Welcome at the Interface Culture program website.
Acting as creative artists and researchers, students learn how to advance the state of the art of current interface technologies and applications. Through interdisciplinary research and team work, they also develop new aspects of interface design including its cultural and social applications. The themes elaborated under the Master's programme in relation to interactive technologies include Interactive Environments, Interactive Art, Ubiquitous Computing, game design, VR and MR environments, Sound Art, Media Art, Web-Art, Software Art, HCI research and interaction design.
The Interface Culture program at the Linz University of Arts Department of Media was founded in 2004 by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. The program teaches students of human-machine interaction to develop innovative interfaces that harness new interface technologies at the confluence of art, research, application and design, and to investigate the cultural and social possibilities of implementing them.
The term "interface" is omnipresent nowadays. Basically, it describes an intersection or linkage between different computer systems that makes use of hardware components and software programs to enable the exchange and transmission of digital information via communications protocols.
However, an interface also describes the hook-up between human and machine, whereby the human qua user undertakes interaction as a means of operating and influencing the software and hardware components of a digital system. An interface thus enables human beings to communicate with digital technologies as well as to generate, receive and exchange data. Examples of interfaces in very widespread use are the mouse-keyboard interface and graphical user interfaces (i.e. desktop metaphors). In recent years, though, we have witnessed rapid developments in the direction of more intuitive and more seamless interface designs; the fields of research that have emerged include ubiquitous computing, intelligent environments, tangible user interfaces, auditory interfaces, VR-based and MR-based interaction, multi-modal interaction (camera-based interaction, voice-driven interaction, gesture-based interaction), robotic interfaces, natural interfaces and artistic and metaphoric interfaces.
Artists in the field of interactive art have been conducting research on human-machine interaction for a number of years now. By means of artistic, intuitive, conceptual, social and critical forms of interaction design, they have shown how digital processes can become essential elements of the artistic process.
Ars Electronica and in particular the Prix Ars Electronica's Interactive Art category launched in 1991 has had a powerful impact on this dialog and played an active role in promoting ongoing development in this field of research.
The Interface Cultures program is based upon this know-how. It is an artistic-scientific course of study to give budding media artists and media theoreticians solid training in creative and innovative interface design. Artistic design in these areas includes interactive art, netart, software art, robotic art, soundart, noiseart, games & storytelling and mobile art, as well as new hybrid fields like genetic art, bioart, spaceart and nanoart.
It is precisely this combination of technical know-how, interdisciplinary research and a creative artistic-scientific approach to a task that makes it possible to develop new, creative interfaces that engender progressive and innovative artistic-creative applications for media art, media design, media research and communication.
Publikation zum Staatspreis Design 2009
2009 erhielten die Studierenden der Studienrichtung raum&designstrategien für ihr temporäres Ausstellungsprojekt „food&grid - five exhibitions" beim Staatspreis 2009 eine Auszeichnung in der Kategorie "Räumliche Gestaltung". Nun wurden die preisgekrönten Projekte gemeinsam mit anderen Projekten der PreisträgerInnen zum Staatspreis Design 2009 sowie den Projekten zum Förderpreis für Experimentelles Design von design austria in einem Bildband ausführlich vorgestellt.
Die Publikation „Staatspreis Design 2009“ ist im Müry Salzmann Verlag erschienen und an der Studienrichtung raum&designstrategien für 20,- Euro erhältlich. Ein Bezug über die Stiftung designaustria ist möglich.
Auszug aus dem Vorwort von Bundesministerin Claudia Schmied:
„Zeitgenössisches Design verweist auf eine kreativerfolgreiche Zukunft, indem es unter Berücksichtigung der gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen neue ldeen Wirklichkeit werden lässt und gestalterische Möglichkeiten als Herausforderung wahrnimmt. Vor allem in einer ökonomisch schwierigen Zeit ist es besonders wichtig. die Grundvoraussetzungen und Rahmenbedingungen für das Entstehen von Design nachhaltig zu stärken.
Kreativwirtschaft, anwendungsorientierte Innovation, Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Produkt- und Markterfolg brauchen künstlerische Freiheit, eine offene Haltung zum experimentellen Risiko, eine ermutigende lnfrastruktur und öffentliche Anerkennung.
Mit dem Förderungspreis für Experimentelles Design unterstützt das Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur junge Designerinnen und Designer direkt in ihren Gestaltungsleistungen. Gleichzeitig wird mit diesem Preis ein öffentliches Zeichen für die zunehmende gesellschaftliche und ökonomische Bedeutung von gegenwärtigem Design gesetzt.
Die Kooperation des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur mit dem Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend unterstreicht die bedeutsame Vernetzung und das Zusammenspiel zwischen Wirtschaft, Kreativwirtschaft und experimentell orientiertem Designschaffen.
Contemporary design holds the promise for a creative and successful future by realizinq new ideas while taking into account the conditions set forth by society, and by embracing design's potentials as a challenge. Particularly in economically difficult times, it is essential to sustainably strengthen the fundamental requirements and the general framework for the development of design.
The creative industries, application-oriented innovation, competitiveness, and the successful establishment of products and brands all require an open-minded attitude towards experimental risk-taking, an encouraging infrastructure, and public recognition.
Having launched the Prize for the Advancement of Experimental Design, the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture directly supports young designers in their creative efforts. At the same time, this award signals public awareness of the growing social and economic significance of contemporary design. The cooperation between the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture and the Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth underscores this meaningful networking and interaction among the economy, the creative industries, and experimental design creation.
