The Trend Is Your Friend!
installationview MKL | Kunsthaus Graz 2009

The Trend Is Your Friend!

a performative and interactive experimental set up

MedienKunstLabor | KUNSTHAUS GRAZ 2009

Idea, Concept, Artwork: Sylvia Eckermann
Concept, Artistic Research: Gerald Nestler

Sound architecture: Peter Szely

Trends are all the trend. Alongside fashion and health it is analyses of economic trends and flows of finance and commodities which are shaping our environment. To what extent do they influence and change us as individuals and as a society? By recognising and relying on trends do we become part of an economisation that promises profit but at the same time absorbs us? Does the individual who opposes the trend get even socially marginalised? Is the titular "friend" in a knowledge-based society therefore an updated manifestation of what Orwell termed Big Brother? A new, if more complex uniformity of control that denies us future with its hubris of calculability? The installation "The Trend Is Your Friend" invites us to participate in an experimental set-up of markets to think through these questions for ourselves. With the aid of our senses, we dive into a playful environment in virtual space while our bodies remain in the real. more

Produced by: MKL | KunsthausGraz
In co-operation mit: steirischer herbst

Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik (KUG) &

Institut für Maschinelles Sehen und Darstellen (TU Graz)

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Next show: eARTS SHANGHAI 2010 media art festival
Dec 16 2009 - Jan 8 2010, "Mifan" VENUE_Room 208 Shenzen CN

Nov 8 - 26 2009 "Mifan" organised by ASAP curated by Karel Dudesek
AnniArt Gallery, 798 Dashanzi Art District Beijing CN
2008 project launch at CPU:798 Beijing CN

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3D-realtime system, projection, 5 channel audio system, golden mirrors, interface, computer, size: 4x4x2.5m

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Sylvia Eckermann: Concept, Installation, Artwork, Gerald Nestler: Concept, Researche, Text, Peter Szely: Composition

Doron Goldfarb: Programming, Josef Wienerroither: additional 3D-Objects, Voiceover: Eduard Wildner, Frederic Lion.

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the project by Sylvia Eckermann + Gerald Nestler is a permanent installation at:
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The inside skin of a space station is enveloped in large size projections. The space station is not comprised of inflexible, rigid material - it is not hardware but wetware - it is a breathing, living bio-substance - a flexible membrane which moves - future material maybe discovered in an extraterrestrial lab… The exhibition space is thus transformed into a living organism... more
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reservoir_bots
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Live Sound by various Artists: Peter Szely, Electric Indigo, Christof Cargnelli

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FemCity

a Multi-user Computer Game for Girls

This Game is about careers, lifestyle, dreams and realities of young women.
FemCity is a simulation of a complex social and economic environment, which young women find themselves in, when designing their future. FemCity was developed in collaboration with Edeltraut Hanappi-Egger and Gehard Hanappi and commissioned by the Bureau of women's Affairs Vienna.

EXPOSITUR - Virtual Knowledge Space

a Game Mod as a Virtual Museum, KIASMA Helsinki / FI

In constructing a virtual museum we changed, the logical structure and the aesthetics of a museum from scratch. We wanted to build a museum maze, a crossword puzzle of objects and stories, an audio-visual "Undreamed" and a hyper museum based upon a computer game.

PLAN-it !

an Interactive Multisensory Environment, The Mindzone, Millennium Dome London GB 2000

PLAN-it! is an installation connecting a spatial with an aesthetic and an intellectual experience. PLAN-it! presents artistic statements to answer 4 questions regarding our social and personal futures. These questions focus on the topics of communication, work, material things and transport [especially flight]. (collaboration with Herbert Lachmayer, Art+Tek Institute Linz A)

HOTEL SYNTHIFORNIA

Game Level

Institut für Neue Kulturtechnologien, Public Netbase tO, SYNWORLD

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PATCHWORK - PATCHLIFE

mixed-means installation

Work & Culture, Landesmuseum Linz A
in collaboration with Herbert Lachmayer

Wien 1991

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Sonderausstellung, Wienmuseum, Karlsplatz