Ars Electronica Festival features virtual Taipei show

• By Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter

Twelve virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) works by Taiwanese artists are represented online in this year’s Ars Electronica Festival, which opened on Wednesday, festival organizers said yesterday.

One of the world’s leading media arts festivals, Ars Electronica is holding its 2020 edition, themed “In Kepler’s Gardens: A global journey mapping the ‘new’ world,” both online and as a physical event.

The festival is taking place “not in spite of Corona [COVID-19], but because of it,” the organizers said on the festival’s Web site.

Photo: CNA

The annual event, dubbed a “festival for art, technology and society,” is taking place in Linz, Austria, as well as in 120 other locations worldwide, through Sunday.

The Taipei-based part of the festival, titled Garden Taipei, was curated by artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健) and presented by the Virtual and Physical Media Integration Association of Taiwan, in partnership with several groups including the Taiwan Creative Content Agency and National Taiwan Normal University.

Huang, a professor at the university’s department of design, was a winner of the Best VR Experience Award at the 74th Venice Film Festival in 2017.

The 12 works featured in the Taipei portion include Bodyless (失身記) by Huang; Barkley (小貓巴克里) by Chiu Li-wei (邱立偉); Into the Woods (百年蜃樓尋妖記) by Wang Shih-wei (王世偉); Upload Not Complete by Hu Chin-hsiang (胡縉祥), Tsai Bing-hua (蔡秉樺) and Chang Zhao-qing (張兆慶); and Kuo Hsueh-Hu: Three States of Home Gazing (郭雪湖: 望鄉三態) by Huang and Chang Wen-chieh (張文杰).

Meanwhile, Through the Body (穿越身體), a new work by Huang, is on display at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz as part of the Deep Space 8K program in the physical portion of the festival, organizers said.

An exhibition featuring the participating Taiwanese works is expected to be held later at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, organizers said.

More information about the festival can be found at: ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens.