The International Media Arts Festival is once again taking place in the Abraxas House of Culture. Something unusual is on offer again this year.
After last year’s three-week anniversary festival, the popular Lab30 media art festival is back on its usual scale. For four days from October 27 to 30, the Augsburg Art Lab, which has existed since 2003, invites you to media, artistic, electronic and experimental things. In addition, he will participate in the Light Nights of Augsburg from October 21 to 23.
In nearly two decades, the festival has found its fans, especially among young audiences, but also among families. That’s why the 21st Lab30 bets on play and fun, encouraging people to take part in the machinery of the exhibition and the Nights of Light at the Moritzkirche. This will certainly score points with the curious public, but also with the more than 30 artists from Germany, Europe, the United States and Canada, who will take advantage of the weekend to exchange views. The center of the festival is the Kulturhaus Abraxas in Kriegshaber, which presents a total of 17 exhibitions from basement to roof, providing an exciting insight into the international media arts scene. It deals with the topics of surveillance, artificial intelligence, sustainability, climate change and self-image in social media.
But the artists – who are of course present – also question the technology. Just like Manja Ebert, whose work “I’ll be there” scans the faces of visitors and thus reflects a constant state of introspection through technology. Or Luis Faderl from Augsburg, who “translates” what is said into fast images using Google’s image search, thus making the algorithm visible. Fabien Zocco from France connects a robotic spider to his own states of mind via a smartwatch. Switzerland’s Marc Lee uses recordings from nature to commemorate animals and plants that have gone extinct, while Quianxun Chen translates plant biodata into sound. Former Lab Award winner Verena Friedrich wants to teach machines about qualitative distinctions in her “Bean Counter” exhibit. With “Stars above”, the Augsburg students of the subject interactive multimedia systems present an interactive installation on the sky of Chile.
“Apophis” by Erich Lesovsky.
Photo: © Erich Lesovsky
On opening night, two performances attract visitors. On the one hand “Agar Agar” by Martina Moro and Fabian Lanzmaier (Austria), which translates the vibrations of water into audiovisual formats. With “Rituals for a modern age”, electronic artists Sascha Stadlmeier and Eric Zwang Eriksson create an abstract version of urban sounds, inspired by the question: what happens in a city and what do we no longer perceive?
There will be two additional concerts in the evening in the nearby St. Thaddäus Church. And of course there is also a workshop that invites you to participate. People without any musical training should also be part of the musical project “Modular Synthesizer Ensemble”. Here, registration is compulsory, the number of participants is limited to two times eight.
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The cards are available digitally, but the low 2019 prices could stand. The program will no longer be available as a printed brochure, but will still be available digitally on the Internet. A clear leaflet from the organizing cultural office with the most important information is available everywhere.
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