Yes, even projects at Ars Electronica crash! (see picture) This is Sur La Table by Khan Osman which streamed colors from fruit placed on a table (I asked someone why he chose fruit but didn’t get answer – anyone know?) Osman’s other project in the festival was “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program” which did similar blending of colors from tv channels projected on a wall. Hmm not too original as lots of projects are doing this kind of time lapse image blurring including Last and Carnivore is Sorry. Today’s Interactive Art Panel features a “pioneer lecture” by Myron Kreuger and artist presentations by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen and some cool gaming work by Feng MengBo including a film he made called “Q3” where he has a conversation with a game character and “Q4U” where he inserts himself into Quake and allows you to “fight the artist” which ends up in a bloody mess! Talk about artist repression!

Ken Rinaldo also spoke on his project “Augmented Fish Reality” which looks at how natural systems can be augmented through technology – allowing the fish to move on their own by tracking their movements and relaying it to motors that move their tanks around. Pretty nifty but I’m wondering what these fish are thinking…? I wonder if they’ve discoved joy riding yet? More to come!