That was the Ars Electronica Festival 2025

For five days, Linz once again became a meeting place for art, technology, and society—and POSTCITY served as a stage for encounters, experiments, and visions one last time.

It was Ars Electronica’s last guest appearance at POSTCITY—and it was filled with a great atmosphere. With over 122,000 visitors, this year’s festival was the most successful ever.

1,472 artists, scientists, developers, entrepreneurs, and activists from 83 countries contributed to Ars Electronica this year. 51 co-curators, 398 employees, and 440 cooperation partners made it possible to show 379 exhibits and implement 684 individual program offerings at 15 official and 4 associated locations.

In this review, we would like to look back on these five days of the festival. And for those who couldn’t be there: don’t worry—the next Ars Electronica Festival will take place from September 9 to 13, 2026! Where? That’s still to be decided!

Set off before it starts

From September 3 to 7, Linz once again became the international center of media art. However, the festival actually began on the evening of September 2 with the Pre-Opening Walk, the unofficial opening of Ars Electronica. The walk stopped at seven festival locations, where curators and artists welcomed visitors and gave them a first glimpse of their exhibitions and programs.

The first stop was the Oberösterreichischer Kunstverein (Upper Austrian Art Association) and the exhibition CALIBRATION MUM: I PREFER NOT TO by Elisa Jule Braun. The crowd then moved on to the Francisco Carolinum, where exhibitions by media artists Peter Kogler and Claudia Hart were on display. In the early evening, the route led to the Lentos Art Museum. The rain that had started to fall did nothing to dampen the mood. As in the previous year, the Prix Ars Electronica exhibition was on display here, this time focusing on works from the categories New Animation Art, Digital Musics & Sound Art, and Artificial Life & Intelligence. Afterwards, the University of Art and Design Linz opened its doors, once again becoming the pulsating center of the festival campus, where students and teachers presented their projects. As the featured university, the National Academy of Art Sofia brought an impressive sample of its excellence to Linz at the Splace on Linz’s main square.

The evening continued at the Salzamt studio house with the innovative animations of the Expanded Play exhibition. Immediately afterwards, everyone gathered at the Ars Electronica Center: in Deep Space 8K, Maki Namekawa, arguably the most distinguished expert on the piano music of Philip Glass, played a suite of seven pieces from Mishima. The concert was accompanied visually by real-time visualizations by Cori O’Lan. The finale took place at the Stadtwerkstatt. Under the title STWST48x10 FOG MANIFESTO, the Stadtwerkstatt presented a Fog Cube on the main deck of the Ars Electronica Center, turning the phenomenon of fog into material, medium, and manifesto.

Day 1: The festival begins

At 10 a.m. sharp on Wednesday, POSTCITY opened its doors and invited visitors to explore its impressive parcel slides, spacious halls, bunker, and rail hall.

The theme symposium, which would accompany us over the next three days, began by focusing on panic itself. Artists, scientists, and designers reflected on and discussed the neurobiological foundations of fear and panic, their cultural and political dimensions, and strategies for dealing with collective crisis experiences.

In the workshop area, participants in the workshop From Generative to Regenerative Technologies were able to reflect on the ecological consequences of today’s technologies and try out alternative, regenerative practices in a practical exercise using the permacomputing approach.

As part of this year’s festival, the Ars Electronica Ecosystem—a presentation space for Ars Electronica’s in-house departments—opened its doors for the first time and invited visitors to engage in dialogue. In the Open Futurelab, researchers, developers, and artists presented their latest prototypes at the intersection of art, technology, and society. Right next door, Ars Electronica Solutions showed how innovative storytelling is created for partners such as the ESA, museums, and international events such as EXPO 2020. Finally, in the Art Thinking Lounge, people gathered for discussions, workshops, and town hall meetings on questions such as: What does citizenship actually mean? Who are we as human beings, and what added value can art thinking have for society?

Anyone exploring the first floor of POSTCITY couldn’t miss Flood the Zone with Courage. With live interventions, the Pavilion Against Indifference, and Protest Labs combining digital tools and activism, the area became a lively center of protest and social debate for five days.

Who actually owns our data? My Data Is Bigger Than Yours turned this into an energetic spectacle rather than a dry panel discussion: wrestling matches, dance battles, and lots of showdowns were on the program. Loud, colorful, and provocative, the performance made visitors laugh, think, and cheer at the same time.

