Let's introduce the man who stands by Anna through it all, her Tanzanian boyfriend whose name I never got to know. What I do know I that he's such a great guy, his nickname is probably Lucky! After all, Anna's great herself. But how exactly does Anna communicate with this Tanzanian kid?

Surprise! Anna is bilingual and speaks fluent Swahili! Who would've guessed it? Apparently she studied Swahili culture in college, but in addition to her mother tongue German, this linguist speaks not only Swahili, but English and French too.

Off topic, but I saw Anna and her mother riding through the town on their rather beat up bicycles. They were gliding down a road alongside the Danube river chatting happily, and I couldn't help feeling that they were a postcard perfect sketch of all that Linz and Ars represented.

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All right, the ten second intro to Ars for those of you who need it.

The festival has four basic venues. The first is the Ars Electronica Center situated in a new area of the city along the Danube River. It has become the symbol of Linz, a place where media art can be enjoyed year round. Before the Festival, the exhibits change and during the Festival, you get to enjoy the highest quality media art for free. Many of the exhibits are also great for children, so the place is often filled with families.

The second venue is the Brucknerhaus overlooking the Danube in the old city. This circular concert hall, named after Linz-born master composer Anton Bruckner, is apparently where Kraftwerk once gave a concert. During Ars, exhibits are displayed in the lobby, while cool digital music is deftly performed in the historically rich classical grand hall. In the smaller hall, a lecture and conference is held on social problems involving digital technology. The English used in the conference was pretty difficult, and although I tried to follow along, the place really pointed out to me that my English has a long way to go.

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Ars Electronica was established in 1979. Although just 26 years ago, in terms of digital history, it's more like the dark ages. If you think about it like that, the people of Linz just rock!

We asked a number of people why Linz began Ars. I mean, how many digital fanatics could there have been in this tiny little European town over twenty years ago? In actuality, the answer is quite connected to industry and tourism. Let's think about the distribution of power in Austria. Vienna, the most popular location, is the capital of music, with tons of art museums. Then there's famed Salzburg, home of Mozart and the Salzburg (music) Festival. Its existence is like a mosquito bump on your eyelid. Then there are the popular ski resorts of Innsbruck and Jenbach. All that's left is Graz, Austria's second most populous city with 400,000 people, and the third most populous city with 200,000...Linz. These two cities are industrial cities. Their blackened smokestacks have spewed smoke for the country, but as a result, they are ignored by tourists.

Ah, the sorrow of Linz. All she can do to welcome the 21st century is to spew smoke and wail, what about me? And so sound the birth cries of the digital music festival, Ars Electronica--a radical, industrial music festival not found in classical Vienna and Salzburg. Technology advanced, and with the development of media, suddenly the baby became the great father.

Today, both in Japan and around the world, media art festivals have sprung up and disappeared, but among them, Ars has continued along its 25-year life like the gentle flow of the Danube River itself. Soaked in the perpetuity of time, you can feel this history in the air. This is no ordinary festival.

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Last time, we introduced the basic venues: the Ars Electronica Center, the Brucknerhaus concert hall, OK Center, the Hauptplatz square, and Stadtwerkstatt (when you try to write this in Japanese, it looks like some kind of magical spell!), where we partied night after night. This time we're going to hit all the sub-spots that paint the town. These sub-spots make you feel like the whole city of Linz is going wild with the Festival.

The Linz Central Train Station, along with the airport, is the entrance to the city. Because it was under construction until now, there was never anything about it that left an impression. But once unveiled, it was reborn into a structure that wetted the appetites of consumers - a shopping mall. With Festival banners and big screen displays of exhibits, the incredible effort to show their support for the Festival was impressive. Even here there are installations. Like Hauptplatz Square, the Station has been transformed into an art space that melts into the everyday lives of Linz's citizens. I'll be expecting a lot from this new structure in the future. The building itself uses glass abundantly in its design allowing a luxurious amount of sunlight to fill the interior. Spectacular!

The Arkiteckure Forum is aptly named. The structure, located rather far back on the same street as the Brucknerhaus, hosts events related to the field of architecture. There are 2 or 3 pubs near the building with quite a lot of drunk people - drunken old men dozing off on the street, loud, teenagers who can't hold their liquor, and all sorts. Inside the Arkiteckure Forum itself are exhibits from this year's Ars theme: HYBRID. And, these exhibits have historical value too. Compared to the Brucknerhaus, the works have more individuality and are richer in their creators. So if you've gotten bored with "normal" exhibits, head over to the Arkiteckure Forum.

