At the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 from September 3 to 7, 2025, in Linz, Austria, the Futurelab invites you to back to the Open Futurelab, Deep Space 8K, and the popular Futurelab Night. Festival visitors experience the lab’s latest works and can also actively participate in its research.
The Ars Electronica Festival 2025 once again turns Linz into an international hub for art, society, technology, and innovation. The Futurelab presents its latest work and ongoing research in the Open Futurelab in legendary POSTCITY – including interactive installations, experimental prototypes, workshops, and talks. At Futurelab Night on Saturday evening, we once again transform artistic research into immersive experiences and captivating performances.
Futurelab’s works at the Ars Electronica Festival 2025:
“PANIC – yes/no” is the motto of the Ars Electronica Festival 2025. There are countless reasons to panic, as our world is changing at a rapid pace. For some, this means collapse. For others, radical transformation. Or even a new beginning. More about the ideas behind the theme, from the uncertainty of the present to the power of art in times of profound change, can be found on the Festival website. In addition to the Prix Ars Electronica and S+T+ARTS award ceremonies, Festival highlights include the official opening on September 3 in St. Mary’s Cathedral: Musicians from the Bruckner Orchestra Linz will perform excerpts from the Walzersymphonie, a Futurelab project that explores artistic co-creation with AI in composition. Admission is free.
Open Futurelab
The Open Futurelab at POSTCITY opens up the potential to change our understanding of systems, technologies, environments, and ourselves with a wide range of works. To shape the future, not by controlling outcomes, but by creating the conditions for change.
From installations and prototypes to workshops, guided tours, and talks, visitors become active participants. They explore the fundamental truth of human experience and machinic reality, as well as the influence of AI personalities on our behavior. Interactive, speculative communication between different species featuring ravens is just as much a part of the Open Futurelab as discussions on how the integration of data, art, and science can promote the collaborative revitalization of rural regions in Japan. Collaborative design is also at the heart of an innovative XR sandbox tool and a new type of city tour that invites people to share their perspectives. In addition, there are new developments in the field of n-dimensional origami robotics that connect Futurelab research with invited artists.
Futurelab Night
At Futurelab Night on Saturday evening in Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Center, the work of Futurelab will be presented as a large-scale audiovisual experience in the form of a multisensory dialogue. The members of Futurelab will present a “future report” on their latest work and projects, including experiments with synchronization and co-presence in hybrid spaces shared with avatars, as well as experiments on how n-dimensional origami can be made visible and audible. The program will once again be complemented by unique performances.
In order to welcome as many visitors as possible to this crowd favorite, Futurelab Night will once again be presented in two slots. Some of the works will also be on display during the day in Deep Space 8K.
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, Valentina Mullabazi, Otto Naderer, Nicolas Naveau, Ali Nikrang, Hideaki Ogawa, Maria Pfeifer, Johannes Pöll, Daniel Rammer, Erwin Reitböck, Raphael Schaumburg-Lippe, Simon Schmid, Anna Weiss, Cyntha Wieringa