Ars began on 9/1 and ended on 9/6. Each night after finishing our shoot, we relaxed over beer and wine at the pub/club Stadtwerkstatt near the Ars Center. Compared to Tokyo, Linz is a tiny dot with not many places for the young to fuck around. In other words, the pub was pretty much the only place we could go. Kinda like a dumping ground for all the youthful energy being packed into this town. And two dance floors that are crammed up against the bar like parasites.

Maybe because of the small town feeling though, once you got to acquainted with the female bartender, she would make sure to take you order over all the other orders being thrown at her in the crowded place. With that kind of attention, you get a kind of feel-good superiority complex that wraps your entire body. I couldn’t help wanting to come back the next day. If you ever get the chance, try the place out.

Stadtwerkstatt isn’t just a place where people go to get drunk though. They’re also filled with club events, performances, concerts night after night. Every evening there is an official Ars performance, but in the middle of night they also have funk/punk concerts that have nothing to do with the Festival itself.

Well, time to say goodbye to Anna. She helped us with the film shoot, explained the exhibits, drank beer with us, and after the Festival, she and her friends invited Kenji and I for dinner in Vienna too. We owe her so much!

This year when we visited Ars, focusing on Anna and the other staff really helped us to get a good taste of the Festival. We hope you get to you too will feel how charming Linz is, how fun Ars is and of course, how interesting the staff and artists are.

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This was the start of Ars' box event. In a place that seemed like a warehouse for repairing Austrian National Railway trains, someone put lighting and speakers turning the place into a club. Abstract and techno music pumped out of the sound boxes while cool images were projected. The visual images apparently used data to make it interactive, but I couldn't find out exactly how it was interactive.

What was more fun was the atmosphere of the venue. Drinking beer and wine with all kinds of amazing people was absolutely great. It wasn't the kind of music that I personally like, but other than that, the mood of the trains sitting silently in the dark was soothing. A great warm up event to Ars.

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Klangwolke. Translated, it means "the cloud of sound". As an explosion echoes along the banks of the Danube River, what we see is a stage created on a boat, and one enormous opera being held.

Along with the establishment of Ars in 1979 was Klangwolke. Because it's known among Linz's citizens as a fireworks display, it is actually more famous than Ars Electronica. And like the great mass of people bathing in the Ganges in Varanasi, India, old men and women, children, everyone faces the riverbank in unison. From evening onward, the crowd was unbelievable. Perhaps a hundred thousand people, 150,000 according to one estimate. You could certainly feel the air getting thick. Like Japan's ultra popular high school baseball tournament, the Koshien, from the end of one summer to the glory of the next, preparations take an entire year. That is how big this event is.

This year war was the theme. I think the story was about if Austria had remained occupied by Germany, but I'm not exactly sure. Sorry. My impression? The show itself was honestly not that good. But the explosive sound of the jet ski was pretty awesome. It was so awesome I thought my back was going to break. Probably considered noise pollution though.

26 years ago, the first Klangwolke was really amazing apparently. All the citizens of Linz placed their radios by their windows and tuned in all at once to a station playing digital music. The entire city reverberated with the music. It rocked. In contrast, recently all that's being required is money. You watch and the moment it's over, you start thinking about dinner. It doesn't stick to your bones...

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Of all the events that take place night after night, the O.K Night at the bar on the top floor of the O.K Center beats them all.The event title itself has nothing interesting about it, but the event itself is quite an interesting performance.

This year, they used a hard disk to make noise. Someone holding a guitar was beside the hard disk guy, but he wasn't playing it. Rather, he was using the effecter to make a howling-like sound. Even more interesting was the fact that the guy manipulating the hard disk was actually a staff member in charge of the carpentry for all the exhibits. And the guy and girl bartenders were also infotrainers who I saw during the day in the exhibit space. The family atmosphere that you get at Linz is one of the event's most charming points, and even if you don't know anyone there, someone will come and have a drink with you.

The night before O.K Night was the annual Klangwolke. It has become easy-to-understand like a Universal Studios show and a Hollywood-like pop style that leaves you feeling cheated. But participating in this local event afterwards, allowed me to really feel just how much Ars rocks. This is it!

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Beginning in 2003, this event has gained popularity and is now held every year. During the event, a series of electronic music performances are held from early evening to late into the night, both in Bookner House, and the new Lentos Museum that opened in 2004. Rather than having all the performances run simultaneously like many music festivals, here the audience moves from one venue to the next, following the order of the performances.

The concept of the performances is to reflect on the history of electronic music. Starting with the modern music of John Cage and Philip Glass, the performances gradually move into noise and laptop music. The audience physically experience the evolution of electronic music as they stroll to the next venue, from past to future. The presentation is fantastic, and so very ARS.

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