslada al Palau de Congressos de la Fira de Barcelona y dedica su ciclo de conferencias al tema de la Vida Artificial. Participan Xavier Berenguer, el cientfico Jacques Ninio y los artistas William Latham, Karl Sims y Stelarc. Sims y Latham muestran sus trabajos de animacin realizados con tcnicas que simulan la evolucin gentica y el artista australiano Stelarc realiza una demostracin de las capacidades de su tercer brazo robtico. Stelarc, que propone la mutacin de nuestro cuerpo fsico en un nuevo "ciber-cuerpo, invita a al pblico a subir al escenario aplicndoles descargas elctricas. ArtFutura 93 tambin rinde un homenaje Moebius, con una conferencia del propio artista y un visionado exhaustivo de sus trabajos en el campo de la animacin. Se incluye la proyeccin en primicia de "Story of Starwatcher", as como los cortos animados "Internal Transfer", "Incal", "Upon a Star" y el largometraje "Les Maitres du Temps" una pelcula de Ren Laloux en colaboracin con Moebius. Javier Mariscal, por su parte, muestra su nuevo proyecto para un parque de atracciones en Nagasaki, Japn. Se trata de Acuarinto, un mundo fantstico que simula un video-juego con imgenes por ordenador producidas por Animtica en Barcelona. El apartado audiovisual tambin incluye una retrospectiva de trabajos de MTV, presentada por Peter Dougherty y las selecciones del ArtFutura Show y el nuevo Infografa en Espaa. El espectculo cierra con una proyeccin estereoscpica desarrollada por Brad DeGraf titulada Plan-3D From Outer Space. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It was 1993 in full post-Olympic syndrome and institutional budgets had gone from maximums to minimums. ArtFutura moved to the Palau de Congressos in the trade fair of Barcelona and was dedicating its cycle to conferences on the theme of Artificial Life. The participants were Xavier Berenguer, the scientist Jacques Ninio and the artists William Latham, Karl Sims and Stelarc. Sims and Latham showed their animation work created with techniques that simulated genetic evolution and the Australian artist Stelarc gave a demonstration of the capabilities of his third robotic arm. Stelarc, who proposed the mutation of our physical bodies into a new cyber-body, invited the public on stage to apply electrical discharges to them. ArtFutura 93 also offered homage to Moebius, with a conference led by the artist himself and an exhaustive view of his work in the field of animation. It included the first projection of "Story of Starwatcher", as well as the animated shorts "Internal Transfer", "Incal", "Upon a Star" and the feature film "Les Maitres du Temps" a film by Ren Laloux made in collaboration with Moebius. Javier Mariscal showed us his new project for a fun fair in Nagasaki, Japan. It was based on the idea of Acuarinto, a fantasy world that simulated a videogame with computer images produced by Animtica in Barcelona. The audiovisual section also included a retrospective of works by MTV presented by Peter Dougherty and the selections of the ArtFutura Show and the new Infography in Spain. The show closed with a stereoscopic projection developed by Brad DeGraf titled Plan-3D From Outer Space. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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Stelarc / HD CG New York - Dino Tours / Moebius - Starwatcher / Mariscal - Acuarinto

1994
Cibercultura Cyberculture
28 Septiembre / September - 15 Octubre / October Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofa, Madrid

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Kevin Kelly Toshio Iwai Wau Holland Peter Rubin Adi Newton Clock DVA Mark Dipp Industrial Light & Magic
El ao 94 viene marcado por el traslado del festival a Madrid. Ante la falta de apoyo institucional en Barcelona, ArtFutura se presenta en el Museo Reina Sofa de Madrid, de la mano de Carlota lvarez Basso (Directora de Proyectos Audiovisuales). El festival pasa a celebrarse, por primera vez, al final del verano, extendindose a dieciocho das. El presupuesto es mnimo, pero ArtFutura sigue. El tema del ao es Cibercultura y las conferencias incluyen a Kevin Kelly (WIRED), Wau Holland (Chaos Computer Club), la polifactica artista Orlan y el msico Adi Newton (Clock DVA). La organizacin publica su propio Manifiesto: La cibercultura est entre nosotros. Es el ltimo movimiento del siglo XX. Sus simpatizantes son los primeros nmadas del ciberespacio. Su eslogan: "La informacin quiere ser libre". Tambin participan en las presentaciones, Toshio Iwai, quien viene desde Londres, dnde est desarrollando sus experimentos visuales y Mark Dipp, Director Creativo de Industrial Light&Magic, que hace un recorrido por los efectos especiales creados por la compaa de George Lucas. El Programa Audiovisual incluye el ArtFutura Show (con obras de Ryoichiro Debuchi, Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Rythm & Hues, William Latham y Jon McCormack), el Infografa en Espaa (que incluye The Hit de Jordi Moragues) y una amplia seleccin del programa "L'Oeil du Cyclone", uno de los proyectos ms innovadores del panorama europeo producido por Canal + en Francia. En el aspecto ldico, se presenta por primera vez la fiesta de ArtFutura que, producida en colaboracin con La Fura dels Baus, tiene lugar en el Estadio de la Comunidad de Madrid. Se celebra el 8 de Octubre y el titulo es "Futura Bom". Incluye instalaciones (Arigato Obrigato, Pedro Garhel, dijo el monje), videojockeis (Peter Rubin, Stressjets, In Progress), performers (Mondo X, Bomb the Bass, La Fura dels Baus) y live acts (Toxic, Elsa for Toys). Los resultados desbordan todas las expectativas: Ms de 18.000 asistentes en una sola noche. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 1994 was marked by the festival moving to Madrid. As a result of a lack of institutional support in Barcelona, ArtFutura was presented in Madrid in the Museo Reina Sofa de Madrid, thanks to Carlota lvarez Basso (Director of Audiovisual Projects). For the first time, the festival was celebrated at the end of summer and lasted for 18 days. The budget was minimal, but ArtFutura continued. The theme of the year was Cyberculture and the conferences included Kevin Kelly (WIRED), Wau Holland (Chaos Computer Club), the multidisciplined artist Orlan and the musician Adi Newton (Clock DVA). The organization published its own Manifesto: Cyberculture is th amongst us. It is the last movement of the 20 century. Its sympathizers are the first nomads of cyberspace. Their slogan: Information wishes to be free. Also participating in the presentations were, Toshio Iwai, who came from London, where he was developing his visual experiments, and Mark Dipp, Creative Director of Industrial Light&Magic, who took us on a tour of the special effects he had been involved in creating for George Lucas company. The Audiovisual Program included the ArtFutura Show (with works by Ryoichiro Debuchi, Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Rhythm & Hues, William Latham and Jon McCormack), the Infography in Spain (that included The Hit from Jordi Moragues)and a wide selection from the program "L'Oeil du Cyclone", one of the most innovative projects on the European panorama produced by Canal + in France. On the recreational front, for the first time ArtFutura presented its festivity which, produced in collaboration with La Fura dels Baus, took place th in the Stadium of the Community of Madrid. It was celebrated on 8 October and the title was "Futura Bom". It included installations (Arigato Obrigato, Pedro Garhel, dijo el monje), videojockeys (Peter Rubin, Stressjets, In Progress), performers (Mondo X, Bomb the Bass, La Fura dels Baus) and live acts (Toxic, Elsa for Toys). The results went beyond all expectations: more than 18,000 visitors in just one night. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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ExMachina - Krakken / Tippett Studios / IL&M - Forrest Gump / Jon McCormack / Wanatabe - Mysterious Dance

1995
Comunidades Virtuales Virtual Communities
18 - 22 Octubre / October Centro Cultural de la Villa, Madrid

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Future Sound of London Industrial Light&Magic Mark Frauenfelder Carl Loeffler Roy Ascott J.C. Herz, Carla Sinclair Alexander
En su edicin del 95, ante la necesidad de un auditorio ms amplio, el festival se traslada al Centro Cultural de la Villa. Es el ao en el que Internet se hace patente a nivel popular con el uso generalizado de la World Wide Web y el correo electrnico. ArtFutura cubre ste fenmeno desde el punto de vista de las Comunidades Virtuales y se presenta con el subttulo de El Arte en las Redes. Las mesas redondas de este ao incluyen, entre otros, a Mark Frauenfelder, Roy Ascott, Carla Sinclair y J.C. Herz. Y hay nuevo manifiesto que, sta vez, declara: El ciberespacio es la clave. Internet es la clave. Estar conectado es la clave para acceder a los parasos virtuales que solo existen al otro lado de las pantallas de los ordenadores. Con solo pulsar unas cuantas teclas, el cibernauta se encuentra navegando en un planeta de ciencia-ficcin en el que se extienden insondables cantidades de textos, imgenes, sentimientos, frustraciones y vrtigo virtual". Las conferencias se complementan con la participacin de artistas como Alexander, Alex Antich y Virtual Graphics. Y en el programa audiovisual destaca el nuevo trabajo de Chris Landreth, el artista canadiense que presenta The End, una pieza totalmente revolucionaria y claramente diferente en estilo y contenido a las animaciones digitales de su tiempo. Un momento singular del ArtFutura de este ao es la conexin a travs de lnea RDSI con el grupo musical Future Sound of London que enva su concierto desde Londres. Imgenes y sonidos llegan hasta Madrid en una experiencia nica que tiene lugar durante las actividades de la fiesta Estacin Futura, en una antigua fbrica de cervezas junto a la Plaza de Legazpi. El evento tambin incluye proyecciones (Skudi Optics), instalaciones, holografas, performances y la presentacin en Madrid de "Epizoo" de Marcel.l Antnez. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: For its 1995 edition, given the necessity for a larger auditorium, the festival moved to Centro Cultural de la Villa. It was the year in which Internet started to become popular thanks to the generalized use of the World Wide Web and electronic mail. ArtFutura covered this phenomenon from the point of view of the Virtual Communities and was presented with the subheading Art on the Network. The roundtables of that year included, among others, Mark Frauenfelder, Roy Ascott, Carla Sinclair and J.C. Herz. And there was a new manifesto that, this time, declared: Cyberspace is the key. Internet is the key. Being connected is the key to being able to access the virtual paradises that only exists on the other side of the computer screen. By doing no more than tapping a few keys, the cybernaut finds himself surfing on a planet from science fiction on which he finds unfathomable quantities of texts, images, feelings, frustrations and virtual vertigo. The conferences were complemented with the participation of artists such as Alexander, Alex Antich and Virtual Graphics. And in the audiovisual program the new work from Chris Landreth, the Canadian artist who presented The End, a completely revolutionary piece that was clearly different in style and contents to other digital animations of its time, stood out. An outstanding moment of that years ArtFutura was the ISDN connection with the musical group Future Sound of London which sent its concert from London. Images and sounds arrived at Madrid in a unique experience that took place during the activities of the Estacin Futura celebration, in an old beer factory next to Plaza de Legazpi. The event also included projections (Skudi Optics), installations, holographs, performances and the presentation in Madrid of "Epizoo" by Marcel.l Antnez. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

44 45

Chris Landreth - The End / Future Sound of London / Ken Ishii - Extra

Esta cosa, esta cosa hermosa, extensible, chasqueante, como una enorme tela de araa, ha cado ahora en las manos de habitantes de stanos, insomnes y adolescentes con las luces del dormitorio apagadas y los ordenadores encendidos. Y lleva marcha. This thing, this beautiful, sprawling, crackling mammoth spiderweb thing, is now in the hands of basement dwellers, insomniacs, and teens with bedroom lights off and computers on. And it rocks. J.C. Herz

1996
Robots & Knowbots Robots & Knowbots
22 - 27 Octubre / October Cculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Chico MacMurtrie Amorphic Robot Works Laura Kikauka Knowbotic Research

Bruce Blumberg Libres para Siempre Bill Vorn Louis-Philippe Demers

ArtFutura se traslada en el 96 al Crculo de Bellas Artes. All presentar dos ediciones consideradas clsicas. En la primera de ellas, el festival desborda el nuevo espacio en una edicin que incluye exposiciones, seminarios, proyecciones, fiestas y un amplio despliegue de stands. El tema es Robots & Knowbots, un juego de palabras que pretende fundir el arte asociado a la robtica y los knowbots, esos programasrobot digitales que circulan por las redes informticas. Participan en los debates Laura Kikauka, Knowbotic Research, Bruce Blumberg, Bill Vorn y Louis-Philippe Demers. Quizs lo ms destacado de sta edicin es la exposicin-performance de Chico MacMurtrie y Amorphic Robot Works. Dos containers llegan a Madrid con ms de sesenta robots de todos los tamaos que se despliegan en el gran Saln de Baile del Crculo y en la planta baja. Estn todas las creaciones de ARW, desde el Trepador de Cuerdas que sube y baja incesantemente la escalera central, al Super Perro Mono y la Mquina Constructora de Montaas. Todos los das, Chico y sus colaboradores realizan un conciertoperformance que quedar en la memoria de los asistentes. Es una de las exposiciones ms ambiciosas jams presentada por el artista. Las exposiciones se completan con las estructuras robticas de Bill Vorn & Louis-Philippe Demers, as como las instalaciones de Libres para Siempre, ..dijo el monje, Juan Antonio Lle, Eduardo ChaperoJackson y Virtual Graphics. En el apartado audiovisual el ArtFutura Show incluye trabajos de Yugi Kyoshitsu, Pacific Data, Satoshi Kitahara y Blue Sky Productions. Y en el programa Infografa en Espaa destaca One Night de Jordi Moragues, premiado en el Imagina de Montecarlo. Tambin se presenta, en el mismo Crculo de Bellas Artes, la fiesta Estacin Futura bajo el ttulo Dos Noches para Soar Despierto. La fiesta recorre todo el edificio incluyendo msica en directo, sesiones golfas de proyecciones hasta la madrugada, instalaciones y las performances de Chico McMurtrie y Amorphic Robot Works. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

ArtFutura moved to Crculo de Bellas Artes in 1996. There, it was to present two editions considered to be classics. In the first, the festival overflowed the new space in an edition that included exhibitions, seminars, projections, parties and an extensive deployment of stands. The theme was Robots & Knowbots, a play on words that intended to merge art associated with robotics and the knowbots, those digital robot-programs that you find on information networks. In the debates, the participants were Laura Kikauka, Knowbotic Research, Bruce Blumberg, Bill Vorn and Louis-Philippe Demers. Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of this edition was the exhibitionperformance by Chico MacMurtrie and Amorphic Robot Works. Two containers arrived in Madrid with sixty robots of all shapes and sizes that spread out in the Circles grand Ballroom and on the ground floor. They were all creations from ARW, from the Rope Climber that was incessantly going up and down the central staircase, to the Super monkey dog and the Mountain Building Machine. Every day, Chico and his collaborators offered a concert-performance that has stayed in the memory of those who attended. It was one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever presented by the artist. The exhibitions were completed with robotic structures by Bill Vorn & Louis-Philippe Demers as well as installations by Libres para Siempre, ..dijo el monje, Juan Antonio Lle, Eduardo ChaperoJackson and Virtual Graphics. The audiovisual section of the ArtFutura Show included works by Yugi Kyoshitsu, Pacific Data, Satoshi Kitahara and Blue Sky Productions. And in the Infography program in Spain, One Night by Jordi Moragues, prize-winner in Imagina, Montecarlo, stood out. Also, in the Crculo de Bellas Artes, the party Estacin Futura under the title Two Nights to dream Awake was presented. The party filled the entire building and included live music, late-night projections, installations and performances by Chico McMurtrie and Amorphic Robot Works. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

46 47

Chico MacMurtrie - Amorphic Robot Works - Crculo de Bellas Artes

1997
El Futuro del Futuro The Future of the Future
15 - 19 Octubre / October Crculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, Ja Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

