Current Exhibition
unuselessness – the useful useless
Ars Electronica Festival from 1. – 6. September 2011 in Linz, Austria
Art and usefulness, a complicated liaison. This exhibition shows a critical reflection towards media culture and its constantly changing framework, where the role of art as a transformer and enabler of new creative solutions can be put into question. It is especially the freedom of art to create and realize initially useless ideas, which eventually yields radically new approaches in interaction design by thinking out of the box. While design and technology will usefully improve our everyday relation to machines, only artistic research is capable of producing previously unexpected results. Therefore our artworks and installations are driven by the forces of unuselessness, the useful useless.
We want to cultivate the borderline between artworks, interaction prototypes and an open approach towards art and functionality claims. The young generation of media artists and creators is aware of its roots in art and design and especially of interactive art and its connection to participation and performance art and their places in art history.
The presented works have been contributed by members of the master and doctoral programmes at the Interface Cultures department of the University of Art and Design Linz, Austria.