ARS Report

Hello, Cesar reporting from ARS electonica Linz, Austria, Friday 24 July 2009.
Over the last 15 days, tensions and misunderstandings kept on increasing in the organisation of what would happen at the ARS Electronica festival. This is why I went to ARS to sort this, and I think it has been a succesful journey. Yesterday we found an agreement that would make everyone happy I hope :
- making a good show.
- making the continuation of the research possible.

What's is:

- written like this is from them, the ARS Electronica organization.

- The rest is me, Cesar.

== They like the Open_sailing project a lot ==
They insist they like the Open_Sailing a lot, and they put a lot of effort in making it happen.
They will make sure we meet interesting people and they ask us to focus on the quality of the presentation. So, they want to make clear it is more a presentation of a project than a project itself...

== The contract ==
The contract has been signed by both ARS directors and us. Which means, now we are legally bound, finally. Another piece of the contract is missing, the one in which we agree of the detail of what's being made, the final design being the decision of ARS. I guess this more technical piece of contract will be signed once we agree on the final design, I propose one at the bottom of this message.

== The money ==
The total [Next IDEA] allocated budget of €15000 is divided in 2 parts :
a. € 7500 life : transport, hotel, food for us when we come to the festival to produce the work, and we can use this budget the way we like, it is ours.
b. € 7500 production : that means the fabrication of our exhibited artwork, materials, labour, including the ARS staff labour (32.5€/ hour/ staff), this money remains under the control of ARS, in other words, if we want to pay something for production, we must ask ARS, and ARS pays for it, indirectly...

Yesterday, thursday 23 July 2009, the first instalment (a. budget) of €4000 transfert was sent, should be reachable next tuesday. The next and final a. instalment of €3500 will be paid after the exhibition.

== Boat and Permission on the Danube ==
We won the [NEXT IDEA] grant with this proposal :




You can download the pdf of our application here.

Unfortunately ARS couldn't get the permssion for us to put in the water, moor, and navigate, even with our detailled specifications and intentions. The Danube is very regulated river, fast and strong, with a lot of traffic, and regulations and norms. ARS also refuses to show the Open_Sailing on land. In other words, there is no way we can bring and present the Open_Sailing real vessel, the container will not come to Linz, we wont depart on the Danube the 9th of september for a wonderful adventure to the Black Sea...

I was very sad and disapointed when I understood this. Since we won the grant with the above proposal, since more than 2 monhts all our efforts has been directed to make this picture a reality, so much money was spend, many of us travelled from another country to come to work in London in difficult conditions, some of us even quit their well-paid full-time job, I personnaly invested all my life savings and even borrowed money from my family I must return urgently, Ben and Troyo did the same cominbg from Berlin, Nasser litteraly abandonned his life in Paris, house, family, work, savings, just to give a few examples...

== Alternatives ==
This does not mean the project is over. NO WAY ! The project is about the research, not about the show, so let's carry on !
I personally never to exhibit for the sake of it, I want to exhibit to show new researches, I dont want to exhibit twice the same thing, I want to explore, not parade.
Of course, on the other hand we need to give the project notoriety to gain credibility to attract investment to carry on the research.

What do we have now ?
- a team of super motivated people, who have skills and curiosity to carry our new experiments
- we have designed and build the boat beyond 50%
- we have some budget
- we have plenty of things we want to test, and perhaps much more time since the

So, what shall we do now ?
- prepare a good show in Linz to attract a more international support, for a long term development.
- continue the research. Now some researches like the nomadic ecosystem needs "growing" on the water to be usefull.

Where shall we carry on the construction?



London
We can carry on building in Area 10 for a few more days, but now they are waiting for us to get out, our vessel is too fragile to go on North sea storm, but good enough for a small closed sea, a lake, easily. So let's take it to where we can show it, and in London, short term we don't have a date yet.
Berlin
We could work at the Atelier KW (at Ben & Troy) to carry on the construction and, perhaps exhibit at the Transmediale since we seem to be welcome. For me it is a 100% go solution; if we find the partners and legal support (authorizations,
Rotterdam
We are now supported by the V2, if we work this solutionvery hard, there might be potential developments. Rotterdam has a huge industrial potential, Netherland is quite logic country to develop such a floating architecture...
Fresnay l'Eveque (near Chartres, one hour south to Paris)
My father's studio is there, we have a piece of land where we could have a 200m2 workshop attached to it. But why would we go there ? HAHAHAHA!


So, if we can't bring our spaceship in Linz on the river Danube, where can we land to make the first contact with humans ?
We need to warn the Austrians, the sea-level is rising, (Prophetic voice) in a long time, men will come from the sea, and they will have this strange boat, and they will have to authorize it on the Danube.

== The space ==

The exhibition will happen inside the Ars Electronica Center in front of the Geocity Entrance (which has an interestingly similar set of interests)!

It is a nice space, between Geocity (the state of the earth) and the Apollo Lounge explaining when we'll get the moon station.
Below, I make a proposal for this space

us

Opening is 3rd September, closing is 8th of September. (We did not directly talk about that but of course it is preferable that you or some people from your team are staying at the exhibition most of the time in order to talk to the visitors and to explain the project).

What we need to know from ARS :
- Floorplan
- where we can strore the bits and pieces of the model that we'd be making- Suspension plans
- Electric plan
- Safety, fire in particular (for the paper-made objects)?
- Can we paint / drill in the collumn?
- we want the the graphic design requirements, the fonts, so we should put ah home, situation, scrutie

== The time of work and show ==

The exhibition has to be finished before the opening of the Festival, thus: on 2nd September. The Ars Electronica staff helps you to create the exhibition (carpenter, technicians and so on).