David Byrne Arthur Kroker Marylouse Kroker Max More Vicente Verd

Rebecca Allen Javi Navarro Miguel Fuertes (IL&M) Ren Berger

La edicin de 1997 es quizs la ms especulativa de cuantas ediciones han tenido lugar. Son mil das antes del ao 2000 y Antonio Mayo, uno de los comisarios escribe: Cuando se levante el teln para dejar paso al Tercer Milenio, entraremos en un mundo o cibermundo jams soado. Qu es el futuro? Dnde est? y, sobre todo, Qu nos deparar? Cmo sern los museos del prximo siglo? Utilizaremos la realidad virtual para visitar las nuevas galeras? Ser la interactividad una norma en las obras de arte? Hasta dnde nos llevar la vida artificial?. ArtFutura 97 presenta "El Futuro del Futuro, un avance de las formas expositivas del siglo XXI, que incluye "The Ghost Bush", una obra de vida artificial de Rebecca Allen y el proyecto Galera Virtual de Narcs y Roc Pars. Tambin cuenta con obras de Ipsum Planet, Virtual Graphics, Javi Navarro, Franc Aleu y la exposicin de David Byrne Stairway to Heaven, con doce inmensas cajas de luz que llenan el espacio del Saln de Columnas del Crculo de Bellas Artes. El ciclo de conferencias, titulado Utopas para el Siglo XXI, incluye debates con Arthur Kroker, Max More, Vicente Verd, Ren Berger y Leo Ferreira. Y el programa audiovisual se completa con Cine Futura y la proyeccin de pelculas relacionadas con la cultura digital. Este mismo ao ArtFutura presenta una exposicin en el Centro Cultural Ita de Sao Paulo en Brasil. Hay un ciclo de conferencias y se cuenta con la participacin de Chico MacMurtrie que instala su Trepador de Cuerdas en el exterior del edificio, un rascacielos de la Avenida Paulista. El robot sube y baja constantemente durante das. Son ms de 150 metros. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The 1997 edition was perhaps the most speculative of all the editions that have taken place. There were to be 1,000 days to the year 2000 and Antonio Mayo, one of the curators, wrote: When the curtain opens onto the Third Millennium, we will find ourselves in a world or cyberworld that we have never dreamed of. What is the future? Where is it? And, above all, what will it have in store for us? What will the museums of next century be like? Will we use virtual reality to visit the new galleries? Will interactivity be normal in works of art? How far will artificial life have been taken? ArtFutura 97, presented The Future of the Future, a look into the st exhibiting forms of the 21 century which included "The Ghost Bush", a work based on artificial life by Rebecca Allen and the project Virtual Gallery by Narcs and Roc Pars. There were also works by Ipsum Planet, Virtual Graphics, Javi Navarro, Franc Aleu and the exhibition Stairway to Heaven by David Byrne with twelve immense light boxes that completely filled the Saloon of Columns at the Crculo de Bellas Artes. st The conferences titled Utopias for the 21 century included debates with Arthur Kroker, Max More, Vicente Verd, Ren Berger and Leo Ferreira. And the audiovisual program was completed with Cine Futura and the showing of films related to digital culture. In the same year, ArtFutura presented an exhibition in the Cultural Center Ita in Sao Paulo, Brasil. There was a cycle of conferences that included the participation of Chico MacMurtrie who installed his Rope Climber on the exterior of the building, a skyscraper on Avenida Paulista. The robot went up and down constantly for days over a height of more than 150 meters. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

48 49

Javi Navarro / Galera Virtual

1998
La Segunda Piel Second Skin
8 - 11 Octubre / October Teatro Central, Sevilla

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Derrick de Kerckhove Gerfried Stocker Eduardo Punset Eduardo Kac

Jos Luis Brea Laura Baigorri Ramn Lpez de Mntaras

La Segunda Piel hace referencia a una frase de Marshall McLuhan: "En la Era Electrnica llevamos la humanidad como nuestra segunda piel. Es la novena edicin de ArtFutura y el festival se traslada a Sevilla dnde aborda la incorporacin incesante de las nuevas tecnologas que desplazan al mundo real hacia el mundo virtual. La ubicuidad de la informtica, su aceleracin y sus consecuencias imprevisibles. ArtFutura se recrea tambin en imaginar el futuro. Se pregunta qu tipo de ordenadores y sistemas de Realidad Virtual nos deparar el futuro. Especula con el surgimiento de un nuevo tipo de robots receptivos a nuestras expresiones faciales y atentos al ms insignificante de nuestros gestos- y habla de mquinas dotadas de un componente no racional (kansei). El festival seala tambin que la ltima frontera entre el hombre y la mquina pasa por disear interfaces capaces de percibir el estado de nimo de los usuarios y lanza una pregunta a sus invitados "Estn los humanos abocados a existir entre la vida real y la virtual o existen otras alternativas de futuro?" Para responder a sta y otras inquietantes cuestiones, ArtFutura invita a artistas y tericos como Derrick de Kerckhove, Gerfried Stokcer (Ars Elctronica), Eduardo Punset y Eduardo Kac. Ese mismo ao, el programa "Interaccin y Segunda Piel" incluye obras de FABRICATORS, como "Multi Mega Book in the Cave", una 'escultura electrnica', que nos transporta en el tiempo hasta el mismsimo Renacimiento. Carolina Cruz Neira presenta sus "Arquitecturas Virtuales" del Parthenon y Spica, Hisham Bizri, Maria Roussos, Dave Pape, Joseph Alexander, Alan Cruz, Tomoko Imai y Alan Millman nos invitan a contemplar sus trabajos. Antonio Mayo escribe en el catlogo: Internet es "Segunda Piel". Las prendas 'inteligentes' son Segunda Piel. La arquitectura virtual es Segunda Piel. Los ordenadores con 'Kansei' son Segunda Piel. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Second Skin refers to a phrase form Marshall McLuhan: "In the Electronic Age we will wear humanity as our second skin. It was the ninth edition of ArtFutura and the festival moved to Seville where it dealt with the increasing incorporations of the new technologies that was displacing the real world towards the virtual world, the ubiquity of information technologies, its acceleration and its unforeseen consequences. ArtFutura also played with the idea imagine the future. We asked what sort of computer and Virtual Reality systems would be in store for us in the future. We speculated with the suggestion of a new type of robot receptive to our facial expressions and attentive to the most insignificant of our gestures and we spoke about machines comprising a non-rational component (kansei). The festival also indicated that the last frontier between man and machine was to design interfaces able to perceive the mood of the users and threw out a question to the quests, Are humans doomed to exist between real and virtual life or will there be alternatives in the future? In order to answer this and other disturbing questions, ArtFutura invited along artists and theorists such as Derrick de Kerckhove, Gerfried Stocker (Ars Elctronica), Eduardo Punset and Eduardo Kac. That same year, the program "Interaction and Second Skin" included works by FABRICATORS, such as "Multi Mega Book in the Cave", an 'electronic' sculpture, that transported us back in time to the Renaissance itself. Carolina Cruz Neira presented her "Virtual Architecture" of the Parthenon and Spica, Hisham Bizri, Maria Roussos, Dave Pape, Joseph Alexander, Alan Cruz, Tomoko Imai and Alan Millman invited us to contemplate their works. Antonio Mayo wrote in the catalogue: Internet is "Second Skin". 'Intelligent' clothes are Second Skin. Virtual architecture is Second Skin. Computers with 'Kansei' are Second Skin. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

50 51

IL&M - Jurassic Park - Terminator - Men in Black

1999
Ocio Digital Digital Leisure
29 Octubre / October - 1 Noviembre / November Palacio de la Plaza del Triunfo, Sevilla

Moebius Toni Meca Flix Bergs Miguel Angel Fuertes Alejandro Sacristn

Gonzalo Surez Emilio Lpez Galiacho Rafael Lozano-Hemmer dijo el monje, Mr. Ah

Para realizar este viaje por el Ocio del Futuro, ArtFutura cuenta con invitados como el ilustrador francs Moebius, que vuelve al festival para hablar de su participacin en el proyecto El Garaje Hermtico de Metreon, el centro de entretenimiento y ocio de San Francisco. Otro de los participantes es el espaol Miguel ngel Fuertes, director de animacin por ordenador de la pelcula Star Wars: La Amenaza Fantasma y uno de los ms altos cargos dentro del equipo de produccin de IL&M. Se presenta "Enciclopedia", un proyecto conjunto de tres museos europeos: el Pompidou, el Museo Ludwing de Colonia y el Centro de la Imagen Contempornea de Gnova. Dentro el programa audiovisual, Art Futura Show 99 cuenta con magnficos trabajos de Satoshi Kitahara, Pixar, Tomoyuki Harashima, Digital Domain, Hiroyuki Okui y la inclusin de Bunny de Chris Wedge y Blue Sky Studios, ganadores del Oscar al mejor corto animado. Shots, la seleccin internacional de los trabajos publicitarios ms creativos del ao, realizada por la compaa inglesa Shots; e Infografa en Espaa, la seleccin de las mejores animaciones por ordenador realizadas en nuestro pas, que incluye, entre otros, trabajos de la Universidad de Baleares, Trazos y CEV. Por ltimo, en la exposicin "Ocio Digital", Emilio Lpez Galiacho presenta, en colaboracin con Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "La Piel Capaz", una obra de realidad virtual donde los espacios reales y los virtuales se superponen. Y el asturiano Paco Cao presenta su obraperformance "La Ciudad de Dios II". :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

In order to take this look at Future Leisure, ArtFutura invited guests such as the French illustrator Moebius, who returned to the festival to talk about his participation in the project The Hermetic Garage by Metreon, the center of entertainment and leisure in San Francisco. Another of the participants was the Spaniard Miguel ngel Fuertes, director of computer animation of the film Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and another was one of the highest posts in the production team at IL&M. "Encyclopedia", a joint project from three European museums: the Pompidou, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne and the Center for Contemporary Images, Geneva, was presented. Within the audiovisual program, ArtFutura Show 99, there were some magnificent works by Satoshi Kitahara, Pixar, Tomoyuki Harashima, Digital Domain, Hiroyuki Okui and the inclusion of Bunny by Chris Wedge and Blue Sky Studios, winners of the Oscar for the best animated shorts. Shots, the international selection of the most creative advertisements of the year carried out by the English company Shots; and Infography in Spain, the selection of the best computer animation made in our country which includes, among others, works by the University of the Baleares, Trazos and CEV. Finally, in the exhibition "Digital Leisure", Emilio Lpez Galiacho presented, in collaboration with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "The Able Skin", a work in virtual reality in which real and virtual spaces are superimposed. And the Asturian Paco Cao presented his workperformance "The City of God II". :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

52 53

Minoru Sasaki / Moebius / Frederic Pighin - Facial Expressions / Eduardo Kac / Emilio L. Galiacho / Mr. Ah

ArtFutura celebra su dcimo aniversario dedicando una edicin especial al Ocio Digital y al entretenimiento del futuro. Un recorrido que va desde los parques temticos a los nuevos museos virtuales, pasando por el cine digital y los videojuegos. Se analizan los entornos ldicos y los escenarios digitales que protagonizarn la Sociedad del Espectculo del Siglo XXI.

ArtFutura celebrated its tenth anniversary by dedicating a special edition to Digital Leisure and to the entertainment of the future. A topic that covers everything from theme parks to the new virtual museums and also includes digital cinema and videogames. Leisure environments and digital scenarios which will feature the Entertainment st Society of the 21 century were also analyzed.

2000
Internet como Cyborg Internet as Cyborg
23 - 26 Noviembre / November Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporneo, Sevilla Rebecca Allen Alexander Matthew Butler (Digital Domain) Chris Cunningham Javier Candeira
Kawaguchi - Nebular / Chris Cunningham - All is Full of Love / Luis Ocaa - Cosmic / Digital Domain - The Fifth Element

La convergencia de tecnologa, neurologa y vida cotidiana genera un nuevo tipo de 'cyborg', simbiosis del hombre con su entorno tecnolgico. Internet no es slo la Gran Red-fagocitadora-deRedes, es la extensin ms poderosa de nuestro pensamiento, la metfora perfecta del Cyborg. En esta edicin, la ltima celebrada en Sevilla, Montxo Algora (fundador de ArtFutura) y Javier Candeira (periodista cientfico) discuten la emergencia de Internet como una extensin fsica y mental del ser humano en la tercera era de la informtica. Es una mesa redonda que tiene por tema Internet como Cyborg. Matthew Butler, supervisor de efectos visuales de los estudios Digital Domain, presenta su ltimo proyecto, la recreacin digital del cantante James Brown y una amplia retrospectiva que incluye los efectos especiales para "Titanic" y "El Quinto Elemento". Jos Luis de Vicente presenta el especial Cunningham, considerado la figura ms innovadora y revolucionaria en la historia de los vdeos musicales. Y la proyeccin Art Futura Show 2000 incluye trabajos de PIXAR, Sadamune Takenaka, Polygon Pictures, Aaron Otstott, Minoru Sasaki y otros. Las exposiciones de ArtFutura 2000 recogen nuevas tendencias en el campo del arte digital, desde la realidad virtual a la estereoscopa, con especial nfasis en los aspectos creativos de las nuevas tecnologas. Incluyen obras como "Emergence", de Rebecca Allen, un entorno virtual que utiliza la figura del "avatar" para generar mundos interactivos de especial belleza, y "Nacimiento de un Alma" o "Figura Espiritual" del artista britnico Alexander, que ha experimentado ampliamente con la holografa y otras tecnologas. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The convergence of technology, neurology and everyday life creates a new sort of 'cyborg', symbiosis of man with his technological surroundings. Internet is not just the Grand Network-of-gobblingNetworks, it is the most powerful extension of our thought, the perfect metaphor of the Cyborg. In this edition, the last celebrated in Seville, Montxo Algora (founder of ArtFutura) and Javier Candeira (scientific journalist) discussed the emergence of Internet as a physical and mental extension of the human being in the third age of computer science. It was a roundtable which had as its theme Internet as Cyborg. Matthew Butler, supervisor of special effects at Digital Domain studios, presented his new project, the digital recreation of the singer James Brown and a wide retrospective that included the special effects for Titanic and The Fifth Element. Jos Luis de Vicente presented the special Cunningham, considered to be the most innovative and revolutionary figure in the history of musical videos. And the ArtFutura Show 2000 included works from PIXAR, Sadamune Takenaka, Polygon Pictures, Aaron Otstott, Minoru Sasaki and others. The exhibitions of ArtFutura 2000 show new tendencies in the field of digital art from virtual reality to stereoscope with special emphasis on the creative aspects of the new technologies. They include works such as "Emergence", by Rebecca Allen, a virtual environment that uses the figure of the avatar in order to create interactive worlds of special beauty, Birth of a Soul and Spiritual Figure by the British artist Alexander, who has experimented extensively with holography and other technologies.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

54 55

2001
Arte Colectivo Collective Art
25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona Tomato Jason Rubin Remo Balcells La Fura dels Baus Javier Navarro Mariscal Double You Lost Boys Vasava Bernd Holzhausen (Icon Town) Hannes Niepold (Cointel) Ricardo Iglesias

