What we all hoped to be able to avoid happened again: A second lockdown in Austria. Since November 3, the Ars Electronica Center has also been closed again. But this time we were prepared. We’ve used the entire summer to further develop our “Ars Electronica Home Delivery” format, which we initiated in May, and are now able to deliver plenty of “art, technology and society” to your homes, to your living rooms.
The same applies to classrooms and offices, by the way, because the “Future on Demand” is now available for schools, universities and businesses. Anyone who’s interested in digitization and artificial intelligence, anyone who wants to know what social changes new technologies (can) trigger for good or bad, anyone who’s enthusiastic about media art or simply incredibly curious and always wants to learn something new – all of them, they’ve come to the right place at “Ars Electronica Home Delivery”!
In this first overview, we’ve summarized which (new) offerings are waiting for you under the “Ars Electronica Home Delivery” label and what is already available to discover. We wish you lots of fun and inspiration while streaming, zapping and trying it out!
Talks, Tours and Tutorials
Just because you can’t visit the Museum of the Future doesn’t mean that you can’t take a guided tour through our exhibitions! It also doesn’t mean that you can’t ask questions. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t tell us what exactly you want to visit in the museum. Our infotrainers will take you on virtual tours through all of the Ars Electronica Center’s exhibitions. You’ll get to know robot worms that can orient themselves independently, see how an artificial neural network “thinks”, learn how satellites make developments on our planet visible and find out why, despite all the technology, it still depends on us humans.
Of course we also offer tours especially for families. The subject here is also our future, but all contents will be more understandable and more playful, but not less exciting. Want an example? Here we go: We show you how the Coandă effect works using the installation ObOrO by Ryo Kishi.
The Deep Space 8K, a local magnet for the public, is clearly one of the highlights of the Ars Electronica Home Delivery program! Even though this “non-cinema” or rather “much-more-than-only cinema” usually lives from its impressive dimensions (we’re talking about 9 x 16 meters projection surfaces on the wall and floor in each case) and its incredible resolution (unbelievable 8K), which cannot be conveyed 1:1 via camera, you can expect exciting excursions into the world of art history, astronomy or anatomy paired with experts from the fields of brain research, art history or space exploration.
In addition to these “classic” formats we also play one or the other game with you. In this video, for example, we invited Marco from the Soundfactory to compose a piece of music in just 10 minutes. If and with what help he managed to do that, you can see here:
Whether it’s robotics or 3D printing, you’ll usually get one or the other handicraft instruction for your home at our workshops in the museum – and that’s still the case, and it’s the same with the Ars Electronica Home Delivery workshops.
Especially popular are our regular concerts, broadcast live from the Ars Electronica Center’s Piano Room, mostly accompanied by live visuals. We would also like to give you an example of this:
What’ s new now?
Some of these offers you may have already known, but now there is definitely something new!
For pupils
Whether it’s a workshop or a theme tour, as part of Ars Electronica Home Delivery we’re now offering a whole range of exciting programs that meet all the requirements of distance learning and ideally complement the classroom. Under the guidance of our expert infotrainers, students and teachers can embark on excursions into the future that are as entertaining as they are enlightening. They’ll learn how artificial neural networks work, take on the role of materials researchers, discover exciting new materials, and much more. Thanks to tried and tested didactic methods and both analog and digital tools such as Mentimeter, the students always have a variety of opportunities to participate! Almost as if you were “live” on site with us.
Hybrid Events
But not only for schools we worked on new formats over the summer. Companies – especially those with national or international branches – can now again organize events and workshops for their customers, partners and colleagues.
From now on, our event service brings events of any kind to the respective audience, which can participate and get involved virtually. Whether digital keynotes with break-out sessions, conferences or product presentations: Through the innovative use of new technologies and a high level of expertise in staging, we create virtual as well as hybrid events with high social and emotional quality.
One example: the spectacular staging of the Rosenbauer RT Launch Event: Interactive presentations in Deep Space 8K, camera shots from the RT cockpits and a light show on the Ars Electronica Center’s Main Deck turned this event into an experience for everyone involved both on site and online – not to mention the fascinating images that can be used for a long time to come.
Another example: As a hybrid format in the Ars Electronica Center’s Sky Loft, we designed the annual event of the “Energy Showcase Region” with Ministry of the Environment and Transport Leonore Gewessler:
Incidentally, events like this one are developed and implemented not only by our Events Service team but also by and with the experts from Ars Electronica Solutions, who will be presenting themselves here:
Workshops at the Future Thinking School
The Future Thinking School is Ars Electronica’s most recent initiative and is committed to a Digital Humanism. The aim is to make our artistic and scientific expertise in dealing with new technologies, which we’ve built up over the course of more than 40 years, available to companies and organizations.
One of the focal points of this work is artificial intelligence, which is examined from various perspectives in workshops at the Future Thinking School. The topics range from technical basics to concrete examples of applications in various industries and disciplines. Of course, the discussion also includes critical aspects such as the only supposed impartiality of these systems, their technical limitations, the intransparency of their “decision-making processes” and their effects on the way we think about ourselves and about each other.
The Future Thinking School’s online workshops last between two and six hours and are not limited to the theoretical transfer of knowledge, but also include excursions into our exhibitions and labs as well as interactive moments. The workshops are conducted by Ars Electronica’s numerous experts. The website with more detailed information is being built right now, in the meantime, you can contact futurethinkingschool@ars.electronica.art for more information.
Well, are you curious now? We hope so! In any case, we’d be delighted if you’d join us at “Ars Electronic Home Delivery” in the coming weeks! Let yourself be inspired by the many ideas for the future, listen to the great piano concerts, do handicrafts, discuss with us and, most importantly, ask us questions, post your suggestions and ideas and let us know what kind of future you have in mind!