Ars Electronica Futurelab provides opportunities to learn “how to build the future” through a variety of educational programs: from workshops and exhibitions to entire lecture series and our very own Futurelab Academy.
These programs are based on the knowledge gained through our practice of diverse future projects – with thinking and prototyping methods to proactively shape a better future. We teach and present these through various formats for different audiences that range from students to whole communities. Futurelab’s educational programs use “creative questions” as a compass, encouraging participants to experience prototypes of the future.
Workshops & Exhibitions
Through international workshops, exhibitions, and initiatives, the Ars Electronica Futurelab creates a space for dialogue with citizens about the future of art, technology, and society. The places are truly pop-up “labs of the future” and “schools of the future”. We invite people young and old to actively and creatively participate in our programs and join us on our journey into the future. For example, to develop new narratives for the future we gather statements from young professionals from all over the world. And through dialogue with international media artists, creatives, researchers, and experts from all disciplines, we are exploring a manifesto for the future realm. In Tokyo, we regularly open the School of the Future which is a combined program of all these, creating opportunities for everyone to learn about the futures that cannot be taught at school.
Lectures & Research
Art can be very effective in finding new ways into the future because it adds creativity to spaces of reality. In the form of Artistic Journalism, art can convey knowledge that can no longer be transported through books, newspapers, and online media alone. Art Thinking workshops teach interested people our mindset and thought experiments here at the Lab. In close cooperation with international and regional colleges and universities, we offer the use of our Ars Electronica infrastructure, such as Deep Space 8K, for the realization of cooperative projects in dialogue with our research in the fields of art and science. As tutors, our researchers and artists teach at international university educational institutions and thus accompany, support, and inspire the broad-based discourse on the future as interdisciplinary mentors. Our Festival University invites students from all over the world to meet global challenges with individual concepts.
Futurelab Academy
Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy is a special format to help to shape the international university education system continuously. We use it to transcend the boundaries between disciplines and nations and expand frameworks within institutions. Together with researchers from the Ars Electronica Futurelab, faculty, and students have been developing ideas, concepts, and experimental practices since 2012 that repeatedly lead to outstanding projects. The results are presented at the annual Ars Electronica Festival and give participants the international reputation they deserve.