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

La edicin del 2001 supone la vuelta de ArtFutura a Barcelona. El tema es Arte Colectivo: Desde el universo de los videojuegos en red hasta la nueva economa de la informacin practicada en las redes peer-to-peer pasando por el filtrado colaborativo de datos o los numerosos proyectos de computacin distribuida. Los crticos de arte electrnico Roberta Bosco y Stefano Caldana presentan la exposicin on-line Digital Jam: Arte colectivo online, una seleccin de proyectos artsticos de la Red generados de forma colaborativa. Una sesin con la participacin de los net.artistas Bernd Holzhausen (Icon Town), Hannes Niepold (Cointel) y Ricardo Iglesias. Destaca la presentacin y el Seminario de 3D de Remo Balcells, Supervisor de Efectos Visuales de Squaresoft y responsable de la revolucionaria Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. As como la del colectivo de diseadores y artistas Tomato, uno de los ms fascinantes ejemplos de creacin multidisciplinar. ArtFutura 2001 dedica tambin una jornada completa a la industria y el arte de videojuegos y a los proyectos ms innovadores relacionados con el ocio electrnico y la Red. Los Sims, el videojuego ms vendido durante el 2000, es el protagonista de una sesin presentada por su programador principal, Jaime Doornbos que tambin imparte un Seminario de Diseo de Videojuegos. La exposicin Videojuegos: El Estado del Arte comisariada por Javier Candeira, recorre tres dcadas de ocio electrnico detenindose especialmente en la relacin entre videojuegos y arte digital, con obras de Craighead and Thomson, Natalie Bookchin, Kaizolabs, John Haddock, Eric Zimmerman, Will Wright, Peter Mollineux, John Carmack y Robyn Miller, entre otros. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The 2001 edition was ArtFuturas return to Barcelona. The theme was Collective Art: From the universe of the videogames online to the new economy of information shared in peer-to-peer networks not forgetting the collaborative filtering of data or the numerous projects in distributed computing. The critics of electronic art Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana presented the exhibition on-line Digital Jam: Collective art online, a selection of artistic projects online created in a collaborated way. A session with the participation of the net.artists Bernd Holzhausen (Icon Town), Hannes Niepold (Cointel) and Ricardo Iglesias. The presentation and Seminary on 3D by Remo Balcells, Supervisor of Visual Effects at Squaresoft and responsible for the revolutionary Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, stood out as did another by the collective of designers and artists Tomato, a most fascinating example of multidisciplinary creation. ArtFutura 2001 also dedicated a complete day to the industry and art of videogames and the most innovative projects related to electronic leisure and the Net. Los Sims, the top selling videogame of 2000, was the feature of a session presented by its principal programmer, Jaime Doornbos who also offered a Seminary on the Design of Videogames. The exhibition Videogames: The State of the Art curated by Javier Candeira, presented three decades of electronic leisure and paid special attention to the relationship between videogames and digital art with works by Craighead and Thomson, Natalie Bookchin, Kaizolabs, John Haddock, Eric Zimmerman, Will Wright, Peter Mollineux, John Carmack and Robyn Miller, among others. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

56 57

Final Fantasy / Passion Pictures / Tomato - Iceland Ice - Goethe Logo / Supinfocom - Le Processus / Marcel.l Antunez - Pol

Mientras la "fiebre del oro" en la Web toca a su fin y los grupos mediticos luchan por controlar el flujo de la informacin que circula por la Red, el destino del Ciberespacio sigue depositado en las mismas manos que hace una dcada: las de los internautas. As the "Internet Gold Rush" draws to an end and media conglomerates struggle to control the information flow circulating on the Net, the destiny of Cyberspace is still placed in the same hands than ten years ago: the netizens. Jos Luis de Vicente

2002
31 Octubre / October - 3 Noviembre / November CCCB, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Valencia, Vitoria Paul Friedlander Cory Arcangel Hi-ReS! area3 Shynola Adam Valdez (Weta Digital) Eric Zimmerman Innothna David Casacuberta Jeremy Boxer (Resfest)

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Pintura Estirada # 1: La Red como Lienzo Stretched Paint #1: The Web as Canvas

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, Ja Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Explorando las posibilidades creativas de Internet como lienzo, el CCCB acoge el rea de conferencias, exposiciones, proyecciones y workshops de ArtFutura 2002. Las conferencias sobre net.art y arte digital cuentan con protagonistas como el colectivo RSG y el estudio de multimedia Hi-ReS!. Entre las presentaciones de 3D y efectos visuales, destaca la presencia de Adam Valdez de Weta Digital, la compaa responsable de los efectos digitales de la triloga de El Seor de los Anillos. El festival de cine digital RESFEST y los britnicos Shynola protagonizan, entre otros, las presentaciones dedicadas a nuevas expresiones audiovisuales. La exposicin on-line Web as Canvas, comisariada por Roberta Bosco y Stefano Caldana, presenta 10 propuestas artsticas concebidas para Internet e incluye el proyecto World Wall Painters, una produccin realizada para ArtFutura 2002 por el grupo barcelons area3, una aplicacin para el Carnivore Project de RSG Radical Software Group. La exposicin de Paul Friedlander, por su parte, utiliza luces controladas por ordenador y sensores infrarrojos para generar esculturas que simulan holografas gigantes de especial belleza. Entre las piezas expuestas destacan Hiperesferas y La Ecuacin de la Onda, especialmente creada para esta exposicin. El programa audiovisual de esta edicin crece, junto a los ya clsicos ArtFutura Show e Infografa en Espaa, se incorporan nuevos programas monogrficos dedicados a Motiongraphics, Demoscene y Cine Digital. ArtFutura Show 2002 presenta ttulos como "The Cathedral" de Plastige Image. Motiongraphics recopila trabajos de autor, mientras que el monogrfico Demoscene incluye las piezas recientes ms destacables de la programacin creativa. En las sesiones dedicadas a videojuegos, Ernest Adams (Madden NFL) y Gonzalo Surez (Commandos), conversan sobre el acercamiento entre arte y videojuegos, mientras que Eric Zimmerman, fundador de la compaa GameLab, debate con los TeamChman y Innothna la idea de independencia en los videojuegos. Ochoporocho: videojuegos, abstraccin y simplicidad convoca figuras del arte digital, el diseo de interactivos y la creacin independiente de juegos alrededor de la idea de recuperar los valores de simplicidad, abstraccin y jugabilidad que caracterizaban a los primitivos videojuegos de ocho bits. Finalmente, el Mercat de las Flors es el escenario de PLAYTIME, un rea ms ldica del festival con actuaciones musicales y audiovisuales, performances y sesiones colectivas de gaming. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
58 59

Exploring the creative possibilities of Internet as a canvas, the CCCB accommodated the area of conferences, exhibitions, projections and workshops for ArtFutura 2002. The conferences about net.art and digital art featured the collective RSG and the multimedia studio Hi-ReS!. Among the presentations on 3D and visual effects, the presence of Adam Valdez from Weta Digital, the company responsible for the digital effects in the trilogy The Lord of the Rings stood out. The festival of digital cinema RESFEST and Shynola from Britain were featured, among others, in the presentations dedicated to new audiovisual expression. The on-line exhibition Web as Canvas, curated by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana, presented ten artistic proposals conceived for Internet and included the project World Wall Painters, a production undertaken for ArtFutura 2002 by the group from Barcelona area3, an application for the Carnivore Project from RSG Radical Software Group. The exhibition by Paul Friedlander used lights controlled by computer and infrared sensors to create sculptures that simulate giant Holographs of particular beauty. Among the pieces exhibited Hyperspheres and The Equation of the Wave, specially created for the exhibition, stood out. The audiovisual program grew in this edition. Along with the classic ArtFutura Show and Infography in Spain, new monographic programs dedicated to Motiongraphics, Demoscene and Digital Cinema were incorporated. The ArtFutura Show 2002 presented titles such as "The Cathedral" from Plastige Image. Motiongraphics recompiled independent works, while the monographic Demoscene included the most outstanding recent pieces from the creative program. In the sessions dedicated to videogames, Ernest Adams (Madden NFL) and Gonzalo Surez (Commandos) conversed on the coming together of art and videogames, while Eric Zimmerman, founder of the company GameLab, debated with TeamChman and Innothna the idea of independence in videogames. Ochoporocho (eight-by-eight): videogames, abstraction and simplicity convokes figures from digital art, the design of interactives and the independent creation of games based on the idea of recovering the values of simplicity, abstraction and playabilityness that characterized the primitive videogames of eight bits. Finally, the Mercat de las Flors was the scenario of PLAYTIME, a more recreational area of the festival with musical interventions and audiovisuals, performances collective sessions of gaming. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Vetor Zero - Kaya's Screen Test / Framestore - Walking with Beasts

60 61

Shynola / Scott Draves / Paul Friedlander / Money Mark

2003
9 -12 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Granada, Madrid, Valladolid, Vigo, Vitoria Jon Gaeta Lev Manovich Steve Sacks Roberta Bosco Xeni Jardin Meg Hourighan Anil Dash Jeremy Boxer Lynn Fox Michele Marino Hans Hoogerbrugge Sam Chen

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Pintura Estirada # 2: La Palabra Pintada Stretched Paint # 2: The Painted Word

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

La tecnologa digital acta como una sierra mecnica a travs del viejo paradigma del arte. Donde estn los lmites? Arte contemporneo, digital o diseo? Originales o millones de copias? Museos virtuales? Palabras pintadas, sentimiento o gadgets? ArtFutura 2003 aborda todos estos interrogantes presentando la seccin de conferencias y debates ms extensa e internacional en la historia del evento hasta se momento. Ms de cuarenta intervenciones entre las que destacan nombres como Lev Manovich, autor de The Lenguage of New Media, uno de los textos tericos fundamentales sobre tecnologa y creacin. El festival dedica un espacio especial de su programacin al universo de los blogs. Una Tarde en la Blogosfera rene a pioneros como Xeni Jardin (periodista de Wired y editora de Boingboing), Meg Hourighan, co-creadora de Blogger o Anil Dash, responsable de uno de los blogs ms ledos de la red; y junto a ellos, una amplia representacin de la blogosfera espaola. Destaca la intervencin de John Gaeta director de efectos especiales de The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded y Matrix Revolutions. En el extremo opuesto, el norteamericano Sam Chen presenta su trabajo Eternal Gaze en una sesin dedicada a proyectos de artistas independientes. Bajo el ttulo Despus del 3D, el festival incluye tambin presentaciones a cargo de Johnny Hardstaff y el colectivo Lynn Fox. Bajo el ttulo PixelCity, la tarde dedicada a los videojuegos acoge presentaciones y debates alrededor de la ciudad como escenario de videojuegos. Entre los invitados, compaas de videojuegos como los portugueses Ydreams, artistas como Blast Theory o los australianos Select Parks. ArtFutura se acerca tambin al campo de la creacin en Internet y el diseo web presentando el trabajo de creadores como el enigmtico Hoogerbrugge. Por ltimo, ArtFutura participa en el Ao del Diseo 2003 de Barcelona coproduciendo la exposicin Cruzados: Nuevos Territorios del Diseo de Vanguardia. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Digital technology acts as a power saw through the old paradigm of art. Where are the limits? Contemporary art, digital art or design? Original or millions of copies? Virtual museums? Painted words, feelings or gadgets? ArtFutura 2003 dealt with these questions by presenting the most extensive and international conference section in the history of the event up to the time. There were more than forty interventions among which names such as Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media, one of the fundamental theoretical texts on technology and creation, stood out. The festival dedicated a special space in its program to the universe of blogs. An Afternoon in Blogosphere united pioneers such as Xeni Jardin (journalist with Wired and editor of Boingboing), Meg Hourighan, co-creator of Blogger and Anil Dash, who is responsible for one of the most read blogs on Internet: and along with them, a wide representation of the Spanish blogosphere. The intervention by John Gaeta, director of special effects of The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, stood out. In the opposite extreme, the North American Sam Chen presented his work Eternal Gaze in a session dedicated to projects by independent artists. Under the title After 3D, the festival also included presentations from Johnny Hardstaff and the collective Lynn Fox. Under the title PixelCity, the afternoon dedicated to videogames featured presentations and debates focused on the city as scenario for videogames. Among the guests there were videogame companies such as the Portuguese Ydreams, artists such as Blast Theory and the Australians Select Parks. ArtFutura also dealt with the field of creation in Internet and web design by presenting the work of creators such as the enigmatic Hoogerbrugge. Lastly, ArtFutura participated in the Year of Design 2003 in Barcelona co-producing the exhibition Crossed: New Avant-garde Design Territories. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

62 63

Blast Theory / Bitforms - Daniel Rozin - Michael Rees / Pixar - Dylan Brown

The Matrix - John Gaeta / Resfest - Jorgen Leth / Sam Chen - Eternal Gaze

La tecnologa digital acta como una sierra mecnica a travs del viejo paradigma del arte. Donde estn los lmites? Arte contemporneo, digital o diseo? net.art? Originales o millones de copias? Archivables eternos o de seis meses? Software art? Museos virtuales? Se invita al pblico o se prescinde de l? Palabras pintadas, sentimiento o gadgets? Digital technology acts as a power saw through the old paradigm of art. Where are the limits? Contemporary art, digital art or design? Net.art? Original or millions of copies? Eternal or six-month archival? Software art? Virtual museums? Audience is invited or we dispense with it? Painted words, feelings or gadgets? Montxo Algora

2004
Realidad Aumentada Augmented Reality
28 - 31 Octubre / October Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Granada, Madrid, Pamplona, Donostia-San Sebastin, Valladolid, Vigo, Vitoria Howard Rheingold Martin Chatrand Ren Barsalo Rebecca Allen Fiona Raby Andrew Shoben Jonah Brucker-Cohen Regine Debatty Richard Fenwick Blast Theory

25 - 28 Octubre / October CCCB, Barcelona

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Partiendo de la premisa de que el mundo fsico y el virtual no pueden entenderse como universos inconexos, ArtFutura 2004 explora conceptos como la computacin ubicua, las tecnologas de localizacin, las arquitecturas mixtas y las redes sociales. El festival acoge invitados de la talla de Howard Rheingold, presentando Multitudes Inteligentes: El poder de las masas mviles o el juego urbano Can You See Me Now?, de Blast Theory, uno de los primeros proyectos creativos sobre realidad aumentada. ArtFutura 2004 repasa el estado del arte digital y la animacin en nuestro pas con mesas redondas, conferencias y debates sobre 3D y New Media Art. Dentro del programa de conferencias destacan las presentaciones de Martin Chatrand (del SAT Montreal) y Rebecca Allen (de MediaLab Europe, Dubln). La mesa redonda Things that Think, moderada por Regine Debatty, cuenta con la participacin de Fiona Raby, Greyworld y Jonah Brucker-Cohen. Dentro de la Programacin Audiovisual destaca "Ryan", una de las obras cruciales de Chris Landreth y el programa especial Arte y Pensamiento, que recorre la historia del pensamiento digital de la mano de algunos de los participantes ms importantes que han pasado por el festival. En el apartado de videojuegos, el programa Full Motion Teather presenta, entre otros, ttulos como Onimusha 3, Forbidden Siren, Anna o Dog's Life y las retrospectivas Funnies Futura e Imagen Futura estn dedicadas a los mejores cortos animados. Por ltimo, un programa especial dedicado a Richard Fenwick, reputado director de videoclips y "motion graphics". El Festival recobra EstacinFutura, un rea ldica con actuaciones musicales y audiovisuales en un ambiente festivo, con la colaboracin del centro de tecnologa SAT de Montreal. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Setting off from the premise that the physical and virtual worlds cannot be understood as unconnected universes, ArtFutura 2004 explored concepts such as ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), localization technologies, mixed architectures and social networks. The festival featured outstanding guests such as Howard Rheingold who presented Intelligent Multitudes: the power of the moveable masses and the urban game Can You See Me Now? by Blast Theory, one of the first projects created in enhanced reality. ArtFutura 2004 revised the state of digital art and animation in our country with roundtables, conferences and debates on 3D and New Media Art. Within the conference program the presentations by Martin Chatrand (from SAT Montreal) and Rebecca Allen (from MediaLab Europe, Dublin) stood out. The roundtable Things that Think, moderated by Regine Debatty, included participations by Fiona Raby, Greyworld and Jonah Brucker-Cohen. The Audiovisual Program featured "Ryan", one of Chris Landreths crucial works and the special program Art and Thought which went over the history of digital thought with interventions by some of the most important participants that have come to the festival. In the videogame section, the program Full Motion Teather presented, among others, titles such as Onimusha 3, Forbidden Siren, Anna and Dog's Life as well as the retrospectives Funnies Futura and Image Futura which are dedicated to the best animated shorts. Lastly, there was a special program dedicated to Richard Fenwick, the wellknown director of videoclips and "motion graphics". The Festival recovered EstacinFutura, a recreational area with musical and audiovisual interventions in a party atmosphere with the collaboration of the center of technology SAT from Montreal. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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Chris Landreth - Ryan / Tim Miller - Rock Fish / Richard Fenwick - RND004

La mente humana no va a ser sustituida por una mquina, al menos no en un futuro inmediato, pero no hay duda de que la disponibilidad global de amplificadores de la fantasa, cajas de herramientas intelectuales y comunidades electrnicas interactivas cambiarn la forma en la que las personas piensan, aprenden y se comunican. The human mind is not going to be replaced by a machine, at least not in the foreseeable future, but there is little doubt that the worldwide availability of fantasy amplifiers, intellectual toolkits, and interactive electronic communities will change the way people think, learn, and communicate. Howard Rheingold

2005
27 - 30 Octubre / October Mercat de las Flors, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Granada, Len, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife, Vigo, Vitoria Bruce Sterling Theo Jansen Fumito Ueda Toshio Iwai Tetsuya Mizuguchi Pablo Helman Carlos Grangel

Objetos Vivos. Espacios Sensibles. CCCB, Barcelona Living Objects. Sensitive Spaces.