== Our proposal ==



Now, we need to design an entire new proposal for the ARS electronica with the new location and new techniques.

-All steps that are done by you regarding to create the exhibition have to be transparent and agreed with us.
-You send us a concept of the exhibition. This should include: a design sketch with the components located in the area, a technical sketch with a list of materials and hardware you need, etc.
Together, we will agree on how we will create the exhibition based on your concept.

I thought about this :



That's a half piesimple structure made of thin wood, covered with plywood. The 1/3 top part is not covered so the structure is visible, to attache the nylon threads. The structure is super light weight and low cost, it is also visually quite spectacular.

The ARS organisers suggested that we use the plastic 3D printer to print the models :



It is absolutely wicked super beautiful, problem : it takes ages and it is super expensive and produced quite heavy objects.
On the other hand they also are able to laser cut card or plexiglass, very very quick, very cheap, very light :



So the laser cut card paper is what I want to go for.
With this technique we might even be able to make multiples, simplified Open_Sailing paper model that we could give away to visitors to fold and glue at home !

A video of the steps :



A draft of construction steps :











The blue panels are flat screens TVs.

== Making the exhibition ==

Two priorities :
- exhibition : Model , prints, presentation (film, Power poijnt)
- the real boat and other modules ( construction, alternative exibition space, navigation athorizations)

Deliverables at the exhibition :
- Model at 1/50 en paper alser cutting suspended
- The wooden set in which the whole floating structure is suspended, half pipe (see drawings).
- Video documentation on the screens.
- printed leaflets.
- One big print to put up the wall, on the column, in front of the model.

== Dates ==
I need 3 weeks, perhaps 2 weeks and a half before the installation to build, using the laser cutting machine quite a lot.
I need 1 day to build the supporting wooden structure, the half pipe, with the help pf someboday.
2-3 days installation before the show
4 september 2009, 16h30 - 17h30 Presentation the Open_Sailing in "PIZELSPACE", 30 Minutes panel, 30 minutes presenting the model
4 september 2009, 18h30 Ars Electronica Gala
9 september2009, evening, closing ceremony of the ARS electronica

== Money Problem ==

Now I have to make an entire new exhibition proposal and all our plans have changes.

Instead of spending my time producing the boat, I am forced to prepare another set for the exhibition, so I am not producing research, I m making a presentation model like I did 6 months ago. It is good for the project publicity of course, so let's do it.

In the end we are not going to show the real boat in Linz, all our partners are disapointed and trust us less now.

Without the ARS production money, we cant move on, we need money to buy materials and cover our expenses. So we need to either find more money, or convince the ARS electronica to financially support our research on site.I have personnaly invested £ 18'000, of which £ 8000 I borrowed. the production budget was supposed to correct this negative balance in my investment, in other word I am financially on trouble, and if we don't get ARS financial support in the end I don't know how I will be able to carry on the research.

- The rules of [the next idea] grant does not allow us to pay production budget to you. Anyway – if there should be budget left after the Festival, Martin will try to find a possibility in discussion with Gerfried in order to cover a part of your taken investments with the left amount.

- Martin has promised to do everything he can so we can have the remaining production money. Thank you very much.
What I say is that we should use a part of the production money for the production of the real object, it is totally unfair, I have to make a model just for ARS taking my time from making the real one at my own expenses.

- I will send you an overview of already consumed production budget and an estimation of future costs (including a 3D print and – optional – further presentation material) in the beginning of next week.
-We will agree than how we will use the remaining budget.

== Individual involvement ==

Now Cesar has to :

- propose a new design for the exhibition (done, below, more precisions when I have the technical drawing of the space by Dani)
- get permission for the new design
- obtain all technical datas (dimensions, suspension allowance, electric access, fire safety etc.
- contact the carpenters of the festival, ask their price, where they buy the wood from.
- contact the lighting guy
- Making sure we got 2 massive screens attached to the columns.
- contact the laser cutting FABLAB
- get permission to work with the laser, perhaps out of museum opening hours, be ready to pay Clemens for the couple of hours he'll be helping teaching Cesar at the beginning how to use the machine
- ask for the Apollo Lounge to remain during our exhibition so we are between the space exploration and geocities, the strategic future of the world
- receive confirmationt from :
- Martin, Horst, Gerfried for the design
- carpenters for availability for construction, a little storage space for the parts of the model while under construction
- light guys of the type of light they want to use


Daniela :

- calculate how much production money remains
- send the space technical drawings, electric implantation, fire safety regulations.
- facilitate Cesar's work with ARS staff : carpenters, electric, light, fire safety, using 2 screens.

Martin, Horst :

- just tell me if you like the design I propose, I will send more detail when I have more details from Dani ie : time of fabrication, who's doing it.
- allow me to work with the laser cutting machine at FABLAB, without disturbing working hours of ARS staff. I talked to Clemens, he's happy to help, we have to add his work to the production bill as well. The cost of card laser cutting is a tiny fraction of the cost of plastic printing, and I prefer the feel of it.
- the usage of a small store space, to accumulate the many tiny piece of model I will be making during 2-3 weeks.

Thank you very much for reading such a long post. Any question cesar.harada@international-ocean-station.org | 00 +44 7 853 286 216