In April 2019, the world-famous Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris was severely damaged in a devastating fire, requiring years of reconstruction and restoration work. On the occasion of its reopening in December 2024, the Ars Electronica Futurelab, together with the French start-ups Iconem and Histovery, has brought the world-famous cathedral into Deep Space 8K as an…
Absolute Hallucination: An AI Self-Playing Piano Improvisation by Futurelab Key Researcher Ali Nikrang explores the creative space learned by an AI-based music composition system by randomly traveling through different compositional paths. It provokes questions about the nature of music and the hallucinatory characteristics of generative AI. The world premiere of this piece took place at…
Converge is an interactive work for Deep Space 8K by the Ars Electronica Futurelab – based on SHARESPACE, a large European R&D project on using avatars in social situations. Converge uses tracking for up to ten on-site participants and a motion capture suit for one off-site participant. All must collaborate to progress, communicating with the…
Pillars of Democracy is a playful and interactive installation aimed to increase civic participation and enhance awareness of the importance of democracy. The artistic intervention on the pillars of the Parliament building in Vienna invited people to express themselves, reflect, and take a stand on democracy. The goal was to establish an emotional and personal…
Playful interactive research projects, immersive artistic works, and moving large-scale representations of memories almost lost – saved with the help of technology, artistic thinking, and social interventions: Futurelab Night 2024 was once again the performative peak of the lab’s activities at the Ars Electronica Festival.
Persistent Time Sink Resonance is an artistic exploration of reality volumes utilizing 3D Gaussian Splatting. This recent rasterization technique supports the digital, spatial reconstruction of real-life objects or even our surroundings in the computer. Persistent Time Sink Resonance is one of the two winning projects of the Ars Electronica Futurelab 2024 internal ideas competition Ideas…
Schmilz, schmilz, Baby! / Melt This! is a thought-provoking campaign on glacier retreat by the activist artist group Aggro Climate, members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab. The initiative is one of the two winning projects of the Ars Electronica Futurelab 2024 internal ideas competition Ideas Expedition.
Buzzing noises, an inconspicuous window, tropical humidity and the impression of being chased: Buzz Swatters: Playful Pandemic Prevention was designed to address the collective action problem of infectious diseases in an innovative and playful way. It is the second collaborative project of the Collective Transformation Lab between AI start-up Godot and the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
Data Art & Science (DAS) is a new interdisciplinary field at the center of a collaborative project between Toyota Coniq Alpha and the Ars Electronica Futurelab to incorporate artistic perspectives on data. At the Ars Electronica Festival 2024, visitors could experience a prototype of the DAS Center which aims to revitalize local culture in the…
Memories for Futures is a multi-modal media arts installation designed to foster care and discussion about rural life’s future. Local stories, places and impressions from the village of Azusakawachi in the Japanese prefecture of Shiga are linked here to provide insights into the lives of the inhabitants and their very personal history. The initiative is…
To incorporate the Ars Electronica perspective and our experience with setting up transdisciplinary education formats, the Ars Electronica Futurelab was invited to co-host a transdisciplinary Summer Academy for postgraduate students in Prato, Italy, in July 2024.