Open Futurelab 2024

We at the Ars Electronica Futurelab understand HOPE – motto of the Ars Electronica Festival 2024 – as a process that can be shaped through art and active participation. We therefore invited everyone to shape HOPE together: from September 4 to 8, 2024, at the Open Futurelab in POSTCITY at the Ars Electronica Festival.

At the Open Futurelab, visitors got to know our members and our work through workshops, research prototypes, installations, talks and Expert Tours. And on Saturday evening, the audience favorite Futurelab Night awaited again in Deep Space 8K of the Ars Electronica Center.

HOPE does not come for free. Sometimes it can be even hard work to achieve the status that allows for HOPE. And having HOPE is more than pure, unreflective optimism, it is based on active preparation for something we can’t fully understand or control. Art is one of humanity’s most powerful instruments to experience these new potential worlds and enter a dialogue about the future in its plural forms, inspiring HOPE in the process.

We at the Ars Electronica Futurelab understand the 2024 Festival motto as a process that can be shaped together through active participation. As visitors we invited you to engage with us and our experimental ideas and projects to explore in depth what holds the power to create HOPE as a driving force for social change.

The Futurelab was showcasing a number of recent works at the Ars Electronica Festival, many of which were created with other artists and international partners. For example, the EU project SHARESPACE is researching how people will be able to interact socially with the help of digital avatars in the near future. This vision was being creatively realized by the Futurelab team and a young artist collective from Berlin and London. In Deep Space 8K, visitors could get in touch with their inner child, explore synchronization with others and decentralized interaction between people and avatars.

Open Futurelab

At the Open Futurelab, Pillars of Democracy invited everyone to express themselves, reflect, and take a stand on democracy, touching on topics like diversity, solidarity, diversity, and tolerance. The playful intervention will soon relocate to Vienna: In the weeks leading up to the 2024 National Council elections in Austria, LED meshes on the columns of the Parliament will display videos featuring shadow silhouettes of the participating visitors.

Open Futurelab visitors could also plunge into the fictional pandemic scenario of Buzz Swatters: The immersive gaming experience brought to life the importance of collective action in disease prevention. Origami robotics could also be seen again, with collaborations in areas such as fashion and a Gigantic Oribotic Spiral. The ambitious Data Art & Science Project focused on the topic of rural exodus this year: point cloud data from the Japanese government linked to the memories of villagers facing the challenges of population decline. The project shows that citizen science and artistic journalism can be an important part of the discussion about social change – and a key to taking action as a society.

Futurelab Night

On Saturday evening, Futurelab Night in Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Center allowed visitors to experience Futurelab’s work audiovisually on a large scale – from immersive research reports to artistic performances. In order to welcome as many visitors as possible, the Futurelab Night was held in two fully booked slots. Additionally, some of the works unfolded in Deep Space 8K during the day as well.

Credits

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Friedrich Bachinger, Patrick Berger, Alexandre Bizri, Kerstin Blätterbinder, Manuel Dobusch, Marianne Eisl, Peter Freudling, Matthew Gardiner, Bernadette Geißler, Barbara Habringer, Peter Haider, Roland Haring, Denise Hirtenfelder, Horst Hörtner, Peter Holzkorn, Susanne Kiesenhofer, Florian Klammer, Anna Kuthan, Maria Mayr, Otto Naderer, Nicolas Naveau, Ali Nikrang, Hideaki Ogawa, Maria Pfeifer, Johannes Pöll, Daniel Rammer, Erwin Reitböck, Raphael Schaumburg-Lippe, Simon Schmid, Yoko Shimizu, Anna Weiss, Cyntha Wieringa