ArtFutura 1993
Artificial Life
22 – 24 April / Palau de Congressos, Barcelona
Moebius, Stelarc, Peter Dougherty, Mariscal, Jacques Ninio, William Latham, Karl Sims
It was 1993 in full post-Olympic syndrome and institutional budgets had gone from maximums to minimums. ArtFutura moved to the Palau de Congressos in the trade fair of Barcelona and was dedicating its cycle to conferences on the theme of Artificial Life. The participants were Xavier Berenguer, the scientist Jacques Ninio and the artists William Latham, Karl Sims and Stelarc.
Sims and Latham showed their animation work created with techniques that simulated genetic evolution and the Australian artist Stelarc gave a demonstration of the capabilities of his third robotic arm.
Stelarc, who proposed the mutation of our physical bodies into a new “cyber-body”, invited the public on stage to apply electrical discharges to them.
ArtFutura 93 also offered homage to Moebius, with a conference led by the artist himself and an exhaustive view of his work in the field of animation.
It included the first projection of “Story of Starwatcher”, as well as the animated shorts “Internal Transfer”, “Incal”, “Upon a Star“ and the feature film “Les Maitres du Temps” a film by René Laloux made in collaboration with Moebius.
Javier Mariscal showed us his new project for a fun fair in Nagasaki, Japan. It was based on the idea of “Acuarinto”, a fantasy world that simulated a videogame with computer images produced by Animàtica in Barcelona.
The audiovisual section also included a retrospective of works by MTV presented by Peter Dougherty and the selections of the ArtFutura Show and the “new” Infography in Spain.
The show closed with a stereoscopic projection developed by Brad DeGraf titled “Plan-3D From Outer Space”. This film is notable for its innovative use of 3D technology and was part of a broader movement exploring the potential of stereoscopic imagery in cinema and art. The project was created with a budget of approximately $750,000 and aimed to push the boundaries of visual storytelling through advanced 3D techniques.
“Astronomy came first, revealing the irrelevance of these beings vis-à-vis the universe. The theory of evolution was to follow, which explained life as the end product of a long chain of events, from the primary ooze to the most lucid of brains. And now “Artificial Life” takes the exceptional nature of life and intelligence down one more notch: one day machines will exist that will have these properties in some kind of recognisable form“.
Xavier Brenguer
“I feel that it is ironic that one can put a vacuum cleaner on a plinth and call it art, or a goat’s head in a glass tank, yet to use a computer to make art makes people question the definition. It is as if as soon as one uses the computer it ceases to be art“.
William Latham
“The most fascinating and complex entities in our world are still those that have occurred naturally. Life itself, the human mind, language, and many other phenomena have all emerged from natural biological processes without the presence of a purposeful designer“.
Karl Sims
