by Editorial Team
Every year since 2002, Ars Electronica and the University of Art and Design Linz have hosted an exhibition by artists associated with an international higher-education institution whose curriculum takes an innovative approach to teaching media art and media culture. The intention of the Campus format is to invite outstanding international universities working in the academic fields of media arts and design. Projects highlighted here represent the nature of the mission and activities of invited guest universities from all around the world. These showcases became an essential part of the festival and an instrument to analyze and visualize different models of educational approaches in artistic and creative areas. It has also increasingly developed into a stage for contextualized works from alumni, professors or associates from the universities to map the identity of academic institutions, their history and current practice. Part of Campus’ mission is to enable the presentation of young, local media artists and their work with international exposure.
The Interface Cultures program of the University of Art and Design Linz annually presents a cross-section from their masterclass works and, together with Ars Electronica, co-hosts one main featured partner university each year. “Von schwarzen Schwänen…” is the title of this year’s contribution from the University of Art and Design in Linz, a metaphor alluding to the plural of various unthinkables that are intertwined in their improbability, while referring to something we are not prepared for. The exhibition of Interface Cultures, “Crossing the Bridge“ leaves their own premises and conceptually and physically crosses the bridge, to present the selected works right at the center of the Kepler’s Gardens at the JKU Campus.
While in 2020, many of the Campus partners became Ars Electronica Garden Partners, inviting the festival audiences on a virtual and physical journey through networked biotopes and ecosystems, in which the students from all over the world are working to develop and shape our future, this year, the alliances and new forms of cooperations that have been build, can be explored again in Linz. More than 25 international academic institutions are joining us again, to present the outcomes of the past two years, full of experimental approaches and prototypes, thus the Campus program once again represents an essential, defining element of the entire festival. The local art university with its departments and institutes will function as a venue for the exchange of international perspectives while creating an extensive presentation of their own departments.
The festival is increasingly also becoming a platform for artistic and creative collaborations between Ars Electronica and the various regional, academic partners, for example the Fashion & Technology or the Time-Based and Interactive Media Art program at the University of Art and Design Linz, the Anton Bruckner Private University Upper Austria or the University of Applied Science Upper Austria, Campus Hagenberg.
The international exchange between universities, leading to increasing collaboration between academic partners brings 29 universities and institutions from many parts of the world to present their projects in Linz.
From Austria, in addition to the Anton Bruckner Private University and the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, the University of Innsbruck, Studio2, and the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Design, are also supporting the University of Art and Design Linz.
Apart from that the University of Applied Sciences Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts, for example, are bringing contributions such as “Human Intelligence Task” to the Ars Electronica Festival. Furthermore, the University of Applied Sciences Berlin, School of Culture and Design, and the Bauhaus University Weimar will also be represented during the festival in Linz.
Further European universities presenting works by their students in cooperation with the Kunstuniversität Linz are the Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, the ArTeC Graduate School of Research, the Brno University of Technology, Masaryk University, the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest, the University of Nova Gorica, School of Arts and the Vilnius Academy of Arts.
From England, representatives of the University Birmingham City, University College London and University of the Arts London will come to Linz and present works such as “Her Monologue”.
There are also partner universities from Asia visiting Linz: BINUS University Jarkarta, Korea National University of Arts, Musara the Naggar School of Art and Society, National Tsing Hua University Taiwan, the University of Tokyo and the University of the Bahamas.
Lastly, works by students from America as well as Australia can be found in the exhibitions. One example of this would be “Who do you love” from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other contributions come from Arizona State University, Universidad Austral de Chile, University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington.
Further Information about the exhibited artworks can be found on the highlight website dedicated to the Campus Exhibitions
The Campus exhibition is part of the program of the Ars Electronica Festival 2022. Details will soon be available online.