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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Notes about Quarxs
Maurice Benayoun
Original: Elasto Fragmentoplast | 4429 * 3024px | 42.6 MB
Original: Elasto Fragmentoplast | 4429 * 3024px | 42.6 MB
Original: Elasto Fragmentoplast | 4429 * 3024px | 42.6 MB
Original: Elasto Fragmentoplast | 4429 * 3024px | 42.6 MB
“The 'Elasto Fragmentoplast' is the pilot of a series of 24 short films of 2 minutes each. Each one appears as a program of scientific popularisation. A scientist voice delivers off comments on the evolution of his research on the QUARXS.
The QUARXS are living beings indifferent to the immutable laws of Nature. The aberrant aspect of their relations with time, space and material turns them into odd beings. We try to understand their behaviour through observation and experimentation: analysing such creatures requires an adequate visual treatment - mixing video, 2D and 3D computer graphics. I must confess my fascination with the possibility of building a virtual space defying physical laws based on their mathematical application - deciding that an object will not receive the light which illuminates the rest of the scene. Deciding that the same causes can have various effects - for example a light can make an object transparent.
The 3D space is a paradox where the expression of the surface of the world comes from the understanding of its fundamental principles. In the 3D universe, material is not a limit, but the substract through which the world appears. The only habits of representation are the genuine limits.” (Maurice Benayoun)
Technical background:
HW: Compaq Desk Pro 486/33, System Pro 486/3
SW: Opium
The QUARXS are living beings indifferent to the immutable laws of Nature. The aberrant aspect of their relations with time, space and material turns them into odd beings. We try to understand their behaviour through observation and experimentation: analysing such creatures requires an adequate visual treatment - mixing video, 2D and 3D computer graphics. I must confess my fascination with the possibility of building a virtual space defying physical laws based on their mathematical application - deciding that an object will not receive the light which illuminates the rest of the scene. Deciding that the same causes can have various effects - for example a light can make an object transparent.
The 3D space is a paradox where the expression of the surface of the world comes from the understanding of its fundamental principles. In the 3D universe, material is not a limit, but the substract through which the world appears. The only habits of representation are the genuine limits.” (Maurice Benayoun)
Technical background:
HW: Compaq Desk Pro 486/33, System Pro 486/3
SW: Opium
Mitarbeiter/ collaborators: Michel Fano (Musik), Francois Schuiten (Art Dir.), Alan Dorval (Voice), Benoit Peeters (Text), Guillaume Caron, Thierry Prieur (Computergraphics)
Maurice Benayoun, born in 1957 in Mascara (France). Professor of Fine Arts in Paris I University (Pantheon/Sorbonne). Did research on Video Art and special effects for C.N.R.S. (National Center of Scientific Research) and the CRECA (Research Center in Motion Pictures and Audiovisual Arts). Four years of personal research on 3D computer graphics and computer animation.