25 - 28 Octubre / October

Objetos Vivos, Espacios Sensibles Living Objects, Sensitive Spaces

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

La introduccin de sofisticadas tecnologas anticipa un mundo sensible en el que todos los objetos incorporan informacin sobre s mismos, saben dnde se encuentran y se conectan a la Red. En esta encrucijada entre bits y tomos se est definiendo el nuevo espacio social. Para debatir sobre todos estos temas, ArtFutura 2005 cuenta con un invitado de lujo, el pensador y novelista estadounidense Bruce Sterling, uno de los ms importantes escritores de ciencia ficcin de las ltimas dos dcadas. ArtFutura 2005 tiene dos presentaciones destacadas: Theo Jansen y Toshio Iwai. Jansen muestra por primera vez en Espaa, las sorprendentes Strandbeest, inmensas esculturas robticas que se desplazan con la fuerza del viento. Por su parte, Toshio Iwai, uno de los nombres ms importantes e influyentes de la escena internacional del arte digital, muestra su instrumento musical TenoriOn, un panel de LEDs sonoros que brilla a la vez que genera sonido. Dentro del programa de conferencias, destacan tambin las presentaciones de Iroshi Ishii, miembro de MIT MediaLab y padre del concepto Tangible Media y la del arquitecto Usman Haque, autor de la impactante instalacin Sky Ear, una gran nube de globos que escanea las transmisiones de datos que atraviesan la ciudad. En el mbito del ocio digital y los videojuegos, ArtFutura cuenta con la presencia de Tetsuya Mizuguchi, uno de los diseadores ms innovadores de la industria japonesa. Como cada ao, el festival acoge a las principales figuras del mundo de la industria de la creatividad digital. Pablo Helman, supervisor de efectos visuales en ILM, desgrana las producciones de los estudios de efectos especiales de George Lucas, el Episodio III de Star Wars y La Guerra de los Mundos. Por su parte, Grangel Studio presenta sus personajes creados para pelculas de Hollywood como Madagascar o The Corpse Bride, la pelcula de Tim Burton, que se pre estrena en exclusiva en ArtFutura. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The introduction of sophisticated technologies anticipated a sensitive world in which all objects incorporate information about themselves, they know where they are and they connect to the Net. In this crossroads between bits and atoms a new social space is being defined. In order to debate all of these themes, ArtFutura 2005 was able to count on a very special guest, the North American thinker and novelist Bruce Sterling, one of the most important science fiction writers of the last two decades. ArtFutura 2005 offered two outstanding presentations: Theo Jansen and Toshio Iwai. Jansen showed, for the first time in Spain, his surprising Strandbeest, immense robotic sculptures that move with the force of the wind. Toshio Iwai, one of the most important and influential names on the international scene of digital art, showed his musical instrument Tenori-On, a panel of sound LEDs that light up when a sound is created. In the conference program, the presentations offered by Iroshi Ishii, member of MIT MediaLab and father of the concept Tangible Media and the architect Usman Haque, author of the impacting installation Sky Ear, a vast cloud of balloons that scan the transmissions of data that cross a city stood out. In the field of digital leisure and videogames, ArtFutura was able to count on the presence of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, one of the most innovative designers of Japanese industry. As every year, the festival received the principal figures from the world of the creative digital industry. Pablo Helman, supervisor of visual effects at ILM, told us all about the productions of George Lucas special effects studios and Episode III of Star Wars and The War of the Worlds. Grangel Studio presented their characters created for Hollywood films such as Madagascar and The Corpse Bride, Tim Burtons film that was exclusively pre-premiered at ArtFutura.

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68 69

Toshio Iwai

Como escritor de ciencia ficcin, periodista y futurista, estoy bastante interesado en las cosas que se pueden hacer, pero estoy extremadamente interesado en las cosas que no se pueden hacer es decir, no todava. As a science fiction writer, a journalist and a futurist, I'm rather interested in things that can be done, but I'm fiercely interested in things that cannot be done - that is, not yet. Bruce Sterling

70 71
Tim Burton - The Corpse Bride / Shane Acker - Nine / Bruce Sterling / Tetsuya Mizuguchi / Theo Jansen

2006
Esttica de Datos Data Aesthetics
26 - 29 de Octubre / October Mercat de las Flors, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Granada, Len, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife, Vigo, Vitoria Realities:United United Visual Artist Ted Price Masaya Matsuura Ryota Kuwakubo Andrew Vande Moere Jan Edler Tommy Pallotta

Objetos Vivos. Espacios Sensibles. CCCB, Barcelona Living Objects. Sensitive Spaces.

25 - 28 Octubre / October

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Bajo el ttulo Esttica de Datos el festival se acerca a terrenos como la visualizacin de datos, la media-arquitectura que integra flujos de datos en espacios urbanos y la introduccin en espacios escnicos de dinmicas de representacin de la informacin. Entre los invitados de ArtFutura 2006 destacan el estudio de arquitectura alemn Realities:United, especializado en la creacin de grandes intervenciones arquitectnicas que transforman todo un edificio en una gran pantalla de datos, y el colectivo de diseadores britnicos UVA (United Visual Artists), conocidos por sus escenografas de luz y datos para grandes grupos como Massive Attack o U2. UVA presenta en EstacinFutura (por primera vez en Espaa) un espectculo audiovisual en directo que utiliza grandes pantallas de leds. Andrew Vande Moere, editor de Information Aesthetics, el blog de referencia en Internet dedicado a explorar la ciencia y el arte de la representacin dinmica de informacin, propone un apasionante recorrido por el mundo de los paisajes de datos. La seccin de animacin digital de ArtFutura presenta por su parte producciones que replantean y reelaboran los lmites entre el 3D, la imagen real y las tcnicas tradicionales de animacin. Los legendarios estudios de animacin de stop motion Aardman visitan por primera vez el festival para hablar de su primera produccin realizada completamente por ordenador. Junto a ellos, y como uno de los platos fuertes de ArtFutura 2006, llega la esperadsima A Scanner Darkly, una adaptacin de la novela del mismo nombre de Phillip K. Dick en la que el realizador Richard Linklater eleva a nuevos niveles de sofisticacin la tcnica del rotoscopiado. El proyecto es presentado por Tommy Palotta, productor del film. Dedicada al ocio digital ms experimental, la ltima tarde del festival vuelve a reunir a grandes personalidades del mundo del videojuego con artistas digitales. ArtFutura 2006 presenta el trabajo de diseadores como Masaya Matsuura o el artista Ryota Kuwakubo, que en sus proyectos ldicos deconstruye todas las convenciones del lenguaje de los juegos clsicos para crear sorprendentes juguetes interactivos. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.
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Under the title Data aesthetics the festival had a close look at terrains such as data visualization and media-architecture that integrates data flows in urban spaces which is later introduced into scenic spaces in order to represent the information. Among the guests to ArtFutura 2006 the German architectural studio Realities:United specialized in the creation of large-scale architectural interventions that transform complete buildings into large data screens, and the collective of British designers UVA (United Visual Artists), known for their light and data set designs for groups such as Massive Attack and U2 stood out. In EstacinFutura, UVA presented (for the first time in Spain) a live audiovisual show that used large-scale led screens. Andrew Vande Moere, editor of Information Aesthetics, the blog of reference on Internet dedicated to exploring science and the art of dynamic representation of information, proposed a passionate tour of the world of data landscapes. The digital animation section of ArtFutura presented productions that redesigned and re-elaborated the limits between 3D, the real image and the traditional techniques of animation. The legendary animation studios of stop motion Aardman visited the festival for the first time to talk about their first production completely undertaken by computer. Along with them, and what was to be one of most important events of ArtFutura 2006, arrived the long-awaited A Scanner Darkly, an adaptation of the novel by the same name by Phillip K. Dick in which the filmmaker Richard Linklater took the technique of rotoscoping to new levels. The project was presented by Tommy Palotta, producer of the film. Dedicated to the most experimental of digital leisure, the last afternoon of the festival once again brought important personalities from the videogame world and digital artists together. ArtFutura 2006 presented the work of designers such as Masaya Matsuura and the artist Ryota Kuwakubo who deconstruct all of the conventions of the language of classical games in order to create surprising interactive toys in their projects. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

Resfest - Perfect Red Snapper / Premio Vida / A Scanner Darkly / Renaissance / Hikaru Yamakawa / Ryota Kuwakubo

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DollFace - Andrew Huang

Realities United

2007
La Prxima Red The Next Web
25 - 28 Octubre / October Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Alicante, Granada, Cdiz, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Valladolid, Vigo, Vitoria, Zaragoza Steven Johnson Daniel Huebner Enrique Dans Juan Freire Ben Hibon Media Molecule Jaume Plensa Alvaro Casinelli Paul Verschure Isabelle Anvers

Objetos Vivos. Espacios Sensibles. CCCB, Barcelona Living Objects. Sensitive Spaces.

25 - 28 Octubre / October

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

Las revolucin 2.0 cambia por completo el rostro de la Web transformndola en un espacio de participacin social y cooperacin colectiva. En su edicin del 2007, ArtFutura plantea una discusin especulativa sobre la Web con pensadores, tecnlogos y emprendedores de la economa digital: La Prxima Web. Destaca la participacin de Daniel Linden, fundador y jefe de la comunidad del mundo virtual Second Life y la del pensador e impulsor de proyectos web Steven Johnson, colaborador de Wired y el New York Times. Johnson es uno de los analistas fundamentales de la cultura digital que estudia el impacto cultural de los sistemas operativos, la Red y los videojuegos. La creacin de mundos inmersivos sintticos tambin es protagonista del festival, con la participacin de compaas como Sony Pictures Imageworks que muestran sus imgenes en tres dimensiones estereoscpicas para la nueva produccin de Robert Zemeckis: "Beowulf". ArtFutura 2007 se acerca al fenmeno de los videojuegos desde tres puntos de vista: la nueva forma de jugar, la innovacin y la jugabilidad. Para ello, cuenta con la presencia de Media Molecule, creadores del revolucionario Little Big Planet, uno de los primeros juegos claramente "de nueva generacin", en el que es el usuario, y no el desarrollador, quien crea los personajes y escenarios. El festival muestra los programas audiovisuales ArtFutura Show, Full Motion Theater y 3D en Espaa, as como un documental (8-Bit), una retrospectiva (Marcel.l Antnez) y dos programas especiales (Pod Love y Demos+Intros). El aspecto expositivo se ampla con un nuevo espacio que incluye las exposiciones de NextFun, con las instalaciones Khronos Projector de Alvaro Cassinelli y PlayModes de Eloi Maduell de Telenoika. Por su parte la sala de juegos Xperimental Arcade presenta un espacio en el que se mezclan estrenos de novedades con ttulos de estudios independientes y proyectos. ArtFutura cierra sus actividades en Barcelona con la fiesta EstacinFutura con LSP de Edwin van der Heide, un espectculo de imgenes producidas por lseres controlados por audio generado en tiempo real. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.
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The revolutionary 2.0 completely changes the face of the Web by transforming it into a space of social participation and collective cooperation. In its edition of 2007, ArtFutura proposed a speculative debate on the Web with thinkers, technologists and entrepreneurs from the digital economy: The Next Web. The participation of Daniel Linden, founder of the virtual world Second Life and the thinker and precursor of web projects Steven Johnson, collaborator of Wired and the New York Times stood out. Johnson is one of the fundamental analysts of digital culture and studies the cultural impact of operative systems, Internet and videogames. The creation of immersive synthetic worlds was also featured at the festival with the participation of companies such as Sony Pictures Imageworks who showed their images in stereoscopic three dimensions for the new production of Robert Zemeckis: "Beowulf". ArtFutura 2007 examined the phenomenon of videogames from three points of view: the new way of playing, innovation and playability. In order to do so, it was able to count on the presence of Media Molecule, creators of the revolutionary Little Big Planet, one of the first games clearly of new generation, in which it is the user and not the developer who creates the characters and scenes. The festival showed the audiovisual programs ArtFutura Show, Full Motion Theater and 3D in Spain, along with a documentary (8-Bit), a retrospective (Marcel.l Antnez) and two special programs (Pod Love and Demos+Intros). The exhibition aspect was amplified with the new space that included the exhibitions of Nextfun with the installations Khronos Projector by Alvaro Cassinelli and PlayModes by Eloi Maduell from Telenoika. The gamesroom Xperimental Arcade presented a new space which mixed premiers of novelties with titles from independent studios and projects. ArtFutura closed its activities in Barcelona with the party EstacinFutura with LSP by Edwin van der Heide, a show of images produced by lasers controlled by audio created in real time. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

Jaume Plensa - The Crown Fountain / Ben Hibon - Codehunters / Alvaro Cassinelli - Khronos Projector / Makoto Yabuki / Edwin van der Heide / Marcel Antnez / PLAYmodes / Little Big Planet

2008
Mquinas y Almas Souls and Machines
23 - 26 de Octubre / October Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Alicante, Cdiz, Gijn, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Valladolid, Vigo, Zaragoza Hanson Robotics Ocean Quigley Bestiario Program Collective Kevin Carpenter Evru Fallon Erich Berger Anne Brotot Dvein

Objetos Vivos. Espacios Sensibles. CCCB, Barcelona Living Objects. Sensitive Spaces.

