Ars Electronica Festival 2017

This year’s Ars Electronica Festival was a blast! We had five days filled with Tagtool action — the presentation of the New Tagtool, an installation at PostCity, several spontaneous outdoors projections, and a show at the amazing Deep Space.

Launch Event at Central

The New Tagtool was presented at Central, one of Ars Electronica’s venues right in the center of Linz. Markus Dorninger, OMAi’s design lead, started with a short recap of the story of the Tagtool project. After all, Tagtool is celebrating its first decade this year! After a demo of the new app, the audience could get their hands on the new app, while enjoying delicious African Sambusas with Austrian white wine.

Installation at PostCity

Throughout the festival, OMAi and the CREATE YOUR WORLD team hosted the Animation:Lab at PostCity, the main location of the Ars Electronica Festival. It offered a large panorama projection and two “micro-mapping” stations for objects (eg. Lego) to be painted with light. For nearly ten hours a day all stations where permanently in use by our visitors, many of them experiencing collaborative live painting and animation for the first time.

Special thanks to 4youreye ProjectionArt for providing the projectors!

Spontaneous Outdoor Projections

Despite the tight schedule, the Tagtool Crew went out twice for guerrilla sessions at night. The first action was a playful re-interpretation the building-sized festival poster at the entrance of PostCity during the opening event. Two days later the Offenes Kulturhaus (another festival location) received some colorful interventions.

Deep Space at Ars Electronica Center

On the last day it was time for the grand finale at the immersive Deep Space in the Ars Electronica Center. OMAi created a custom-made scenario for this special projection setup: A majestic waterfall, flowing into a magical pond inside a colorful jungle. A group of kids came by and took full advantage of this unique interactive scenery. In other words, they went completely crazy. It was Tagtool wonderland!

Tagtool Artists and Community Support

During the festival days OMAi was supported by several Tagtoolers from the worldwide community. They contributed their skills, creativity and hard work to help presenting Tagtool in the best possible way. Many  thanks and utmost respect go out to Yagu Art, Frances Sander, Dima Berzon and Tom Stockinger! Another round of special thanks is reserved for the incredible Team of U19 – Create Your World (Babsi, Lisa, Remo, Hans Christian)!