TheFutureTour is an exclusive Workshop-Format, wherein over the course of one day, the most important trends from the week long ARS Electronica Festival will be presented in business relevant terms.

Thus TheFutureTours becomes a seismograph, measuring and recognizing interesting economic developments early on. The exclusive information and insights that will be presented are not the only worthwhile part of the workshop. The workshop offers an intense networking opportunity, engaging experts and the invitation only attendees who will certainly not act as passive information consumers, instead contributing personal experiences and knowledge. Thereby participants will obtain valuable perspectives and solutions for challenges they face in day-to-day business.

The Future Tour – Open Life
@Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
September 6th, 2007

The participation is by invitation only.
Request Invitation.

Ars Electronica is the largest worldwide festival for all things related to Computer-culture. More than 500 innovators, computer artists, and academics will display their work and future projects before an estimated 35,000 visitors. Since 1979 Ars Electronica has been the birthplace or the first public presentation for many groundbreaking trends. Important works are on permanent display in „the Museum of the Future.“ The highly renowned Ars Electronica awards span 8 categories, and are recognized as the “Oscars of the digital culture.” This year 3374 projects from over 63 countries will be exhibited.

The designs that will be on display at Ars Electronica, have certain implications for businesses, brands, media, and people (formerly known as consumers). Developments such as Web 2.0, SecondLife, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube were shaped here over the years. The Ars Electronica subject matter continues to anticipate important business, technology and cultural developments. The main theme „Goodbye Privacy“ stands at the center of this year’s Ars Electronic Festival. Our FutureTour takes up this theme and interpret its effect upon the economy as follows.


With the term Open Life we qualify the fundamental trend, that people and businesses lead a more open and visible life as reinforced by the digital world. The boundaries between private, public and economic spheres are dissolving. The Internet makes preferences, opinions, consumption, and communication behaviors increasingly transparent. Blogs and Internet forums are the scenes of voluntary sharing of personal and intimate communications.

Even more so: henceforth leading an Open Life, in which one’s own life is open and on display, is for individuals and businesses a status symbol. Photo, video, and mobile techonologies are the drivers behind this trend. In the near future we will face the following questions:

• Are we on the threshold of continuous live broadcasted Life-shows – comparable with the film The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey?
• How far along the path towards Matrix and Brave New World are we really?
• How will communities protect themselves?
• What roll will people, brands, land the media play in the new Open Life?
• What risks do companys today face?
• And, above all: what are the prospects that will arise from this adaptive economy?

In line with these central questions our Expert panel will present Brand-New Trends in the following theme groupings:

• The Future of Industry
• The Future of Media
• The Future of Technology and the Internet
• The Future of Humankind and the Social Network
• The Future of Computer Culture

Experts:

Joichi Ito, Neotony
The entrepreneur, activist, and venture capitalist was born in Japan and grew up in the United States. Besides the establishment of his venture capital firm Neoteny, Joichi Ito has acted in supervising positions at Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, Technorati, Digital Garage, WITNESS, Pia Corporation, Socialtext, iCommons, ICANN and Mozilla Foundation. As an entrepreneur, he also founded PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He writes one of the most popular blogs in the blogosphere scene. His interests lie particularly in Sharing E-conomy.

Kevin Leong
In 2004, he founded Mo’Blast in Palo Alto (San Francisco), a firm, which will set future standards in mobile Internet services. Additionally he is the program director for the Computer Engineering department at San Jose State University. With years of experience in the IT-computer industry Mr. Leon’s work now focuses around Mo’Blast’s further growth in areas of geolocal mobile services. His specialties, among many others, include working with user-interface design, multi-tiered software architecture, and computer languages such as Java and C++.

Horst Hörtner, Ars Electronica Future Lab
Director of the Ars Electronica FutureLab since 1996, he studied telematics at the Graz University of Technology. He developed realtime-control systems and is also involved in art projects as a musician. He is co-founder of the X-Space group and worked for EXPO (Sevilla), documenta IX, austromir and other art institutions. He is associate professor at the University of Art and Industrial Design Linz and is a frequent member on the jury at Prix Ars Electronica.