25 - 28 Octubre / October

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

El festival dedica una parte sustancial de su programacin a la exposicin Mquinas&Almas, presentada en el Museo Reina Sofa de Madrid se mismo ao y comisariada por Montxo Algora y Jos Luis de Vicente. La exposicin incluye el trabajo de artistas como Theo Jansen, Ben Rubin, Sachiko Kodama y David Byrne, y es un referente en la historia del arte electrnico en Espaa recibiendo ms de 350.000 visitas. ArtFutura 2008 presenta asimismo la pelcula tridimensional Hijos del Agua y Splash, una escultura diseada por Program Collective y Pere Gifre / Ikonic Arts. Dentro del programa de conferencias tambin destaca la charla del colectivo Bestiario, creadores de fascinantes visualizaciones de datos y la presencia de Kevin Carpenter de Hanson Robotics, la empresa dedicada a crear robots con apariencia humana. Durante su intervencin, Carpenter presenta a Julio, un robot antropomrfico capaz de mostrar emociones y que forma parte de la exposicin Mquinas y Almas cantando al son de una grabacin de David Byrne. Hctor Ayuso de OFFF presenta por su parte a Fallon UK, un grupo de comunicacin que tienen como objetivo llegar a ser la agencia ms creativa del mundo. El festival dedica una sesin especial a Spore, uno de los juegos ms esperados de todos los tiempos con la presencia Ocean Quigley, Director de Arte del proyecto, y mano derecha de Will Wright. En el apartado audiovisual, ArtFutura 2008 estrena en exclusiva a Espaa "The Pixar Story". El programa incluye tambin el documental "Mquinas y Almas", el film The Net de Lutz Dammbeck, un especial sobre la escuela francesa Supinfocom y una retrospectiva de Satoshi Tomioka junto a Playing Columbine de Danny Ledonne. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

The festival dedicated a substantial part of its program to the exhibition Souls and Machines, presented at the Museo Reina Sofa, Madrid in the same year and curated by Montxo Algora and Jos Luis de Vicente. The exhibition included the work of artists such as Theo Jansen, Ben Rubin, Sachiko Kodama and David Byrne, and became a reference point in the history of electronic art in Spain by receiving more than 350,000 visitors. ArtFutura 2008 also presented the tridimensional film Children of the Water and Splash, a sculpture designed by the Collective Program and Pere Gifre / Ikonic Arts. Within the conference program there was also a very interesting chat with the collective Bestiario, creators of fascinating data visualizations and the presence of Kevin Carpenter from Hanson Robotics, the company dedicated to creating robots with human appearance. During his intervention, Carpenter presented Julio, an anthropomorphic robot able to show emotions and which formed part of the exhibition Souls and Machines singing along with a recording by David Byrne. Hctor Ayuso from OFFF presented Fallon UK, a communication group that has the objective of becoming the most creative agency in the world. The festival dedicated a special session to Spore, one of the most awaited games of all times with the presence of Ocean Quigley, Art Director of the project, and right-hand man to Will Wright. In the audiovisual section, ArtFutura 2008 premiered in exclusive in Spain "The Pixar Story". The program also included the documentary "Souls and Machines ", the film The Net by Lutz Dammbeck, a special on the French school Supinfocom and a retrospective on Satoshi Tomioka along with Playing Columbine by Danny Ledonne. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

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Bjrk - Wanderlust / Montxo Algora + Julio Robot / Somos Agua / Dvein / Bestiario - Electromagnetic Spectrum / Satoshi Tomioka / Splash

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Paul Friedlander / Sachiko Kodama / Ben Rubin + Mark Hansen / David Byrne / Theo Jansen /

2009
29 Octubre/October - 1 November/November Auditorio Imagina, Arts Santa Mnica, Barcelona CircuitoFutura: Alicante, Buenos Aires, Cdiz, Gijn, Granada, Huarte-Pamplona, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Segovia, Valladolid, Vigo, Zaragoza Improv Everywhere Carlye Archibeque (Siggraph CAF 2009) Tim Schafer Fabricators Enric Ruiz Geli (Cloud9) Multitouch-Barcelona Digital Kitchen

Objetos Vivos. Espacios Sensibles. CCCB, Barcelona Living Objects. Sensitive Spaces.

25 - 28 Octubre / October

De la Realidad Virtual a las Redes Sociales From Virtual Realities to Social Networks

Tomato, Jason Rubin, Remo Balcells, La Fura dels Baus, J Double You, Lost Boys, Vasava, Bernd Holzhausen (Icon To (Cointel), Ricardo Iglesias

ArtFutura llega este ao a su vigsima edicin. Veinte aos de existencia, en los que la evolucin de ArtFutura ha ido en paralelo a la evolucin de la cultura digital y la implantacin de las nuevas tecnologas en todos los mbitos. Desde el sueo de la Realidad Virtual a la explosin de Internet y la presente era de las Redes Sociales, el festival ha sido un espacio de especulacin constante sobre el papel de la tecnologa en la sociedad, la cultura y el arte. Desde que, en Enero de 1990, ArtFutura presentara la Realidad Virtual por primera vez en Espaa, el festival ha ido reinventndose constantemente e introduciendo temas como la Realidad Aumentada, las Comunidades Virtuales, Internet como Cyborg, el Arte Colectivo, la Vida Artificial o la Esttica de Datos. En total, con la del 2009, ArtFutura completar 20 ediciones a las que habrn asistido ms de 500.000 espectadores en 19 ciudades diferentes. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

ArtFutura celebrates its twentieth edition this year. Twenty years of existence, in which the evolution of ArtFutura has walked hand in hand with the evolution of digital culture and the implantation of the new technologies in all fields. From the dream of Virtual Reality to the explosion of Internet and the current era of Social Networks, the festival has been a space of constant speculation over the role of technology in society, culture and art. Ever since January 1990 when ArtFutura presented Virtual Reality for the first time in Spain, The festival has been constantly reinventing itself and introducing themes such as Enhanced Reality, Virtual Communities, internet as Cyborg, Collective Art, Artificial Life and Data Aesthetics. All together, including that of 2009, ArtFutura will have offered 20 editions which will have been attended by 500,000 spectators in 19 different cities. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

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Improv Everywhere / Enric Ruiz Geli (Clud9) / PES / Fabricators / MP3 Experiment

Proye ctos + New Media

Proyectos + New Media

Siggraph
The SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival

El Festival de Animacin por Ordenador SIGGRAPH

El Festival de Animacin por Ordenador ha formado parte de la Conferencia SIGGRAPH (abreviatura de Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) de una forma u otra desde la primera conferencia SIGGRAPH en 1974. El festival surgi de la visin de Tom DeFanti que abogaba por el vdeo como medio de comunicacin para la ciencia y el arte. En 1974, DeFanti y su equipo se hicieron cargo de una sala en la Universidad de Boulder en Colorado, donde iba a tener lugar la conferencia. Conectaron televisiones y equipos de proyeccin y comenzaron a mostrar los contenidos que la gente traa. Sin embargo, tienes que recordar, dice DeFanti, que en 1974 haba tan poco contenido de vdeo generado por ordenador que cogamos lo que podamos conseguir. Es como hoy en da cuando tratas de conseguir fragmentos de material 4K para mostrar en festivales. El festival tuvo la buena fortuna de desarrollarse con los aos junto a la comunidad de grficos por ordenador Silicon Valley, as como el Instituto de Tecnologa de Nueva York y el Instituto Tecnolgico de Massachussets, y algunos programadores muy entregados de la Universidad de Utah. En los aos setenta el software empaquetado no exista para cualquiera salvo para programadores informticos que lo usaban para crear imgenes grficas en ordenador. En 1977, Larry Cuba mostr su trabajo generado por ordenador, la secuencia de la Estrella de la Muerte de La Guerra de las Galaxias. En 1979, Loren Carpenter hizo una pelcula titulada Vol Libre, que fue generada usando algoritmos fractales. Creada como una prueba de concepto para generar paisajes texturizados, la pelcula la vieron en el festival ese ao George Lucas y Ed Catmull, entonces ambos trabajaban en una empresa emergente llamada Industrial Light & Magic, inmediatamente contrataron a Carpenter y una versin antialiasing de su software se us para crear el Efecto Gnesis en la pelcula Star Trek 2: La Ira de Kahn. Luego en 1982, Magi Synthavision, Triple III y Robert Abel & Associates mostraron su trabajo digital en la innovadora pelcula TRON. Desde entonces en adelante los mundos de los grficos por ordenador y el entretenimiento se unieron.

The Computer Animation Festival has been a part of the SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) Conference, in one form or another, since SIGGRAPHs first conference in 1974. The festival grew out of the vision of Tom DeFanti who championed video as a communications media for science and art. In 1974, DeFanti and his team took over a lounge area at the University of Boulder in Colorado state, where the conference was being held. They wired some televisions and projection equipment together, and started showing any content that people brought to in. You have to remember though, says DeFanti, that in 1974 there was so little computer generated video content that we took what we could get. Its kind of like today when you try to get clips of 4K material to show at festivals. The festival had the good fortune to develop over the years alongside the Silicon Valley computer graphics community, as well as New York Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and some very dedicated computer program writers at Utah University. In the 1970s there was no boxed software for any one but a computer code writer to use to create graphic images on the computer. In 1977, Larry Cuba showed his computer generated work, the Death Star sequence from Star Wars. In 1979, Loren Carpenter made a film titled Vol Libre, which was the film generated using fractal algorithms. Created as a proof of concept for generating textured landscapes, the film was seen at the festival that year by George Lucas and Ed Catmull, then both working at a start up company called Industrial Light & Magic, they immediately hired Carpenter and an anti-aliased version of his software was used to create the Genesis Effect in the film Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn. Then in 1982, Magi Synthavision, Triple III and Robert Abel & Associates showed digital work from the ground breaking TRON. From that point forward the worlds of CG and entertainment became married.

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Proyectos + New Media

Siggraph
In the following years the festival became a showcase for the best computer graphics on film and video. Since 1999, the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival has also been an official qualifying festival for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "Best Animated Short Film" Academy Award. Many of the nominees and winners of the award premiered at the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, including John Lasseters Luxo, Jr. in 1985 and Shane Ackers 9. Last year 2, (Oktapodi and This Way Up) of the 5 nominees in the Best Animated Short Category were the Best of Show winners from the SIGGRAPH festivals (both North America and Asia had nominees). The festival and its content continue to grow alongside the entertainment industry. This year, festival chair Carlye Archibeque focused the themes of the festival on the convergence that is taking place in computer graphics world across several disciplines including architecture, visual music, stereoscopic, medical, scientific and game industries. In 2010 the Conference and Festival will be held in Los Angeles, California in the United States. www.siggraph.org

Durante los siguientes aos el festival se convirti en un escaparate de los mejores grficos por ordenador para cine y vdeo. Desde 1999, el Festival de Animacin por Ordenador SIGGRAPH ha sido tambin un festival oficial que califica para el Oscar al Mejor Cortometraje de Animacin de la Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematogrficas. Muchos de los candidatos y ganadores del galardn se estrenaron en el Festival de Animacin por Ordenador SIGGRAPH, incluyendo Luxo, Jr. de John Lasseter en 1985 y 9 de Shane Acker. El ao pasado dos (Oktapodi y This Way Up) de los cinco candidatos a la Categora de Mejor Cortometraje de Animacin fueron los ganadores del Best of Show de los festivales SIGGRAPH (tanto Norteamrica como Asia tuvieron candidatos). El festival y su contenido continan creciendo junto a la industria del entretenimiento. Este ao la presidencia del festival Carlye Archibeque centr la temtica del festival en la convergencia que est teniendo lugar en el mundo de los grficos por ordenador a travs de disciplinas como la arquitectura, la msica visual, las industrias del juego, cientfica, mdica y estereoscpica. En 2010 la Conferencia y el Festival se celebrarn en Los ngeles, California, en los Estados Unidos. www.siggraph.org

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Proyectos + New Media

Vida 11.0
Fundacin Telefnica VIDA 11.0 The dialogue between art, science, technology and society has always been one of the priority goals of the Fundacin Telefnica. Without question, one of the vehicles that has best materialised this commitment is the VIDA International Art Competition. Over its twelve years of existence, VIDA has managed to become one of the most-renowned international references in the versatile field of artificial life. With the responsibility of boosting and shaping an emerging discipline, the VIDA competition has become, year after year, an exciting showcase for digital art engaging, through all manner of electronic proposals, in a profound meditation on our complex and ambiguous relationship with technologies and our future identity as human beings. VIDA is not only a unique referent in the world, it is also a fundamental and necessary platform in which to trace the evolution of electronic art in the last decade. The VIDA virtual gallery on the Fundacin Telefnica web site enables this evolution to be seen through the projects submitted in past and future editions. In this sense, the virtual gallery is an essential tool for the dissemination and awareness of the current state of the art in artificial life. We are confident that the invitation to submit projects for VIDA 12.0 will once more be a stimulating challenge for artists and also an inescapable date for the spectators who await each year with bated breath to see which project most surprises them. www.fundacion.telefonica.com/vida

Fundacin Telefnica VIDA 11.0 El dilogo entre el arte, la ciencia, la tecnologa y la sociedad ha sido siempre uno de los objetivos prioritarios de Fundacin Telefnica. Sin duda, uno de los vehculos que mejor ha materializado este compromiso es el Concurso Internacional VIDA. En sus doce aos de existencia, VIDA ha logrado convertirse en uno de los referentes internacionales de mayor prestigio en el polifactico campo de la vida artificial. Con la responsabilidad de potenciar y dar forma a una disciplina emergente, el concurso VIDA se convierte, ao tras ao, en un interesante escaparate de arte digital cuyos autores, a travs de propuestas electrnicas de todo tipo, abordan una profunda reflexin sobre nuestra compleja y ambigua relacin con las tecnologas y nuestra futura identidad como seres humanos. VIDA no es slo un referente nico en el mundo, es adems una plataforma fundamental y necesaria en la que rastrear la evolucin del arte electrnico en el ltimo decenio. La galera virtual de VIDA en la pgina web de Fundacin Telefnica, permite conocer esta evolucin a travs de los proyectos de ediciones pasadas y futuras. En ese sentido, la galera virtual es una herramienta indispensable de difusin y conocimiento sobre el estado actual del arte de la vida artificial. Confiamos en que la convocatoria VIDA 12.0 se presente, una vez ms, como un estimulante reto para los artistas, y como una cita ineludible para los espectadores, que anualmente esperan con curiosidad qu proyecto les sorprender ms. www.fundacion.telefonica.com/vida

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Primer Premio Philip Beesley y Rob Gorbet, Hylozoic Soil

Segundo Premio Ruairi Glynn, Performative Ecologies

Tercer Premio Chico MacMurtrie, Sixteen Birds

Proye ctos + New Media

Proyectos + New Media

ArtFutura Argentina
In April 2009, ArtFutura landed in Argentina for the first time, in the MALBA (the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires, Foundation Constantini). Four days of projections and conferences in which the public could enjoy ArtFuturas audiovisual program and a selection of works that integrated the local sector. ArtFutura Buenos Aires, thanks to its first edition, has become what had been a long awaited point of reference for many. Local groups of creators have substantially multiplied over the last decade and are finding sustenance by developing commercial projects for in various parts of the world. Many of these creators also find time to dedicate to more artistic productions. Although this is in a context in which economic resources are far from abundant, the activity shows a high level of investigation, experimentation and creative expressiveness. The union of technology, art and science in an atmosphere favorable for exchange and the discovery of the creative process, tools, formats and even audiovisual experimentation is what has made ArtFutura Buenos Aires a reference point for digital culture in the region. www.milproducciones.com.ar/artfutura

En abril de 2009 ArtFutura desembarca por primera vez en Argentina, en el MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Fundacin Constantini). Cuatro das de proyecciones y conferencias en los que el pblico pudo disfrutar del programa audiovisual de Artfutura y de una seleccin de obras que integraron un segmento local. ArtFutura Buenos Aires se ha convertido con su primera edicin en un lugar de referencia esperado por muchos. Los grupos de realizacin de la escena local se han multiplicado exponencialmente en la ltima dcada, encontrando sustento con proyectos comerciales que se realizan para diversas partes del mundo, muchos de ellos encuentran tiempo para dedicarse a la produccin de contenidos artsticos, en un contexto en el que no sobran los recursos econmicos para desarrollos que se originen en la investigacin, la experimentacin o en una necesidad expresiva. La unin de tecnologa, arte y ciencia en un ambiente propicio para el intercambio y el descubrimiento de procesos de creacin, herramientas, formatos y hasta incluso experimentos audiovisuales, convierten a ArtFutura Buenos Aires en un referente de la cultura digital de la regin. Obras proyectadas en el segmento local Works developed by the local sector The Blindness of the Woods Amautalab Pour Nos Jeunes Pepper Melon Ramas Siembra Estado Lateral The Nona Fighter Alejandro Gabriel Pakal MTV Open and Count Hombre.cosa Chica superpoderosa, Jonnhy Bravo, Dexter Hook Up Animation

El Grito Federico Kehm/Pablo Dominguez La Carretera de los incendios Prietto viaja al Cosmos con Mariano Gabriel Rud NASA Espaon/Rotstein E.L.A in love at first byte Fernando Sarmiento Axn Film Festival Psychoscopic Superestudio El extrao M. Celina Tettenborn Tan cerca del Sol Pablo Tufaro