In the oppressive corridors of the bunker, Etsuko Ichihara collaborated with Civic Creative Base Tokyo to design Dystopia Land, a vision of Japan’s future that oscillates between fascination and unease. The installation showed that dystopian visions can embody not only fear, but also strength and resilience, drawing visitors into intimate, almost ritualistic actions.

Domestic Data Streamers, on the other hand, presented a completely different perspective on AI with Synthetic Memories. Instead of fear of surveillance or loss of control, the focus here was on empathy: an archive of AI-generated images and personal stories from older people, dementia patients, migrants, and marginalized voices. Those who entered the installation were immersed in memories that might otherwise have been lost—and experienced how AI can become a tool for care and preservation.

The Wild Future Happy Hour was all about playful speculation and shared visions of the future. The winners of this year’s STARTS Prize Africa presented their project together with the Wild Future Lab team. Dressed in imaginative, future-inspired wearables, they invited visitors to use the Wild Future Tarot to design creative scenarios for a “rewilded city.” The 38 cards in the storytelling deck sparked surprising conversations about how we could live in closer connection with nature.

The town hall meetings brought together representatives from science, politics, culture, the creative industries, and business. Whether to network, join in the discussion, or simply listen in, all interested parties were welcome. At Speed Dating Recipes—Eat the Simulation, the bar became a testing ground: fake news, taste, and encounters merged into an unusual social ritual. Instead of swiping through screens, visitors shared questions, drinks, and sometimes uncomfortable silences, which quickly dissipated thanks to a “special menu” full of thought-provoking topics.

On the other side of the Danube, at the Ars Electronica Center, art history became an intimate experience: visitors to EGON SCHIELE—A Personal Encounter used VR to immerse themselves in Egon Schiele’s studio in October 1918, encountering the seriously ill artist and experiencing formative moments of his life and turn-of-the-century Vienna through flashbacks.

St. Mary’s Cathedral and Cathedral Square were once again the center of this year’s festival opening. Between waltzes, toccatas, and partitas, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and organist Wolfgang Kreuzhuber filled Austria’s largest church with energy and emotion. Under the motto “PANIC – yes/no,” the opening ceremony spanned Johann Strauss’s 200th birthday to the 30th anniversary of Austria’s accession to the EU. The event on Cathedral Square was kicked off by Viennese artist Luca Malina, who set the mood for the evening with her mix of alternative pop, R&B, and electronic sounds. This was followed by the White Hands Chorus NIPPON together with Hiemetsberger’s choir ensemble, who moved the audience with their interpretation of the European anthem in sign language and song. White gloves were distributed before the performance, and by the time the anthem was sung, the entire cathedral square had been transformed into a sea of white hands.

From the bustling cathedral square, we then entered St. Mary’s Cathedral. A particular highlight was the Waltz Symphony by Ars Electronica Futurelab in St. Mary’s Cathedral, which reinterpreted Strauss’ musical legacy in dialogue with AI. This was complemented by Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices, Bach’s world-famous Toccata in D minor, and Navid Navab’s experimental organ work “Organism: In Turbulence,” which was awarded a Golden Nica. The program also included a preview of this year’s Linzer Klangwolke URBAN PULSE with the MOTUS Percussion ensemble. A long day was coming to an end, but there wasn’t much time to rest.

Day 2: From performance to Prix

The second day of the Ars Electronica Festival began with blue skies and bright sunshine. The full program ranged from conferences and performances to workshops, culminating in the festive Prix Ars Electronica Award Ceremony. But first things first.

With Ekklesia, visitors experienced a VR theater piece that transported them to the midst of the construction of a new civilization. In the virtual space, participants made their own decisions about which buildings should be constructed and how society should develop. This resulted in individual cities whose stories developed in different directions.

Making friends focused on the art of friendship. After a joint warm-up with trainer Fernanda, the participants went through six unusual training stations, each lasting ten minutes and equipped with state-of-the-art high-tech equipment—including self-hugs.

The POSTCITY Conference Hall filled up early in the morning. The reason for this was the Archipelago of Possible Futures forum, led by Francesca Bria and José Luis de Vicente. Between high-caliber contributions, intense discussions, and the inspiration provided by the STARTS Prize winners of 2025, a lively exchange took place among the participants.

