Irene Posch and Ebru Kurbak's Embroidered Computer uses historic gold embroidery materials to create relays ("similar to early computers before the invention of semiconductors") that can do computational work according to simple programs; it's installed at the Angewandte Innovation Lab in Vienna. Read the rest

The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna started a program in 2012 that opened its doors for "remarkable creative individuals" to select pieces from their massive historical collection to present in an exhibition. Filmmaker Wes Anderson and his partner Juman Malouf are the most recent curators in this program. So, for the last two years, they have been putting together their offbeat Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures.

Artnet describes the exhibit as "a totally quirky presentation of affectionate misfits":

Perhaps the duo’s penchant for the collection’s oddball items also stems from their own awareness of being outsiders in a prestigious establishment replete with trained art historians, curators, and conservators.

One senior curator said that some of museum staff were skeptical of the project at first. “We would get an email from Wes asking, ‘Do you have a list of green objects? Could you send us a list of everything you have that is yellow?’ Our data system does not have these categories.”

Because of this, the curators and conservators had to manually search their storage, an often painstaking process due climate controls and the condition checks needed, neither of which Anderson or Malouf were aware of.

The extra labor required was taxing, but the duo’s alternative criteria had a welcome side effect: It leveled the usual hierarchies. Several staff members said it resulted in new revelations. They just had to “learn to unlearn” their ways of working.

The exhibit opened November 6 and will be on view through April 28, 2019. Read the rest

From the Vienna Bienalle: 1. Intelligent robots must serve the common good of humanity and help us humans to lead an ecologically, socially, culturally and economically sustainable life. Read the rest

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

Cat 'Luca' sleeps in his basket as a waitress serves some food to customers in Vienna's first cat cafe May 7, 2012. After three years of negotiations with city officials over hygiene issues, Austria opened its first cat cafe last Friday. 'Cafe Neko', "Neko" meaning cat in Japanese, was opened by Vienna resident Takako Ishimitsu, 47, from Japan. Customers can stroke and interact with their five feline hosts, named Sonja, Thomas, Moritz, Luca and Momo, who all came from an animal shelter and now freely roam about the cafe and take naps. There's a slide show with more photos here. Read the rest

Johannes sez, "monochrom's Johannes Grenzfurthner gave a short presentation about traditional narrative cinema, the problems of storytelling in the digital age -- and monochrom's feature film project 'Sierra Zulu.'"

Sierra Zulu at TEDxVienna: Video online

(Thanks, Johannes!) Read the rest

StagConf is a European conference on stories and games, to be held in Vienna's adorably insane Natural History Museum (the world's maddest, overflowingest taxidermy displays, including a broke-necked giraffe with Frankenstein stitches, an infamous alcoholic chimp, and many other critters etoufees). It's a one-day affair, on Sept 27: "You will meet game designers and writers who have worked on games in every imaginable form: from adventures to MMOs, from AAA console to the web, from social games to pen and paper RPGs." (Thanks, Alice!) Read the rest

Johannes from Vienna arts/pranks/tech collective Monochrom gave this fun TEDxVienna talk on "context hacking" -- making pranks out of pranks, subverting subversion, transcending mere grossouts, and being melancholic postmodern leftists.

TEDxVienna-Johannes Grenzfurthner-On how to subvert subversion

(Thanks, Johannes!)

Mischer'Traxler's "Relumine" project sticks fluorescent tube-lights between new fixtures in discarded lamps, creating the illusion of two lamps exchanging a beam of solid light. The lights were exhibited at the Gallery Klaus Engelhorn's "Bulb Fiction" show during Vienna Design Week 2010.

Relumine by Mischer'Traxler

(via Crib Candy)