create your world is Ars Electronica’s next generation initiative for the future, which is divided into three sections: Prix Ars Electronica in the u19 category – create your world, create your world Tour and create your world Festival. The platform makes it possible to promote existing talent and to take advantage of talents that are not yet available. If talents remain hidden for too long, they wither and die. If too much pressure is exerted, the interest can diminish. Too few opportunities to try out lead to insecurity and weaken self-confidence. However, create your world is not the only place where people are convinced of this: everyone has talents, and their diversity creates a wealth of innovations that we want to share with the world (and not least with the festival audience) within the framework of this initiative.
Prix Ars Electronica goes u19 – create your world
This year’s create your world Festival at the Ars Electronica Festival invites young people and the young-at-heart to create social and creative proximity – with physical distance. Projects, ideas and talents are shared in a network of exchange. This platform for education, experiments and various future scenarios will present a wide variety of young experts* who can all learn from one another. They’ll let others share in their talents and explain their views on possible future scenarios to the Ars Electronica Festival audience.
In 2019, the Prix Ars Electronica‘s u19 – create your world category was split into two sections. Ideas and projects can be submitted to YOUNG CREATIVES (up to age 14). This subcategory impressively demonstrates how children can help shape the present and future from their own perspectives. For the category YOUNG PROFESSIONALS (14-19 years) innovative forward thinkers* who have developed an artistic and/or critical project for the world of tomorrow are required. We’ll be showing you some of these ideas here and now and at the Ars Electronica Festival on the JKU Campus:
Future walk
Bettina Gangl, Birgit Pölz, Helmut Doblhofer (AT) –TeilnehmerInnen Virtual Office FAB Linz (AT)
At the Virtual Office FAB in Linz, three young people reflected on autonomy and how automated processes and artificial intelligence will influence our lives in the future. FAB, an association for the promotion of work and employment, offers computer training under the name “Virtual Office” for young people with physical disabilities. Using various strategies, they visualise their fantasies, dreams and fears. They let the audience participate in their thoughts and visions of the future during an augmented reality walk.
Street Spectra – Join the Streetlights Hunting!
Lucía García (ES)
Turn your smartphone into a scientific instrument by using a cheap optical grating, which serves to bend the light. With the civic science project Street Spectra, you will get surprising images of the colorful spectra produced by street lights in your neighborhood. The information gathered in this project will help to characterize the sources of light pollution in your city, allowing experts to assess the impact of the global conversion of older street lighting to new LEDs.
Loss of the Night
Helga Kuechly, Chris Kyba (DE)
The Loss of the Night team, which is also part of the ACTION Lab Garden, explains how light pollution affects our view of the night sky and how our experiences can be transformed into data. The presentation shows the start of a 24-hour night sky observation campaign, where teams around the globe are connected using the Loss of the Night app and show us what the night sky looks like where they are. This includes, for example, the brightness of the sky, and the data collected is available to scientists to investigate possible connections with health, biodiversity, energy consumption and other factors. The app is available for both Android and Apple users.
Schools and the Science of Air Pollution
Sonja Grossberndt (NO)
The Norwegian pilot of the ACTION project gives high school students in Oslo the opportunity to design and implement their own air quality project using a commercial air quality sensor platform. The aim is to raise awareness of the causes of air pollution and to get pupils to think about ways to reduce both emissions and air pollution. Together with teachers and students, the NILU team shows us how to produce low-cost air quality sensors and how to use them for air quality research. .
CoderDojo
CoderDojo Linz (AT)
The CoderDojo is an offer for children and young people who want to learn programming and have fun doing it. At regular meetings they learn how to write code, develop websites or program games and apps. Children and teenagers between the ages of eight and 17 come into contact with each other and their mentors, who are programming independently. Since the concept of a dojo is all about learning, no previous knowledge is required and participation is free. The community around the CoderDojos has grown in the last years and has started to meet online.
Reparatur der Zukunft (Repair the future)
Ö1
With the initiative Repair the Future, Ö1 wants to take up the questions of the participants and give more space for their ideas. Ars Electronica presents two projects on this topic:
Smart Tattoos: Katrin Unger, PhD student, develops tattoo sensors, which are provided with a polymer gel layer to measure the ph value of a human being. This invention is intended for the early detection of diseases caused by viruses and bacteria.
Code – Poetry: Cornelia Travnicek, author and computer scientist, brought an inspiration from Stanford to Austria. Indeed, the so-called Code Poetry, where it is about merging computer language with human language. A completely new dimension of poetry is created: poetry and technology. More about the winners here.
You can visit these inspiring, playful and at the same time serious exhibitions on the campus of the JKU Linz. You can find more information here: create your world 2020