The Ars Electronica Futurelab invites you: Experience the latest works of the artistic R&D laboratory and atelier at the Ars Electronica Festival and collectively shape diverse futures!
The Ars Electronica Futurelab is once again presenting its work at the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 in the Open Futurelab exhibition area at POSTCITY, in Deep Space 8K, and at the popular Futurelab Night. Through numerous future prototypes and interactive installations, you become part of the artistic research. Together, we share ideas and engage in dialogue about pluralistic futures that are worth exploring—for example, at numerous Futurelab events.
The Futurelab is Ars Electronica’s artistic R&D laboratory and atelier. To open perspectives and contribute to societal progress, it builds future prototypes and works that merge Art Thinking, Art Science Research, and technology.
One way the lab pursues this mission is through the Futurelab Ideas Expedition – an internal competition to creatively explore the technological and social circumstances of our time. This year, two works were selected. Corpus Corax is an interspecies experience: You interact with a speculative real-time Human-Raven Translator – an experiment drawing on recent generative AI innovations and extensive bird behavior studies. Inference Ground Truth, on the other hand, utilizes the recent rasterization technique Gaussian Splatting to experiment with human experience and machinic reality. As a visitor, you can become part of the artwork in a capture volume, resulting in a 4D Gaussian Splat.
Research is also a big part of a different project: SHARESPACE features 14 partner institutions across Europe to explore hybrid spaces where humans collaborate with avatars in real time. Developed as part of the experimentation, the Futurelab presents the multiplayer puzzle experience Converge 2 in Deep Space 8K. Additionally, Irish artists Leon Butler and Peter Power share Foolish Flame there, an interactive piece about climate change and cultural trauma.
Combining research on artificial intelligence, co-creation, and music is Walzersymphonie, one of the highlights of this year’s Festival Opening. Here, the Bruckner Orchestra presents a symphony inspired by Austria’s “Waltz King” Johann Strauss II: Composition students from four renowned universities developed the movements in collaboration with Futurelab’s renowned classical composition AI Ricercar. The full premiere takes place in November as part of the Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna Festival.
For over a decade, the Futurelab has also been at the forefront of research on ORI*botics, the combination of origami and robotics. This year, ORI*botics mastermind Matthew Gardiner presents his latest works as well as a residency program with the renowned Tachi Lab of The University of Tokyo. The functional studies and early-stage works of Folded Futures reflect new findings in rigid-origami geometry, material, fabrication, and robotics.
The Futurelab also works with a wide array of business partners worldwide to foster new mindsets and drive innovation beyond profit. One of these international collaborations is NeXus Print with Dai Nippon Printing (DNP): an artistic prototype and experimental XR platform for collective imagination and shared storytelling. The inclusive AI sandbox tool enables people of all backgrounds to co-create immersive 3D worlds together in real time.
By means of an open research platform, the Futurelab and Toyota Motor Corporation’s Advanced Technology Development Company explore big questions of “Future Humanity”: How will we live alongside other beings, self-driving tech, and AI? How will we organize societies and cities for new kinds of journeys to appear?
Alter.Ego with AI startup Godot presents a special claw machine with different personalities: As a visitor, try to persuade the AI characters to release a ball. In the process, you playfully explore how artificial personalities shape communication and affect interaction, trust, and collaboration.
In the long-running Future Ink collaboration with Wacom, Life Ink Community invites you to a novel immersive experience: With new Life Ink gear that interprets your biosignals, you share your Life Ink with other visitors – including glass-free stereoscopic 3D and surround sound.
Since 2023, the Futurelab has been working with Toyota Coniq and several regional stakeholders to establish the new interdisciplinary field of Data Art & Science: Here, artistic perspectives are incorporated into data science for positive future transformations. At the Open Futurelab 2025, you encounter a preview of the future Data Art & Science (DAS) Center in Hikone, Japan, featuring data-driven artworks and visions that connect art, science, and civic engagement. The DAS Center aims to revitalize the community troubled by depopulation and an aging society, fostering civic participation through data-based artistic exploration.
Last, but not least, Futurelab Night is one of the annual highlights of the Ars Electronica Festival. In Deep Space 8K, artistic research is transformed into immersive experiences and mesmeric performances of the lab’s most recent works. But you need to be quick: Although presented at two slots to be able to include as many visitors as possible, the free tickets for Futurelab Night are always snapped up quickly.
You find all information about Open Futurelab here, all Futurelab events for your calendar here. To register for Futurelab Night, click here.