On the first floor of POSTCITY, the audience was also transported into digital dream worlds: The Lost Limbo: Sister Lin-Tou, an atmospheric VR experience by MeimageDance, unfolded in haunting ritual moments between East and West, past and present.

Anyone who was unsure whether they could handle the wealth of impressions and projects on their own, or who wanted to learn more about the work, was in good hands with the colleagues at the WE GUIDE YOU desk: From special themed tours that provided an initial insight into the different focal points of the festival to expert tours where visitors could talk to the scientists, artists, or curators themselves.

At the OpenDemocracyLab of IG Demokratie, five days were spent experimenting, trying things out, and rethinking. In an interactive setting, participants were able to try out current methods from sociocracy and the Art of Hosting to take apart and reassemble political structures.

At the other end of POSTCITY was the LIT Exhibition. For those who needed a break, The Dream In Experience offered a special retreat: visitors could relax in sleeping capsules while their dreams were translated into sound and images in real time.

In the workshop Archival Images of AI, participants explored the visual worlds of artificial intelligence together with Rasa Bocyte, Nadia Piet, and Ploipailin Flynn. Through experiments with emojis, digital distortions, and meme formats, common AI clichés were questioned and new perspectives on visual culture were opened up.

Meanwhile, seats filled up in the Ars Electronica Lounge at POSTCITY as members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab discussed impact, responsibility, and shaping the future during the panel discussion Inside Futurelab: The Impact We Want to Create.

On the other side of the Danube, things took a darker turn. The play White Hunger, based on Aki Ollikainen’s acclaimed novel Nälkävuosi, tells of existential struggles for survival, fragile structures, and necessary resistance. The combination of projected images, futuristic design elements, and influences from video games, conceptual art, and pop culture gave the play an almost cinematic intensity and left visitors with a lasting impression.

In the Main Gallery of the Ars Electronica Center, the NeuroFly workshop made the boundary between mind and machine audible, visible, and even tangible. In this unusual experience, visitors controlled a VR aircraft using only their thoughts, thanks to a combination of flight simulator and brain-computer interface.

In the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K, Deep Stage opened the evening with an intense, immersive choreography of music, physical performance, and media art. Artists such as Jiabao Li, Lee Jung In Creation, Itabora Puy, and Fernando Velázquez fused sound, movement, and image into a multi-layered, multi-body experience that transported the audience into an ever-changing world between tradition, technology, and the avant-garde.

The highlight and conclusion of the second day of the festival took place at the Design Center Linz. As was the case last year, the Prix Ars Electronica Award Ceremony was held there, during which the Golden Nicas, the S+T+ARTS Prize, S+T+ARTS Prize Africa, the European Commission’s European Union Prize for Citizen Science, and the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity, initiated by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, were presented. The evening was accompanied by atmospheric performances, including the impressive harp piece “Harmonic Convergence” by Christoph Bielefeld and the percussion performance “Urban Pulse” by Christoph Sietzen.

Day 3: Conferences, art, and the big concert night

Halfway through the Ars Electronica Festival. Right at the start of the third day of the festival, the workshop Keep Calm and Create a CriticalChangeLab offered educators new ideas and practical tools for designing learning spaces in which young voices are heard and count. Based on participatory action research from across Europe, the team showed how creative, collaborative, and critically reflective formats can be developed in collaboration with schools, research, and industry.

In the POSTCITY Conference Hall, the symposium Art and Culture in Times of Uncertainty: From Artistic Practice to Social Action highlighted how art and culture can develop social relevance in turbulent times. In Intersections I: Art, Policy, and Political Discourse, artists, institutions, and academics reflected on the role of EU programs—such as NEB, STARTS, EIT, Horizon, and Creative Europe—as promoters of cultural expression and their reciprocal effect on politics.

The second part, Intersections II: Art, Healthcare, and Well-being, focused on the role of art in healthcare. Together with representatives from EIT Health, EIT Culture & Creativity, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Society, medical practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and artists explored how art can help address individual panic and promote holistic well-being.