POST HOF - The Post Office, or rather, it used to be the Post Office until it was renovated and converted into a live house. It stands quietly in the middle of a residential area, with a canal and PEZ maker HARIBO's factory nearby. In other words, it's a little bit out of the way, and you'll need to take a shuttle bus to get there from the center of the city. Events are always held at night giving you the feeling that they're bussing you off to a torture house. Even the streets around it are dark. However, even in such a hard to reach place, the Post Hof probably has the largest capacity of any venue in Linz. Think Makuhari Messe in Japan (a warehouse like concert/exhibition hall near Tokyo).

Oops, I wrote a lot more than I intended. For other venues, stay tuned!

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The Prix Ars competition at Ars Electronica was create nearly 20 years ago in 1987. For artists, the computer became an important tool, and Prix Ars was born with the mission of showing all the computer art created at once. The first categories in the competition included computer animation, computer graphics, and computer music. The first winner of the computer music's Golden Nica will always be remembered as Peter Gabriel.

There are now seven categories in the Prix Ars competition, but digital music and computer animation are the ones with the longest history. Animation has created other awards around the world, such as Siggraph, Hiroshima and Annecy, that have exceeded Ars in prestige. Digital Music and Interactive Art are both, however, original and unique to Ars.

In 2005, there weren't any events related to Digital Music, but the live performance given by the winners at Brucknerhaus was definitely a must-see. 2004 saw Thomas Kenner and AGF give performances. With theater seating, listening to the noise created onstage is the best feeling in the world.

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What comes to mind when you think about India: Curry? Tandoori chicken? Saibaba? Not that it matters, really. This year, the Indians came to Linz in droves. There were probably around 50 or so. Those who have never been, and never will go to India probably saw more Indians than you're likely to see in 3 lifetimes.

As for myself, I had traveled to India for a month when I was 20 years old, and those memories have stayed with me until now. The image I harbored of Indians from that trip was "Indians think that the Japanese wear expensive watches, regardless of whether they really are expensive or not", "Indians think that Jacky Chan is Japanese", "Indians eat spicy curry even in the burning desert", and so on... I won't elaborate on my trip (as much as I would like to), but basically I got the impression that Indians are rather wild, and very straightforward. Although I saw the Taj-Mahal and the khajuraho Temples, they were nothing compared to the impact that the people of India had on me.

And so, when I saw the herd of Indians in Linz, 7 years after my trip, I noticed that tears were running down my face. Frankly, I had always wanted to go back to India, and yet the desire to explore other countries meant that I had slowly distanced myself from the place. So to see a Madurodam-like miniature version of India here, and the energetic video installations featuring exquisite Indian music, I became quite emotional. Indeed, India is such a fascinating place.

However, one question comes to mind. Why did ARS focus on India? Is it because it's a world-leading IT superpower?? Strangely enough, the India that I experienced was very different from this stereotype.

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Recently, there is a buzz surrounding Linz's University of Art exhibition, "Campus". The university had often been used as an exhibition space, but since 2002, they have been holding special exhibitions featuring works from a chosen university each year. Universities that have been featured so far are: University of Art, Linz (AUT), School of Art and Design, Zurich (SWS), IAMAS (JPN), and Srishti School of Art Design and Technology (IND).

It's difficult to say why this exhibit is attracting so much attention, but I guess the general feeling is that the quality of the exhibited works is very high despite the fact that they are created by students. Plus, there are a lot of works exhibited, and everyone seems to be putting a lot of effort into their creation.

Last year's IAMAS exhibit was especially praised for its high quality, despite it being a student exhibition. But being told that the works are of high quality "despite being made by students" is not really a compliment in my books. In fact, it would piss me off. Anyway, overall I thought that this year's "Campus" exhibition was the best so far. Hopefully you'll understand why when you read on and see the works.

Srishti is located in the city of Bangalore, the largest city of Karnataka in Southern India with a population of over 6 million. It's located in the Deccan Plateau at an altitude of 920m, and the climate is mild all year round. It also boasts over two thousand IT companies and is known as "India's Silicon Valley". However, none of the works exhibited by Srishti reflected this digital climate at all − in fact, they were all very low-tech. This is what really attracted me.