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Dise o Fu tura
DiseoFutura

A Green New Deal

(From Geopolitics to Biosphere Politics) Un proyecto de/ A project by ENRIC RUIZ GELI
-Frente al fin del trabajo de la era industrial aparecen nuevas reas estratgicas como por ejemplo la Robtica y Arquitectura: ejes de innovacin de Acciona I+d+i, Fatronik-Tecnalia, UPC, CETpD -El Symposium en Sitges Ciutats Creatives concluye que frente al fin del trabajo de la era industrial aparecen las nuevas industrias culturales: Las ciudades de Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastin, replican entre ellas best practices: las Fbricas de Creacin, la recuperacin de tejido urbano industrial: el Matadero, Tabakalera, Can Framis, ... -El PIB de la CEE en industria cultural ha alcanzado el 2,6 % en el ao 2008. -En Espaa la cultura aporta el 1,3 % del PIB; la agricultura (0,66%), la industria textil (0,78%) y la pesca (1,02%), segn el Consejo Nacional de Cultura y el INE. Febrero 2009 -Obama menciona a Alemania y Espaa como pases modelos y lideres en energas limpias. Empresas como Gamesa, Iberdrola, . . . -Portugal capitaliza la palabra energa como imagen de pas y nacionaliza la fuente de energa a partir de las olas: energa undimotriz. -Oceantec-Fatronik-Technalia-Iberdrola ensayan su sistema de produccin de energa undimotriz en las playas de San Sebastin. -la ciudad de San Sebastin presenta su candidatura a Capital Cultural Europea 2016: www.donostia2016.com -Green Peace, Promueve y Energy Attack acuerdan colaborar en el proyecto de Ola fuente de energa en la Zurriola de San Sebastin. -Nuevas marcas de coches elctricos aparecen en L.A. como el coche TESLA: autonoma de 400 millas, se recarga en 3 horas, motor elctrico y no hibrido, velocidad 140km/h, primer coche 100% elctrico que puede ir por la autopista. -7 gasolineras de gas natural en Los ngeles, 2 estaciones de produccin de hidrgeno Praxair, y 15 puestos de recarga elctrica para coches en LA, son las nuevas y diversas fuentes de energa y de negocio. Marzo 2009 -Aparicin de la Certificacin energtica LEED americana como certificado de excelencia tambin en Espaa, gestionado a travs de la empresa A+Plus o Acciona I+d+i. (El edificio Media-Tic de El Consorci y el 22@ aspiran a una certificacin oro, podra ser el 2 edificio de Europa). Marzo 2009 -EEUA anuncia la retirada de tropas de Irak . . . Va a ser que s. Todos juntos hacia un GREEN NEW DEAL.

Un proyecto para reflexionar sobre cmo puede evolucionar nuestra arquitectura. Cmo sern las fachadas en los edificios de Barcelona? Cul ser su relacin con la naturaleza y la sociedad? Cmo ser la relacin entre entorno real y virtual? La arquitectura tendra que aprender de la naturaleza, de su lgica y de su indeterminacin. Un rbol es arquitectura. Tiene espacio, temperatura, humedad relativa, juego entre plenos y vacos, atmsfera. Cmo podemos reinventar la relacin entre nuestra arquitectura y los rboles? Los rboles pueden ser los sensores de los edificios. Los rboles informan y deciden el confort interior del edificio: si nos imaginamos que podemos implementar tecnologa en los rboles y recibir informacin Si nos imaginamos medir su informacin interior Si conectamos su ciencia interna con la idea de confort del edificio Una arquitectura donde el sistema domtico, donde HAL, seran los rboles. Junio 2008 -Normativa Europea 20x20x20: 20% energa limpias respecto a la energa de consumo en la vivienda, la ciudad, el pas, para el ao 2020. Julio 2008 -Nuevo cdigo tcnico de la construccin y ecoeficiencia energtica: Reducciones del consumo de energa del 25% y bsqueda de diseos eficientes para reducir el factor G solar de un mnimo el 0,45, hasta llegar a un 0,25. Septiembre 2008 -Creacion de un 3rd Industrial Revolution Architects Round Table en la Biennale de Venecia. Octubre 2008 -Obama presidente electo habla de independencia energtica de EEUA y anuncia el fin de la era, y del lobby, del petrleo. -El 4 informe de la ONU, fecha el fin del petrleo en 18-20 aos. Noviembre 2008 -Meeting del 3rd Industrial Revolution CEO round table en Washington: 45 empresas internacionales que promueven los 4 pilares de la filosofa de Jeremy Rifkin: energas limpias, edificios como "power plants" + edificios off grid, bateras de hidrgeno o litio, y un smart grid para una energa distribuida. (Entre ellos asiste las empresa espaola Acciona) Enero 2009 -Aumento del presupuesto de I+D+i en Espaa del 10%, mientras que el PiB de la industria del "ladrillo" se hunde un 40% en 2008. -Aparecen 3 ejes principales de innovacin en Espaa: Energa, Industrializacin (una nueva industria post industrial como la Robtica) e Internacionalizacin, que en 2009 concuerdan con las 3 reas de Innovacin en la CEE: JTI de energa en construccin y de la fbrica del futuro, . . . -Los despachos de Arquitectura facturan ms en i+d+i que en proyectos, as algunos arquitectos tienen ms patentes que edificios.

Enric Ruiz Geli, arquitecto por la ETSA, nacido en Figueres, recorre una trayectoria desde la escenografa, en la que trabajo asociado a Bob Wilson en diferentes producciones, las artes visuales y otras instituciones. Los ltimos aos, ms centrado en el laboratorio de arquitectura Cloud 9 que dirige, est viendo como se construyen muchas de las propuestas de una arquitectura que aprende de la naturaleza y que performa con la tecnologa.

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A project to reflect on how our architecture could evolve. What will the faades of the buildings in Barcelona be like? How will they relate to nature and society? What will their relationship between their real and virtual environments be like? Architecture should learn from nature, from its logic and its indecision. A tree is architecture. It has space, temperature, relative humidity, its play on form and space, atmosphere. How can we reinvent the relationship between our architecture and trees? Trees could act as sensors for buildings. The trees inform and decide on the interior comfort of the buildings: if we imagine that we could implement technology in the trees and receive information If we imagine ourselves measuring their interior information If we connect their internal science with the idea of the buildings comfort An architecture in which the domotic system, in which HAL would be the trees. June 2008 -European regulations 20x20x20: 20% clean energy with respect to the energy consumed by a house, the city, the country, for the year 2020. July 2008 -New technical code for construction and energetic coefficiency: Reductions in energy consumption of 25% and a search for efficient designs that would reduce the solar G factor from a minimum of 0.45 to that of 0.25. September 2008 -Creation of a Third Industrial Revolution Architects Roundtable in the Venice Biennial. October 2008 -Obama, president elect, speaks about USA energetic independence and announces an end of an era, and the lobby, of oil. -The fourth UN report dates the end of petrol to be within 18-20 years. November 2008 -Meeting of the Third Industrial Revolution CEO Roundtable in Washington: 45 international companies that promote the four pillars of Jeremy Rifkins philosophy: clean energies, buildings with power plants + buildings off grid, hydrogen or lithium batteries, and a smart grid for a distributed energy. (The Spanish company Acciona was among those attending) January 2009 -Budget increase of R+D+i in Spain of 10% while the GDP of the construction industry sunk 40% in 2008. -Three main lines of innovation appear in Spain: Energy, Industrialization (a new post industrial industry such as Robotics) and Internationalization, which in 2009 coincided with three areas of innovation in the EEC: JTI energy in construction and factories of the future. . . -Architectural studios bill more for R+D+i than in projects. That means that some architects have more patents than buildings.

-To face up to the end of work in the industrial era, new strategic areas appear such as, for example, Robotics and Architecture: lines of innovation being developed by Acciona R+D+i, Fatronik-Tecnalia, UPC, CETpD . . . The symposium in Sitges Ciutats Creatives (Creative Cities) concludes that the end of work in the industrial era leads to the appearance of new cultural industries: cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastian compete among themselves to establish best practices: the Fbricas de Creacin, the recovery of the urban industrial fabric: the Matadero, Tabakalera, Can Framis... -The GDP of the EEC in cultural industries reached 2.6% in 2008. -In Spain, culture accounts for 1.3% of the GDP; agriculture (0.66%), the textile industry (0.78%) and fishing (1.02%) according to the National Council of Culture and the INE (the National Statistics Institute of Spain). February 2009 -Obama refers to Germany and Spain as models and leaders in clean energies. Companies such as Gamesa, Iberdrola -Portugal capitalizes on the word energy as the image of the country and nationalizes energy derived from harnessing power created by waves: energa undimotriz (Wave Energy). -Oceantec-Fatronik-Technalia-Iberdrola are testing a wave energy system off the beaches of San Sebastian. -The city of San Sebastian is a candidate to be European Cultural Capital 2016: www.donostia2016.com -Green Peace, Promueve and Energy Attack have agreed to collaborate on the Wave Energy project in Zurriola, San Sebastian. -New brands of electric cars appear in L.A. such as the TESLA car: autonomy 400 miles, rechargeable in three hours, electric engine and it is not hybrid, speed 140 km/h, the first car 100% electric that can be driven on the motorway. -Seven service stations selling natural gas in Los Angeles, two stations producing hydrogen Praxair, and 15 electric recharging points for cars in L.A. are the new and diverse sources of energy and business. March 2009 -Appearance of the American energetic Certification LEED as a certificate of excellence also available in Spain where it is administrated by the company A+Plus or Acciona R+D+i. (The Media-Tic building of El Consorci and 22@ aspire to a gold certificate, it could be the second in Europe). March 2009 -USA announces the withdrawal of its troops from Irak And its going to come off. All together towards a GREEN NEW DEAL.

Enric Ruiz Geli architect for ETSA (Escola Tcnica Superior dArquitectura), born in Figueres, has worked in stage design, in association with Bob Wilson on various productions, visual art and for other institutions. Over the last few years, he has been more centered in the Cloud 9 architectural laboratory that he directs. He is seeing how many proposals of an architecture that learns from nature and performs with technology is being constructed.

Dise o Fu tura
DiseoFutura

Multitouch Barcelona
NATURAL INTERACTION PROJECT
Multitouch Barcelona is a project started the year 2008 by a gang of four youngsters. The group has a strong technological base that expands to other fields to satisfy the curiosity of its members. Today, the group merges technology with many different disciplines such as communication, design and interaction. Motivation, resources and abilities of the group members are coupled and generate a continuous learning and experimentation environment where projects get done just for the sake of seeing them work. The main objective of the guys at Multitouch Barcelona is to involve people into unique experiences. The user concept is too superficial to be of use anymore; they rather talk of people, their feelings and emotions. Human capabilities and relationships are, therefore, the center of their work and the aim of their investigations. They try to warm up technology by heating its original coolness with the human touch. Furthermore, they ambition to create environments that foster human relationships where technology is just the excuse for this kind of encounters. As we see, to them, technology is senseless if there is not a good concept that really requires it. With this philosophy all the projects from the group require a powerful idea that then translate into the project needs; maybe technological needs, but not necessarily. Thus, despite most of their projects experiment with different technologies -- after all, their name suggests their technological background -there are others in which technology is just not needed. In one of their latest projects, HI, a real human interface, they suggest the nature of their approach to experience design. The relevance of the human figure is evident in this video project where, the concept of interface is taken to the extreme under the premise that there is no better interface than humans themselves. Multitouch Barcelona, humans indeed. www.multitouch-barcelona.com

Multitouch Barcelona es un proyecto iniciado en 2008 por una pandilla de cuatro jvenes. El grupo cuenta con una slida base tecnolgica que se expande a otros campos para satisfacer la curiosidad de sus miembros. Actualmente, el grupo combina la tecnologa con mltiples disciplinas como la comunicacin, el diseo y la interaccin. La motivacin, los recursos y las capacidades de los miembros del grupo se complementan dando lugar a un entorno de aprendizaje y experimentacin continuos en el que los proyectos se llevan a cabo con el nico propsito de verlos funcionar. El principal objetivo de los integrantes de Multitouch Barcelona es implicar a las personas en experiencias nicas. El concepto de usuario es demasiado superficial para seguir siendo til; ellos prefieren hablar de personas, de sus sentimientos y de sus emociones. Las habilidades y las relaciones humanas son, por lo tanto, el eje de su trabajo y la meta de sus investigaciones. Lo que pretenden es que la tecnologa entre en calor reduciendo su frialdad intrnseca mediante el toque humano. Adems, su ambicin es crear entornos que fomenten las relaciones humanas en encuentros donde la tecnologa es solo una excusa. Es evidente que, para ellos, la tecnologa no tiene sentido a menos que exista un buen concepto que realmente la requiera. Con esta filosofa, todos los proyectos del grupo requieren una potente idea que se traducir en las necesidades del proyecto; puede que estas necesidades sean tecnolgicas, aunque no necesariamente. As, a pesar de que en la mayora de sus proyectos experimentan con diferentes tecnologas (al fin y al cabo su nombre sugiere sus fundamentos tecnolgicos), en otros la tecnologa es, simplemente, innecesaria. En uno de sus ltimos proyectos, HI, a real human interface, sugieren la naturaleza de su enfoque para experimentar con el diseo experiencial. La importancia de la figura humana se hace evidente en este proyecto audiovisual en que el concepto de interfaz es llevado al extremo bajo la premisa de que no existe mejor interfaz que los propios humanos. Multitouch Barcelona, humanos al fin y al cabo. www.multitouch-barcelona.com

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Dise o Fu tura
DiseoFutura

F.A.B.R.I.CATORS
F.A.B.R.I.CATORS is a creative & interdisciplinary media group concerned with the integration of Art + Design + Architecture + Technology + Communication, specialized in: Interactive Technology, Virtual Reality, Interactive Media, Networking, Robotics, Digital Media and Integrated Media. It operates in the fields of: Art, Design, Architecture, Edu-Entertainment, Interactive Entertainment, Leisure, Spectacle, Fashion, Marketing, and Industry. Aim: To work on cutting edge ideas, design, production, and projects with a futuristic vision, rooted in the present + to implement in the present what seems only possible to do and create in the future. Vision: To merge functionality and fantasy in its highest expression with a new system of living and interacting with the impossible F.A.B.R.I.CATORS designs and implements virtual reality applications, simulations, immersive architectural virtual walkthroughs, digital storytelling, interactive narrative, collaborative shared environments, digital productions, innovative interactive experiences, high speed networking project, artistic interactive installations and visualization display systems, creative technological solutions and innovative and intuitive interfaces. F.A.B.R.I.CATORS artistic skills and technical competence in a variety of media provide ground for continual exploration, juxtaposition and integration of new media tools, technology, art and design with innovative concepts, outstanding aesthetics, and a keen awareness of maintaining equilibrium between creativity, fantasy, technology, efficiency and human interaction. By integrating design, architecture, art and technology, F.A.B.R.I.CATORS expect to creates pioneering projects, designs new forms of entertainment technology and digital entertainment, innovative solutions in architecture and design from urban habitats, landscaping, multi-user recreational and tourist destinations, hightech intelligent multi-purpose buildings, to architectonic solutions with challenging technological features, and new forms of interior electronic design and interactive responsive environments. F.A.B.R.I.CATORS is committed to creating new technical and aesthetic creative content, digital imaging and compositing, 3D modeling, 2D and 3D animation, interactive multi-media, and computer programming. By tapping into our artistic knowledge and skills, we are able to use arts media effectively to creatively express ideas, translate concepts, feelings, and visions. www.fabricat.com/FF_home.htm