At Open Futurelab, visitors exchanged ideas with the Ars Electronica Futurelab team and its partners. At NeXus Print: Demonstration and Open Research, visitors were able to collaborate in a participatory live process to simultaneously create and reinvent environments using generative AI. The projects of this year’s Futurelab Ideas Expedition winners, Inference Ground Truth and Corpus Corax, were also presented in the lecture Inside Futurelab: Overlapping Realities of Machines | Humans | Birds.

The team at Ars Electronica Solutions also presented its projects during the festival. As part of the Ars Electronica Ecosystem, Ars Electronica Solutions provided insights into its own working methods under the title “How do we work?” The daily talks, performances, and interactive formats with guests from the worlds of art, science, education, and industry showed how close collaboration can lead to new insights and how creative processes can offer a response to uncertainty and complexity.

Those who wanted to learn more about this year’s festival theme had the opportunity to tour the central theme exhibition with Christl Baur, director of the Ars Electronica Festival. In the impressive setting of the POSTCITY bunker, participants experienced artistic works and interactive installations that deal with the multi-layered concept of panic.

Another award ceremony was also on the agenda that day: the winners were honored in the Conference Hall during the festive Media Literacy Award Ceremony. The award, initiated by Ars Electronica, the Federal Ministry of Education, and the OeAD – Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalization, recognizes outstanding projects that promote media literacy in a creative and critical manner.

Before heading to the Gleishalle for the big concert night, many made a detour to the other side of the Danube. At the Sky Loft of the Ars Electronica Center, EXPANDED 2025 – Conference on Animation and Interactive Art brought together international artists, researchers, and experts. The focus was on animation and interactive art beyond the screen, as well as panels, paper presentations, and insights from Prix jurors.

We remain at the Ars Electronica Center: In Deep Space 8K, the audience experienced an impressive display of new media art with The 6th VH Award Part I. Five specially produced works transported viewers into visual worlds combining mythology, ecology, and speculative history. Particularly moving was the Grand Prix-winning project “Dream of Walnut Palaces” by Wendi Yan, which used poetic CGI images to create an alternative history of knowledge between Asia and Europe.

But now back to POSTCITY, to the highlight of the evening. Dennis Russell Davies and the Filharmonie Brno invited guests to a Big Concert Night in the sold-out Gleishalle. The focus was on Viktor Ullmann’s chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis), which was written in 1943/44 in the Theresienstadt internment camp. The impressive work was presented as a combination of orchestral performance and staged visualization, leaving many visitors speechless.

Those who still had energy left afterwards could turn night into day at the Ars Electronica Nightline. People danced and partied to fast beats, electronic sounds, and audiovisual performances in the POSTCITY railway hall until 4 a.m.

Day 4: Research meets imagination at Futurelab Night

On the penultimate day of the festival, the winners of this year’s Prix Ars Electronica in the category u19–create your world gathered in the Gleishalle for the award ceremony right at the start of the day. The 23 winning projects were presented by host Vivian Bausch, and the young artists received their certificates and gave a brief insight into their projects.

How is artificial intelligence changing theater, from the role of authorship to stage presence to questions of digital sovereignty? On the fourth day of the festival, the STAGED REALITIES conference addressed precisely this question. In a curated dramaturgy consisting of a prologue, three thematic acts, and an epilogue, artists, technologists, and researchers discussed how AI is reshaping the performing arts.

The festival’s final major conference focused entirely on citizen science. New Pathways: AI, Art, and Collaboration in Citizen Science: #AI, Art, Policy showed how citizen science can enrich education, innovation, creativity, and policymaking, and what obstacles exist in this process. Topics ranged from learning projects with schoolchildren to AI-supported participation and artistic collaborations for community engagement. At the same time, questions of inclusion, data ethics, and political influence were discussed.

POSTCITY impressed not only with its catacombs, but also with its green roof, which offered an unusual view of Linz. Once again this year, urban ecologist and botanist Friedrich Schwarz guided visitors through this urban oasis and highlighted the diversity of rare plants that thrive in the middle of the city.

The New Media Art Trajectories conference brought together media artists for a roundtable discussion, including Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau, Claudia Hart, and many more. Looking back on the visionary beginnings of the 1980s and the challenges of the digital present, a lively discussion ensued among the participants.

