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Who needs art in times like these?
Amid global crises and radical upheavals, the Ars Electronica Festival asks what role art can play—as a catalyst for new perspectives, as a space for reflection, and as a driving force for a collectively shaped future.
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Cutting Edge: Running against the virtual wall
In “Run Motherfucker Run,” the body becomes the controller: those who run experience virtual immersion—those who stop fall. A powerful critique of passive consumption in digital worlds.
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A Robot’s Liberation
Guanaquerx by Paula Gaetano Adi, winner in the Artificial Life & Intelligence category 2025, reclaims the Andes as a site of resistance and reimagines robotics as a tool for planetary liberation.
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Words as Weapons
Requiem for an Exit by Frode Oldereid and Thomas Kvam, winner of a 2025 Golden Nica, explores memory, violence, rhetoric, and the unsettling voice of a machine.
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Sound as a living process
This year’s Golden Nica in the category “Digital Musics & Sound Art” goes to media artist Navid Navab and Garnet Willis for their project “Organism.”
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Algorithm meets Goat Cheese
„Das Ziegenkäsemachen aus der Sicht der Ziege“ (Goat Cheese Making from the Perspective of the Goat) reveals the digital overload, the dependency on algorithms, and the longing for liberation. It is a film that understands art as a radical scream against mindless, endless media consumption and indifference.
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Stories of self-determination
The HEROINES project shows how citizens can help shape social change through research. In 2025, it was awarded the European Union Prize for Citizen Science.
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Wearing Change, Locally
What does a sustainable future in a big city look like? The Wild Future Lab in Nairobi showcases new paths for a renaturalized city through wearable, innovative artifacts made from local materials.
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A space with endless possibilities
SHARESPACE explores new forms of collaboration between people, avatars, and AI in hybrid spaces. The focus is on connection, participation, and creative interaction, accompanied artistically by Ars Electronica Futurelab. One space, infinite possibilities.
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Cutting Edge: Hands-on drone art
In this issue, Horst Hörtner presents a project that shows how art, technology, and participation can come together: the Klangwolke 2012, in which swarms of drones were used for the first time and thousands of people became part of the production.
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Art in the Quantum Age
The LAS Art Foundation’s Sensing Quantum project has been awarded the S+T+ARTS Grand Prize – Innovative Collaboration for its groundbreaking work in developing new pathways into quantum technology through immersive experiences and interdisciplinary collaboration.
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Tracing the Invisible Lines Between Devices and Drones
How closely are commercial AI systems entangled with military technology? Awarded the STARTS Prize 2025 Grand Prize –Artistic Exploration, this project reveals hidden connections.
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Between Inspiration and Loss of Control: Music in the Age of AI
Artificial Intelligence is changing how we perceive art. Projects such as the Waltz Symphony show how AI can enrich creative processes, as long as humans set the direction. But not everyone is convinced; some fear the loss of originality.
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Cutting Edge: Avatars of Humanity
“Cutting Edge” is a new blog series in which Ars Electronica team members present outstanding artistic projects. In the first edition, Gerfried Stocker introduces a project that shows how technology can create closeness: In the ‘Avatar Robot Café,’ people with severe physical disabilities are integrated into everyday working life via robots.
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Navigating Panic: Notes from Where Panic Becomes a Compass
As curator in residence of the ARKO-sponsored Curatorial Residency Program, Son Hyerim was on site during the jury weekend of the Prix Ars Electronica. In this guest article, she shares her personal reflections on this experience.
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The Times They Are a-Changin’
From the uncertainty of the present to the power of art – in conversation with Gerfried Stocker, we shed light on the theme of the Ars Electronica Festival 2025.
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Fortify – Comics that Empower
12 powerful stories are being presented by MKD x nextcomic from March 18 to April 27, 2025, bringing a breath of fresh air to the city and to us at the Museum of the Future.
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The Art of Knowledge Transfer
Science is complex, science is slow. Projects that do not preach data and figures but stage experiences show how it can still be made exciting.
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Oliviero Toscani: Creativity has to be subversive
Oliviero Toscani (1942–2025) used art and advertising to challenge society. His legacy inspires us to rethink the status quo.
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By us, for us: Shaping Society
Ars Electronica embodies a vibrant community in which art, technology and society merge. For us, society is more than just a concept – it is the dynamic interaction of people who jointly develop visions, find creative solutions and shape the future.
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Where Technology meets the Future
From world-famous buildings to a unique composer, the endless depths of the ocean and an Austrian export hit: How Ars Electronica uses innovative technologies to implement artistic ideas.
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Can art change the world?
In 2024, Ars Electronica once again used international open calls, exciting collaborations and the festival as a stage to show how art can highlight creative solutions to the pressing issues of our time.
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Ethical Approaches in Bio Art
Researcher and curator Eunji Kwon provides insights into her research work as part of the ARKO and Ars Electronica curatorial residency programme.
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The interconnected world
The new exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center, “Connected Earth”, thematizes how the smallest creatures and powerful tides interact, what changes in biodiversity mean for man-made infrastructures, and what makes the Earth so habitable for millions of species, especially in their interaction.
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Immerse yourself in the art of the wave
Since March 2024, “Planet Ocean” has been inspiring visitors to the Oberhausen Gasometer with its giant ocean projection “The Wave”. Project manager Ina Badics and her team give an insight into the challenges and inspirations that made this unique installation possible.
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A record: More than 112,000 visits to Ars Electronica 2024
Once again, the Ars Electronica Festival has shown what it is all about: creating space, time and an atmosphere in which people can exchange ideas and inspire each other.
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Art History in Deep Space 8K
Fly through the gigantic three-dimensional point cloud of Notre-Dame de Paris, learn all about the elaborate restoration of Vittore Carpaccio’s Young Knight in a Landscape, or get to know the innovative pictorial compositions of the Flemish master Pieter Claesz – as part of Ars Electronica 2024, Deep Space 8K once again became an immersive showcase…
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Experience Hope, Shape Change
Hope is not a substitute for action. Rather, it is a basis for action that we consciously choose – in the midst of cynicism, ignorance and indifference. An invitation to feel, to act, to touch and to be touched.