F.A.B.R.I.CATORS es un grupo interdisciplinario y creativo que integran Arte+Diseo+Arquitectura+Tecnologa+Comunicacin, especializado en Tecnologa Interactiva, Realidad Virtual, Medios Interactivos, Networking, Robtica, Medios Digitales y Medios Integrados. Interviene en los campos del Arte, el Diseo, la Arquitectura, el Entretenimiento Educativo, el Entretenimiento Interactivo, el Ocio, el Espectculo, la Moda, el Marketing y la Industria. Objetivo: Se ocupan de conceptos novedosos, diseo, produccin y proyectos con una visin futurista, basados en el presente y realizan en el presente lo que slo parece posible hacer y producir en el futuro. Visin: Combinan funcionalidad y fantasa en su mxima expresin con un nuevo sistema de vida e interactan con lo imposible. F.A.B.R.I.CATORS disea y realiza aplicaciones de realidad virtual, simulaciones, ensayos virtuales arquitectnicos inmersivos, narraciones digitales, narrativa interactiva, entornos compartidos de colaboracin, producciones digitales, experiencias interactivas innovadoras, proyectos de conexin en red de alta velocidad, instalaciones interactivas artsticas y sistemas de visualizacin, soluciones tecnolgicas creativas e interfaces intuitivas e innovadoras. La experiencia artstica y capacidad tcnica de F.A.B.R.I.CATORS en varios medios le proporcionan terreno para un estudio constante, la yuxtaposicin e integracin de nuevas herramientas, tecnologa, arte y diseo con conceptos innovadores, esttica destacada, y una fuerte conciencia por mantener el equilibrio entre creatividad, fantasa, tecnologa, rendimiento e interaccin humana. Al integrar el diseo, la arquitectura, el arte y la tecnologa, F.A.B.R.I.CATORS esperan crear proyectos pioneros, disear nuevas formas de tecnologa del entretenimiento y de entretenimiento digital, soluciones innovadoras en la arquitectura y el diseo desde hbitats urbanos, arquitectura paisajista, destinos tursticos y recreativos multiusuario, edificios inteligentes multiusos de alta tecnologa hasta soluciones arquitectnicas con caractersticas tecnolgicas que constituyen un reto y nuevas formas de diseo electrnico interior y entornos interactivos receptivos. F.A.B.R.I.CATORS se compromete a crear nuevos contenidos creativos estticos y tcnicos, composicin e imgenes digitales, modelado 3D, animacin 2D y 3D, multimedia interactiva y programacin. Aprovechando nuestra experiencia y conocimiento artstico podemos usar los medios del arte con eficacia para expresar ideas de manera creativa, traducir conceptos, sentimientos y visiones. www.fabricat.com/FF_home.htm

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3D Futu ra
3D Futura

3D en Espaa 2009 3D in Spain 2009

El programa 3D en Espaa incluye los mejores trabajos de animacin 3D y efectos especiales producidos a lo largo del ltimo ao por compaas, estudiantes y artistas independientes. Todos los trabajos seleccionados optan al Premio 3D en Espaa, el galardn ms importante de su tipo, decidido por los votos de los asistentes en las ciudades donde se presenta.

Obras seleccionadas Selected works Malacara y el Misterio del Bastn Inercia Films The Lady and the Reaper Kandor Graphics / Javier Recio Gracia Facil Fresco y Familiar Camilo Duarte Tachaaaan! Rafael Cano Formula Sexta Kotoc / Freddy Cordoba El Pintor de los Cielos Jorge Morais Valle

The 3D in Spain program includes the best works of animation using computer graphics and special effects produced during last year by companies, students and independent artists. All the works selected are eligible for the 3D in Spain Award, Spains most important award of its kind, which is decided by the audience attending the festival in the cities where it is presented.

Premio Especial del Jurado Special Jury Award El Pintor de los Cielos Jorge Morais Valle

Zapping Ikso Studio / Avelino Lombardero Suckers BRB Internacional / Carlos Biern Cclope Carlos Morett

Premio Especial Escuelas Special School Award Tachaaaan! Rafael Cano

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The Lady and the Reaper Kandor Graphics Javier Recio Gracia

Zapping Ikso Studio Avelino Lombardero

3D en Espaa 2009 3D in Spain 2009

El Pintor de los Cielos - Jorge Morais Valle

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3D Futura

3D ArtFutura Show 2009

El 3DFutura Show incluye cada ao la seleccin comisariada de las mejores animaciones en 3D producidas internacionalmente. Desde las piezas ms espectaculares producidas por los grandes estudios en los ltimos doce meses, hasta las pequeas maravillas creadas por escuelas y artistas independientes repartidos por todo el mundo. The 3DFutura Show is the curated selection of the best 3D animations produced internationally. From the most spectacular pieces produced by the large studios over the last twelve months, to the smallest of wonders created by schools and independent artists spread around the world. Obras Seleccionadas / Selected Works French Roast Fabrice O. Joubert http://www.frenchroast.fr Unvelievable Four Sukwon Shin / Inpyo Hong www.sukwonshin.com Dix Bif The Mill www.the-mill.com The Spine Chris Landreth http://films.nfb.ca/the-spine/ cEvo Teaser Vortice Studios www.vorticestudios.com La Main des Maitres Adrien "CaYus" Toupet, Clment Delatre & Looky www.lamaindesmaitres.com As One Makoto Yabuki Tangram http://makotoyabuki.com/original-works/as-one/ RollN Rock Nico Casavecchia Boolab www.boolab.tv Pigeon Impossible Lucas Martell www.pigeonimpossible.com
Unvelievable Four / Sukwon Shin / Inpyo Hong The Spine / Chris Landreth

French Roast / Fabrice O. Joubert

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Phase / Yasuhiro Kobari

La Main des Maitres Adrien "CaYus" Toupet, Clment Delatre & Looky

Pigeon Impossible Lucas Martell

Impr ov Every where

Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere
Spencer Morgan
This is for participants only, announces a heavily bundled Charlie Todd through his trusty gray bullhorn. If you didnt come to take your pants off today, youre in the wrong spot. Its a frigid January afternoon in New York Citys Foley Square, and hundreds of fearless pranksters are braving the elements to get together and shed their trousers for the eighth annual No Pants! Subway Ride. Todd, a baby-faced 30-year-old from Columbia, South Carolina, is the mastermind behind this gathering, and on his command the assembled crowd scatters for the nearest subway entrancesand collectively drops trou. Even in a city like New York, riding the subway sans pants is a guaranteed eye-opener, and today is no exception: Straphangers stare, chuckle, even take photos. Around 1,200 men and women have come out clad in boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, and bloomers, not just in New York, but in 21 cities across the globe. (Three hundred take to the subwayshameless and pantless, the Toronto Sun would inform its readers soberly the next day.) The mission ends with a group of agents celebrating in Union Square, making snow angels, still pantless. Improv Everywhere has struck again. Mission accomplished. The largest network of pranksters ever assembled, Improv Everywhere is the leading light in what might be called the Golden Age of the Prank. All across America and beyond, groups are gathering to pull off practical jokes, hoaxes, and ruses of all kinds, blurring the line between prank and guerrilla theater, and using the Internet to share their work with audiences far and wide. The prank, of course, has a long and illustrious history going back towell, Adam and the serpent: Ha! You actually ate the apple! Summer camps and college campuses have long been jokesters playgrounds, while avant-gardists like Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaist movement elevated the prank to an art form. Borat and (coming soon) Bruno have taken squirminducing hoaxing to the big screen. But its the Internetand groups like Improv Everywhere who have learned how to exploit itthat has been the primary mover in the prank renaissance. More than seven million people have watched the 2009 No Pants! clip on YouTube, and copycat groups have sprung up around the world.

Esto es slo para participantes, anuncia un abrigadsimo Charlie Todd por su fiel megfono gris. Si hoy no habis venido a quitaros los pantalones, estis en el lugar equivocado. Es una tarde glacial de enero en el Foley Square de la ciudad de Nueva York, y cientos de intrpidos bromistas hacen frente a los elementos para reunirse y despojarse de sus pantalones en la octava edicin de No Pants! Subway Ride (Sin Pantalones! En el Metro). Todd, un joven de 30 aos con cara de nio procedente de Columbia, Carolina del Sur, es el cerebro de esta reunin, y cuando lo ordena la multitud reunida se dispersa por las entradas de metro ms cercanas y todos a la vez se bajan los pantalones. Incluso en una ciudad como Nueva York, ir en metro sin pantalones es una sorpresa garantizada, y hoy no iba a ser diferente: las personas que utilizan el transporte pblico miran fijamente, se ren, incluso toman fotos. Cerca de 1.200 hombres y mujeres han salido con calzoncillos, bragas, bxers cortos y bombachos, no slo en Nueva York, sino en 21 ciudades del mundo. (Trescientas personas tomaron el metro sin vergenza y sin pantalones, informara con sobriedad el Toronto Sun a sus lectores al da siguiente.) La misin termina con un grupo de agentes celebrndolo en Union Square, haciendo ngeles de nieve en el suelo, an sin pantalones. Improv Everywhere lo ha conseguido de nuevo. Misin cumplida. Improv Everywhere, la red ms grande de bromistas jams reunida, es la estrella en lo que se podra llamar la poca Dorada de la Broma. Por todo Estados Unidos y ms all, los grupos se renen para llevar a cabo bromas, artimaas y trucos de todo tipo, desdibujando la lnea entre la broma y el teatro de guerrilla, y usando Internet para compartir su trabajo con el pblico de todas partes. La broma, por supuesto, tiene una larga e ilustre historia que se remonta hasta bueno, Adam y la serpiente: Aj! Te comiste la manzana! Los campamentos de verano y los campus universitarios han sido durante mucho tiempo zonas de recreo para bromistas, mientras vanguardistas como Marcel Duchamp y el movimiento dadasta elevaba la broma a una expresin artstica. Borat y (prximamente) Bruno han llevado las bromas de retorcerse de vergenza ajena a la gran pantalla. Pero es Internet y grupos como Improv Everywhere que han aprendido cmo sacarle provecho el que ha sido el primordial motor en el renacimiento de la broma. Ms de siete millones de personas han visto el vdeo de No Pants! en YouTube, y por todo el mundo han surgido imitadores.

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Impr ov Every where

Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere
Spencer Morgan

Improv Everywhere ha realizado ms de 80 misiones, involucrando a miles de presuntos agentes, que se traducen en innumerables titulares y bastantes espacios de noticias en televisin como para rellenar lo que equivaldra a una temporada de episodios de Punkd (programa de televisin emitido por MTV). Sus propios vdeos han generado ms de 55 millones de visitas online. Pero su influencia insidiosa sin duda ha contagiado a un pblico mucho mayor: Son literalmente cientos los grupos inspirados en Improv Everywhere alrededor del mundo, sin comentar las masas de vctimas desconcertadas y balbuceantes que cada broma deja a su paso. Segn el legendario bromista Alan Abel - cuyo grupo sin nimo de lucro Citizens Against Breastfeeding (Ciudadanos Contra el Amamantamiento) conden lo que llamaron una relacin incestuosa entre la madre y el beb que se manifiesta en una adiccin oral que conduce a los jvenes a fumar, beber, e incluso volverse homosexuales - Muy pronto tendremos tantos grupos gastando bromas como coros de iglesia. Para Improv Everywhere, lo que exactamente constituye una broma es asunto del maestro. Charlie Todd se mud a Manhattan el verano de 2001 para convertirse en actor. Una noche un amigo le mencion que se pareca al cantante pop Ben Folds. No se parece, pero quin demonios sabe a quin se parece realmente Ben Folds? Todd decidi pasarse la tarde jugando a ser l. Su amigo le increp en el siguiente bar: Oye, t no eres Ben Folds? Vaya, s, soy yo! Lo siguiente que supo es que un par de guapas britnicas le rodearon. La noche siguiente: mismo gag, distinto bar. Voila! Esta vez todo el mundo se lo crey. Fotos, autgrafos, bebidas gratis. Consigui algunos telfonos tambin. Charlie Todd y su pandilla haban creado una escena. Al da siguiente me deca, to, tienes que hacer ms chorradas como sta, recuerda cenando en un restaurante indio. Y as lo hizo, documentando cada misin en lo que comenz como un sitio web bsico que apod improveverywhere.com. Ferviente discpulo del comediante y artista de los aos 70 Andy Kaufman, a Todd le gusta decir que lo nico que realmente le distingue de los otros bromistas de ayer y hoy es que l es un archivista compulsivo. Actualmente improveverywhere.com ofrece ms de 70 vdeos de calidad profesional, un blog, un DVD, y una seccin de FAQ (en caso de que te sientas abrumado). El artculo de su momento Eureka haciendo de Ben Folds est ah. Al igual que el vdeo en el que sale al escenario en el Hammerstein Ballroom en noviembre de 2006, abriendo el espectculo y hacindose pasar por el mismo Ben Folds.

Improv Everywhere has pulled more than 80 stunts, involving thousands of so-called agents, resulting in countless headlines and enough TV news spots to fill a seasons worth of Punkd episodes. Their own videos have generated more than 55 million views online. But their insidious influence has no doubt infected a far larger audience: Count literally hundreds of Improv Everywhereinspired groups across the globe, to say nothing of the masses of bewildered, babbling victims each prank leaves in its wake. According to legendary prankster Alan Abelwhose Citizens Against Breastfeeding nonprofit group famously condemned what they called an incestuous relationship between mother and baby that manifests an oral addiction leading youngsters to smoke, drink, and even become a homosexual -Pretty soon well have as many groups pulling pranks as we have church choirs. As far as Improv Everywhere is concerned, what exactly constitutes a prank is up to the maestro. Charlie Todd moved to Manhattan in the summer of 2001 to become an actor. One night a friend mentioned that he looked like the pop singer Ben Folds. He doesnt, but who the hell knows what Ben Folds really looks like? Todd decided to spend the evening playing the part. His pal teed him up at the next bar: Hey, arent you Ben Folds? Why, yes, I am! Next thing he knew, a brace of British babes had surrounded him. The following night: same shtick, different bar. Shazam! This time the whole place bought it. Photographs, autographs, free drinks. Got some digits, too. Charlie Todd and crew had caused a scene. The next day I was like, Man, I got to do more shit like that, he recalls over dinner at an Indian restaurant. And so he did, documenting each mission on what began as a bare-bones Web site he dubbed improveverywhere.com. An avid disciple of 70s performance artist/comedian Andy Kaufman, Todd likes to say the only thing that really sets him apart from other pranksters past and present is that hes a compulsive archivist. Today improveverywhere.com offers more than 70 professional-grade videos, a blog, a DVD, and an FAQ section (in case you become overwhelmed). The write-up of his Eureka moment donning the Ben Folds persona is on there. As is the video of him onstage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in November 2006, opening a show for the man himself.

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Impr ov Every where

Improv Eveywhere

Improv Everywhere
Spencer Morgan
Todd turned to the Internet because he wanted to share a funny story, but he quickly realized its potential to mobilize dormant pranksters. He currently presides over an e-mail list of 22,000 would-be agents, hungry for action, awaiting orders. Such power comes in handy when you want to storm Abercrombie & Fitch with bare-chested men111 people showed up for that oneor wreak havoc at Best Buy by flooding the place with blue polo shirts and khaki pants. Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair! a bewildered manager blurted into her walkie-talkie. The group has fooled a crowd of New Yorkers into believing that U2 was playing a free surprise gig from a midtown roof and convinced shoppers at a local Barnes & Noble that Russian writer Anton Chekhov was giving a reading. Chekhov, of course, died in 1904. Ive always thought of Improv Everywhere pranks like getting stabbed with an icicle, said Todd Simmons, an aspiring actor and accomplished agent who played the role of a tuxedo-clad bathroom attendant in the mens room of a McDonalds in Times Square. Once people notice a crime has been committed, all the evidence has evaporated. It was the simple genius of Frozen Grand Central that pushed IE into the international spotlight. More than 200 agents with synchronized watches gathered at the station, and froze, all at the exact same time. They stayed stuck for five minutes. Thats the craziest shit Ive ever seen, and Im a cop, a police officer on duty remarked. The video was posted in January 2008 and almost immediately went viral. More than 16 million people have clicked play. According to Todd, other groups have reprised the gag in 100 cities. One of Improv Everywheres guiding principles is that theirs are victimless crimes; the goal is to give witnesses a laugh and a story to tell, not to humiliate anyone. He is still not entirely comfortable with how far Improv Everywhere pushed the boundaries of human kindness when, in 2004, he came up with the Best Gig Ever caper, wherein he called on his growing militia of agents to memorize the lyrics to a randomly selected bands songs, make T-shirts with their name on it, and descend upon their Sunday-night gig. Thirty-five diehard Ghost of Pasha fans turned out to give the no-name band the gig of their dreams. When the band was tipped off to the prank, they were a little bummed out.