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"Kabir" is the keyword for our feature on India. Kabir is an Indian thinker with a highly mythologized past, who preached during the late 15th century to the early 16th century. Apparently he worked as a weaver throughout his life.

Kabir tried to understand both Hindu and Muslim beliefs without differentiating the two religions. Thus, while he spurned the Hindu beliefs of worship of statues and the caste system, he also rejected Islamic rituals and customs. He preached that all humanity is one in the presence of God, regardless of religious beliefs or status, and apparently his thoughts were widely embraced by common people.

Kabir's greatest work is "Bijak", a book of poetry. A collection of his works (compiled by Kabir's disciples) greatly influenced the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak. This may be why the Sikh belief affirms Samsara like Hinduism, while it also rejects the caste system following Islamic beliefs. Apparently Tagore was also a devoted follower of Kabir's philosophy.

Boy, I really need to read up on this...

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Let me introduce the themed exhibit of ARS, which is another great feature of the festival along with the actual competition. I explained before that ARS initially began as an electronic music festival, but since 1987's "FREE SOUND", the festival runs with a particular theme each year.

The themes were introduced as a way of unifying the events and exhibitions that take place every year. Let me explain: the theme for 1988 was "The Art of Scene". Basically, it was like after a 3 year hiatus, some rock band released a double-album titled "FREE SOUND" and "The Art of Scene" - i.e. the titles don't necessarily have inherent meanings, they're merely there to "bind" the songs together. Same with the ARS themes. Rather than shaping the nature of the festival as a whole, they merely give structure to the chaos.

That said, the themes became somewhat political after 1989. 1991's theme, "OUT OF CONTROL" hinted at the fast developing, sophisticated technology that was threatening to overwhelm humanity. 1995's theme "Welcome to the Wired World" focused on the newfound network society, as the internet gained widespread appeal. 1998's "INFO WAR" provoked us to think about our superior information society, post Gulf-war, through the context of art. 2000's "NEXT SEX" critiqued the way in which technology is threatening the existence of biological organisms, and life itself. In short, the themes of ARS in the 1990s were adopted from social and political keywords that defined the climate of the times.

Thus, exhibitions and live performances adhere to the year's chosen theme, and the audience can listen to heated discussions regarding the topic in various conferences.

This year's theme is "HYBRID" - half-blood /mixed-race, crossbreed, and so on. Cars for example run with a hybrid of gasoline and electricity; nothing too mind boggling, right?

This year, the works exhibited at ARS approached the issue of technology infiltrating our world - humans, plants, nature, and our living environment, the good hybrids, the bad hybrids, and the various chemical reactions that are occurring right now - through art. Technology has long surpassed civilization and culture, and is now the very basis of our everyday lives. And it all happened in a flash.

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I've already introduced the O.K. Center and Bookner House, but I mustn't forget one more building that's fundamental to our discussion of ARS - namely, the ARS Electronica Center, a.k.a. the "ARS Center" that was built in 1996 in the new area of the city along the banks of the Danube.

As I mentioned in AAL01, this is a museum that symbolizes Linz and ARS' status as a place where media art can be enjoyed year-round. Plus, they have chosen various works that can be appreciated by both young and old, attracting a wide audience. During the festival, the ARS Center stands out as a place where entertainment and the arts combine, distinguishing itself from the high-art oriented O.K. Center and Brookner House.

Also, I should once again mention that entrance is free during the festival. During the weekend the center is packed with families from all over Linz, who have come to know and love their museum. Of course, seeing the place buzzing with people is one way of enjoying the festivities, but I recommend going on a weekday if you are interested in really experiencing the sounds and interactive elements of the artwork.

For artists, it's a privilege to have your artwork displayed in the ARS Center. I mean, I think it's an honor to have your work shown at ARS in itself, but what's special about the ARS Center is that your work will be exhibited for a whole year. Successfully pulling off a year-long media art exhibition relies heavily on the staff's understanding of the work, as the works often require regular maintenance and repair of malfunctions. Plus, the audience need to be given adequate guidance in order to fully experience the work. The year-long exhibitions begin in September, and end in August.

I recommend dropping by at the Sky Media Loft located on the top floor of the Center. The walls are made of glass, so you can look down upon the Danube River and the old area of the city of Linz. Drinking coffee and sinking into a comfortable sofa there, I was reminded of what a pleasurable little town Linz is.

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