Since 2016, the Anton Bruckner Private University has been hosting Sonic Saturday as part of the Ars Electronica Festival. This year, the day once again offered music enthusiasts the opportunity to embark on a journey into the world of sonic exploration and inspiration.

Down the Pöstlingberg, we returned to the Ars Electronica Center, more precisely to the seminar room in the first basement. There, the screening Austrian Panorama showed current animations by Austrian artists and artists living in Austria. In the subsequent Q&A, visitors had the opportunity to talk to the filmmakers and learn more about their work.

In Deep Space 8K, The Art of Science transformed data into a sensory experience. Satellite images, climate data, and urban structures became impressive images and sounds that filled the room and amazed the audience.

Afterwards, the audience experienced a fascinating 3D journey to the starry skies and impressive cultural heritage sites on five continents with Cultural Astronomy, from the summer solstice at Stonehenge to the cosmic architecture of ancient Egyptian temples to the majestic Milky Way above Machu Picchu.

A short walk across the Nibelungen Bridge led to the Lentos Art Museum. There, the Expert Tour: Artistic Actions at the Intersections of Media Art took place with Emiko Ogawa, director of the Prix Ars Electronica. In a small group, she provided fascinating insights into the selection process, the award-winning works, and the current landscape of media art.

In St. Mary’s Cathedral, Navid Navab’s Organism: In Turbulence unfolded a fascinating soundscape on a robotically prepared pipe organ that is over a hundred years old. Between chaotic instability and aesthetic intensity, previously unheard nuances of sound opened up, which were able to unfold their full effect in the special acoustics of the cathedral and amazed the visitors.

In the evening, the Ars Electronica Futurelab opened its doors to Futurelab Night in Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Center. In short, intense presentations and artistic performances, the audience was immersed in the lab’s research questions—and thus in highly topical issues that link art, technology, and society. Audience interest is so great every year that the program is presented twice in a row.

Day 5: One last time through POSTCITY

On the last day of the Ars Electronica Festival 2025, the Kepler Salon Extra Extern invited guests to POSTCITY. Starting with the question “Should we feel panic in light of current world events?”, experts from JKU Linz and Ars Electronica shared personal perspectives that offered insight and inspiration rather than scaremongering. Afterwards, there was an exclusive guided tour of the LIT Exhibition for those interested.

During the festival, create your world set up a laboratory for the ideas of the next generation on more than 2,000 square meters. Children and young people were not only able to do crafts, print, or sew, but also program, tinker, experiment, and think about social issues. The Little Explorers: Kids Tour took visitors through various exhibitions at POSTCITY and invited young visitors to discover surprising perspectives on the festival theme of panic – in a playful, creative and curious way.

In the musicLab, visitors could learn and experience everything about the Ableton Live software. The new Ableton Move hardware could also be tested.

During the day, healthy food from the region was offered in the Open Kitchen—free of charge. You had to be quick to satisfy your hunger. Due to the great interest of the visitors, the delicious breads and spreads were usually sold out quickly.

After a quick refreshment break, it was time for the final conference of the Ars Electronica Festival. Earth Is a Sensorium took the audience on a journey through the Great Acceleration—the accelerated rise in economic output, paper consumption, ocean acidification, and fast food chains—and drew attention to how this development forms the basis of the Anthropocene debate.

The final day of the festival had a special event in store. In the Open Lab, visitors had the opportunity to build and program their own small robots. These then competed against each other in a contest, creating a great atmosphere among the audience.

One last time, the path led across the Danube to the Ars Electronica Center. In Deep Space 8K, NHK presented impressive UHD 3DCG reconstructions of Japanese cultural treasures such as armor and ukiyo-e prints, as well as Van Gogh’s sunflowers in fascinating detail. The audience was treated to unusual perspectives on familiar masterpieces.

With SPOTSHOTBEUYS, Silke Grabinger brought a gripping reinterpretation of Joseph Beuys’ action to Deep Space 8K. The focus was on the robot dog Spot, who became a live counterpart and co-player. With a great deal of irony, the performance explored the relationship between humans and technology and kept the audience in suspense with surprising twists and turns.

In conclusion

We hope this review has brought back many memories for you.

Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to all our partners and sponsors who made this festival possible—and with whom we hope to realize many more great projects in the future.

We are already looking forward to welcoming you back from September 9 to 13, 2026!