Todd se pas a Internet porque quera compartir una historia divertida, pero pronto se dio cuenta de su potencial para movilizar a bromistas aletargados. Actualmente preside una lista de correos electrnicos de 22.000 aspirantes a agentes, deseosos de accin, esperando rdenes. Semejante poder viene bien cuando quieres irrumpir en Abercrombie & Fitch con hombres desnudos de cintura para arriba en esta ocasin aparecieron 111 personas o causar estragos en Best Buy inundando el lugar de camisas de polo azul y pantalones caqui (uniforme del establecimiento). El secreto de Thomas Crown! El secreto de Thomas Crown! gritaba una desconcertada encargada por su walkie-talkie. El grupo hizo creer a una multitud de neoyorquinos que U2 daba un concierto sorpresa gratis en una azotea del centro y convenci a los compradores de una Barnes & Noble local que el escritor ruso Anton Chekhov iba a ofrecer una lectura. Chekhov, por supuesto, muri en 1904. Siempre he pensado que las bromas de Improv Everywhere son como ser apualado con un carmbano, dijo Todd Simmons, un aspirante a actor y agente consumado que hace el papel de encargado de los servicios vestido con esmoquin en el servicio de caballeros de un restaurante McDonald en Times Square. Cuando la gente se da cuenta de que se ha cometido un crimen, todas las pruebas han desaparecido. Fue la simple genialidad de Frozen Grand Central la que puso a Improv Everywhere en el punto de mira internacional. Ms de 200 agentes con relojes sincronizados se reunieron en la estacin, y se quedaron congelados, todos al mismo tiempo. Se quedaron clavados durante cinco minutos. Esta es la locura ms grande que jams he visto, y soy poli, comentaba un agente de polica en servicio. El vdeo se public en enero de 2008 y casi inmediatamente se convirti en un viral. Ms de 16 millones de personas le han dado al play. Segn Todd, otros grupos han repetido el gag en 100 ciudades. Uno de los principios que rigen a Improv Everywhere es el hecho de que sus misiones son crmenes sin vctimas. El objetivo consiste en conseguir de aquellos que lo presencien una risa y una historia que contar, sin humillar a nadie. Sin embargo, Todd an no se siente muy cmodo con hasta donde Improv Everywhere llev los lmites de la bondad humana cuando, en 2004, present la misin Best Gig Ever (El Mejor Concierto de la Historia), donde hizo un llamamiento a su creciente milicia de agentes para que memorizaran las letras de las canciones de un grupo elegido al azar, se hicieran camisetas con el nombre del grupo, y aparecieran de improvisto en su actuacin del domingo por la noche. Treinta y cinco acrrimos fans de Ghost of Pasha se echaron a la calle para ofrecerle al grupo desconocido el concierto de su vida. Cuando el grupo se enter de la broma, se sintieron un poco desanimados.
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Impr ov Every where

Improv Eveywhere

Improv Everywhere
Spencer Morgan
That prank came close to breaking with the spirit of IEs missions: causing an authentic scene that gives people an excuse to break out of their ordinary daily routines. This philosophy was put to the test this spring, when IE staged a mission titled Best Funeral Ever. A variation on Best Gig Ever, the prank saw Todd and 30 other agents crash the burial of a recently deceased New Yorker. The goal, Todd stated, was to give the dearly departed and his loved ones the awesomest funeral imaginable, but the response was unlike anything Improv Everywhere had seen before. As soon as the video was posted, it was clear from the comments that Todd and company had finally gone too far: You guys have done some great pranks, but this is just plain fucked-up. I am ashamed to think that I was actually a fan of yours. This prank is sick. That night the local WPIX newscast ran a segment on the mission, asking, Did one local improv group go too far? What all of these offended observers failed to notice was the date: April 1. There was no funeral, no mourning family. They were all agents, and the joke was on all of us. Given the date, the whole ruse should have been obvious, but in a follow-up posted April 2, Todd apologized to anyone fooled into thinking we had lost our minds and done something this horrendous. For Todd, whose extravagantly titled book, Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places With Improv Everywhere, was recently released, the art of the prank, and the motivation behind it, is pretty simple. When he gives lectures at college campuses around the country these dayslast September he taught a seminar in Russiastudents always hunger for the counterculture message behind his work. Theyre like, Why? Why? Why? And they have a hard time accepting the answer: Its really fuckin fun. www. improveverywhere.com

Esa broma estuvo a punto de romper el espritu de las misiones de Improv Everywhere: crear una autntica escena que le da a la gente una excusa para salir de su rutina diaria. Esta filosofa se puso a prueba esta primavera, cuando Improv Everywhere organiz una misin titulada Best Funeral Ever (El Mejor Funeral de la Historia). La broma, una variacin del Best Gig Ever, consista en que Todd junto con otros 30 agentes se colaran en el entierro de un neoyorquino fallecido recientemente. Todd explic que el objetivo resida en dar al amado difunto y a sus seres queridos el ms maravilloso funeral imaginable, pero la respuesta fue muy distinta a cualquiera que Improv Everywhere hubiera visto antes. Tan pronto como el vdeo se public se hizo evidente por los comentarios que Todd y compaa haban ido finalmente demasiado lejos: Habis hecho algunas grandes bromas, pero esta es simplemente una cagada completa. Estoy avergonzado de pensar que fui fan vuestro. Esta broma es de muy mal gusto. Esa noche el telediario local de WPIX retransmiti parte de la misin, preguntndose: Se ha pasado de la raya esta gente? Lo que todos estos observadores ofendidos no consiguieron darse cuenta fue de la fecha: 1 de abril (da de los Santos Inocentes en Gran Bretaa). No haba ningn funeral, ni familia de luto. Todos eran agentes, y la broma era para todos nosotros. Si se hubiera dicho la fecha, todo el ardid hubiera estado claro, pero en una continuacin publicada el 2 de abril, Todd pidi perdn a todos aquellos a los que les hicieron creer que se haban vuelto locos haciendo algo tan horrendo. Para Todd, cuyo libro titulado exageradamente Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places With Improv Everywhere sali a la venta recientemente, el arte de la broma y la motivacin tras sta es bastante simple. Cuando hoy en da da conferencias en los campus universitarios alrededor del pas el pasado septiembre imparti un seminario en Rusia los estudiantes siempre estn sedientos del mensaje contracultural detrs de su trabajo. Siempre te preguntan: Por qu? Por qu? Por qu? Y lo pasan mal cuando respondo: En realidad es pura diversin. www. improveverywhere.com

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Crditos / Credits

Direccin / Director Montxo Algora Comisariado / Curatorship Montxo Algora Santi Fort Carolina Lpez Irma Vil i dena Ramn Nafria Oscar Hormigos Fernando Piquer Coordinacin General / General Coordinator Raquel Aranda Coordinacin Comunicacin / Communication Coordinator Irma Vil i dena Audiovisuales / Audiovisuals Rebecka Br Prensa y Medios / Press and Media Luca Silva Patricia Quinteiro Laura Gardoqui Direccin Tcnica / Technical Director Joaquim Anguas Coordinacin Tcnica / Technical Coordination Terry Sucrana Diseo Espacial / Space Design pocaa Irma Arribas Joan Cuevas Jordi Llcer www.pocaa.net Regidura / Stage Manager Neus Argudo Asistentes de Produccin / Production Assistants Roger Vias Vilar Hctor Lorenzo Pons Juan-D Andrs

Relaciones Pblicas / Public Relations Judith Calabria Martulina Rojas Coordinacin Madrid / Madrid Coordination Marta Velzquez Administracin / Administration Jaume Als Luca Silva

PROGRAMA AUDIOVISUAL Comisariado / Curatorship Montxo Algora Carolina Lpez Realizacin /Edition Rebecka Br Cabecera / Opening Titles Magnus stergren

UPF Director de l'Area de Comunicaci (IDEC-UPF) / Head of Digital Communication Studies (IDEC-UPF) Toni Rocamora Coordinadora de Espacios del Campus Poble Nou (UPF) /Facilities coordinator of Poble Nou Campus (UPF) Anna Mas ALICANTE

CDIZ CENTRO BALUARTE DE LA CANDELARIA Gerente de la Fundacin Municipal de Cultura/ Administrator Mara de la Vega Lpez Orbaanos Coordinador Centro Baluarte/ Coordinator Jos Mara Snchez Villacorta Coordinadora El Hervidero Plataforma de Apoyo a la Creacin/ Coordinator Mara Gonzlez Gabinete de prensa del Excelentsimo Ayuntamiento de Cdiz

WEB SITE CATLOGO + DVD / CATALOGUE + DVD Direccin / Director Montxo Algora Diseo Grfico / Graphic Design a mnima www.aminima.net Traducciones / Translation Mark Holloway Marisol Antoln BARCELONA Programa / Program Martelia Servicios Media AUDITORIO IMAGINA 22@BARCELONA, EL DISTRITO DE LA INNOVACIN Consejero Delegado / Acting Councilor Josep Miquel Pique Director de Marketing y Comunicacin / Director of Marketing and Communication Jordi Sacristan Adria www.22barcelona.com ARTS SANTA MNICA (ASM) Direccin / Director Vicen Altai Responsable rea de Ciencia / Responsible of Science Area Josep Perell Producci / Producer Alicia Gonzlez Diseo Grfico / Graphic Design AER Visual Studio www.aerstudio.com Programacin web / Web Developement Soulmixer www.soulmixer.com

ESPACIO CAMON Responsable del Proyecto / Project Manager Lorenzo Andreu Baile Coordinacin de Actividades / Activities Coordinator Daniel Simn Pla Prensa y Medios / Press and Media Sergio Martnez Mahugo / Vicente Acosta Francs AULA CAM Direccin / Director Joaqun Manresa Clemente Coordinacin de Actividades / Activities Coordinator Jorge Hernndez Carbonell / Jos Antonio Gosalves Climent Prensa y Medios / Press and Media Juan Valds Castell / Vicente Costa Francs BUENOS AIRES MALBA Direccin / Director Ins Iribarne / Macarena Rudman Prensa y Medios / Press and Media Francisco Cerdn Comunicacin / Communication El Jardn Produccin Ejecutiva / Executive Producer milproducciones www.milproducciones.com.ar/artfutura

GIJN LABORAL Centro de Arte y Creacin Industrial Gijn, Asturias www.laboralcentrodearte.org

GRANADA PARQUE DE LAS CIENCIAS Direccin / Director Ernesto Pramo Sureda Coordinacin / Coordinator Cristina Gonzlez Sevilla PAMPLONA CENTRO HUARTE Coordinacin / General coordinator Carolina Martnez Gerencia / Managent Arantxa Etxeberria Promocin y Marketing / Promotion and Marketing Clara Irigoyen Prensa y Comunicacin / Press and Comunication Berta Bernarte Produccin / Production Raul Goi

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MADRID LA CASA ENCENDIDA Direccin / Director Jos Guirao Coordinador Cultura / Culture Coordinator Luca Casani Coordinacin Audiovisual / Audiovisual Coordinator Beatriz Navas Prensa y Medios / Press and Media David Calzado

PALMA (MALLORCA) ES BALUARD Direccin / Director Cristina Ros rea de Accin Cultural / Area for Cultural Action Eva Cifre rea de Comunicacin / Communication Jess Torn rea de Marketing / Marketing Mal Llompart Educacin / Education Eva Cifre

VALLADOLID PATIO HERRERIANO Museo de Arte Contemporneo Espaol Direccin / Director Cristina Fontaneda Jefe de Coleccin y Exposiciones / Exhibition and Collection Chief Patricia Snchez Cid Jefa de Comunicacin y Desarrollo / Communication and Development Chief Gracia Calabia Coordinadora de Comunicacin y Desarrollo / Communication Coordinator Susana Gil VIGO MARCO Museo de Arte Contempornea de Vigo Direccin / Director Iaki Martnez Coordinacin / Coordinator Pilar Souto Prensa y Medios / Press and Media Marta Viana

Colaboradores / Collaborators: Pocaa / AER Visual Estudio / Soulmixer / CI&VI Festivals de Catalunya /Barcelona Media / Sigrapph / OFFF / i2cat / Anella Cultural / AL PI / Institut Universitari de lAudiovisual / Videolab / L.m.ents / Esmaya / Neapolis / Entremans / Actar D / FX Animation / La Salle / Mil Producciones / Poco Frecuente / Complot / Copytop Medios Colaboradores / Collaborating Media TRESC / ScannerFM / Evasin / Tendencias / a minima / Bonart / Arte y Diseo / Dvd Accion / Digital foto / CAD / superfoto / Giraldillo / Artnotes / Gadget / lamono / Freek / Futurmusic / Computermusic / Rocket Magazine / Hmagazine / Waaau.com / Masdearte / unlike / urbanjunkies / Babylon Agradecimientos Especiales / Special Thanks Miradas 2 / Hotel Amrey / Andrea Garca / Pau Alsina / Raquel Renn / ngela Martnez / Teresa Renedo / Antonio Mayo / Marta Martnez / Ferrn Amor / Vicente Lpez / Josep Civil / Natividad Carrasco / Carmen Jane Roberta Bosco y Estefano Caldana / ngel Bronsoms / Anna Llcer / Entremans / Alba G. / Mnica Muoz (Nikka) / Joselita Silva / Laura Vil Y a todos los voluntarios y voluntarias. Organizado por / Organized by: ArtFutura Patrocinio / Sponsorship: Fundacin Telefnica BEEP CAM 22@ BARCELONA Instituciones / Institutions Ajuntament de Barcelona / ICUB Generalitat de Catalunya / ICIC Ministerio de Cultura LABoral Centro de Arte y Creacin Industrial Soporte Tecnolgico: Telefnica Hosting Sponsor: CDmon futura@artfutura.org ISBN: 84-922084-1-4 D.L.: B- 39444-2009

MURCIA CENTRO PUERTAS DE CASTILLA SEGOVIA Concejal de Cultura / Councilor for Culture Ftima Barnuevo Concejal Delegado de Calidad y Modernizacin de la Administracin, Fiestas y Cultura Popular / Acting Councilor for Quality and Modernization for Administration, Festivals and Popular Culture Rafael Gmez Direccin / Director Marta Lpez-Briones Coordinador / Coordinator Jess de la Pea MURCIA FUNDACIN CAJAMURCIA ESPACIO XTRA Direccin / Director Jos Moreno Espinosa Subdireccin / Subdirector Pascual Martnez Ortiz Coordinacin / Coordination Jorge Cnovas Vilario Prensa y Medios / Press and Media ADC Museo de Arte Contemporneo Esteban Vicente Direccin / Director D. Ana Martnez de Aguilar Gerencia / Manager D. Luis Miguel del Pozo Comunicacin, Prensa y Medios / Comunication, Press and Media D. Raquel Argello y D. Ana Castillo Organizado por: CAT_ Crculo de las Artes y la Tecnologa

ZARAGOZA Direccin / Director Agustn Lpez Neira Comunicacin y Prensa / Press and Communication Ana Martn Martn CENTRO DE HISTORIA Organizacin y Produccin / Organization and Production Sociedad Municipal Zaragoza Cultural