Stephan Dösinger, 1st Annual Architecture & Design Competition in Second Life
Mr. Dösinger is an artist and designer. He is currently hosting, in cooperation with Ars Electronica and the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Zollverein in Essen, a competition for architecture and design in the virtual worlds of Second Life. He has been working on the design of digital worlds for years. The dedicated, cultural designer is known for setting a precedent at exhibitions all around the world. He influences future art trends through his publications and lectures, and continues to leave his mark as a creative director for premium-magazines –always in the pursuit of happiness.

Summer Watson, Opera Singer, North Pole Adventurer
The British soprano studied at Royal College of Music. Her solo debut album with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, released by Sony Classical, reached No. 1 on the Classical charts in the United States and has sold 500,000 copies. Besides performing concerts around the world, Summer Watson is involved with several charities, among them one for Indian street kids. Next year, she plans to do a North Pole expedition with her friend Chloë Courtauld, who is carrying on the tradition of her great uncle Augustine Courtauld, a famous polar-scientist. They hope to make a statement by calling attention to the fight against Global Warming. The pair will use Web 2.0 Social Networking Sites to drive interest for their Polar-Challenge.

Philipp & Rüdiger Wassibauer, Schmiede, Maptales
The Wassibauer brothers are the innovative minds behind the Schmiede, a cultural research and development platform based out of Hallein/Salzburg. They define this digital culture festival as a „playground of ideas.“ The provocative idea behind this community is continuous interaction within the digital space and limited face-to-face contact, meeting only once a year since 2003. Thereby sounding out the boundaries of realizable possibilities of Open Source and a Sharing Economy. Through this project groundbreaking ideas are being generated and realized. This highly creative and trendsetting project develops innovative forms of guidance and self-organization. Maptales, now a successful business venture, was a project conceived by the Schmiede. It has become an internet-tool, where users can document their lives. Rüdiger studied International Management at the James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Philipp attended George Washington University in Washington D.C. and majored in Computer Science.

Hubert Lepka, Lawine Torrèn
The director uses extraordinary places as a stage for his breathtaking productions. Lepka founded Lawine Torrèn, a company of dancers, actors, media-artists and technicians, in 1992. His public performances include a production at the Salzburg Festival with Lawine Torrèn, as well as a stint as producer for the “Linzer Klangwolke” staged before an audience of 100,000 Ars Electronica spectators. He has also directed performances in cities like Amsterdam, Paris and New York. Among his most notable productions were stagings of Hannibal and Mars 2068 at the Rettenbach glacier in Tirol. He conducts work in cooperation with enterprises like Red Bull, IBM and Porsche. Hubert Lepka studied Classical Music (Opera) and Contemporary Dance at the Salzburg Mozarteum and Law at the University of Salzburg.

Patricia von Papstein, Tunities
Patricia von Papstein is a trained logistician and Diplom-Psychologist who completed her studies in Germany and the United States. As an executive level employee she worked in several Top 500 companies in the transport- and automotive branch. She established the Tunities agency in 2003. She has excecuted pioneering work for companies in the security-, experience-, knowledge-, health-, living- and mobility sectors. Tunities now enters new and uncharted territories with the undertaking “Power Games,” the development and distribution of games providing creative solutions for real life.

Christoph Santner, TheFutureKitchen
Even 20 years ago, the ORF-Jounalist was already focusing in on the topics of future and innovation. He founded a TV- and media production company and worked for media-companies, such as the BBC, Focus TV, Spiegel TV, and Der Standard. After this Mr. Santner worked on innovation projects in both Germany and the United States, and became a member of the Roman Herzog Future Initiatives Group. He later founded an Internet start-up located in New York and Munich. After working for two years at the brand-consultancy Wolff Olins in London, he established his innovations-agency TheFutureKitchen and organized innovation-events such as TheFutureSummit and TheFutureTour.

Monty C. M. Metzger & Philippe Souidi, CScout
Metzger and Souidi are both trend-researchers at CScout Trend Consultancy. CScout is an international consultancy with offices in Munich, New York, Beijing, and Tokyo that identifies and analyzes emerging trends using them as inspiration for global enterprises. The strategic consultancy and market-research-agency, which was founded 10 years ago, realizes customized reports, workshops and trend tours all the way from inspiration to innovation. CScout was the first one, to introduce large-scale German enterprises into Second Life. Before becoming CEO of CScout Munich Mr. Metzger worked in the marketing innovation department of an automobile company. During the course of his studies in Munich and Zurich, he built up his first private firm. Mr. Souidi joined CScout as a trend director after completing his MBA and working for an international management consultancy.