Hands for the Future is a participatory media installation at the Ars Electronica Center that serves as a call to action for the various deep issues that humanity urgently needs to address.
The Ars Electronica Futurelab presented Hands for the Future in 2021 as part of it’s 25-year anniversary. Since then, a media wall made up of 2,000 E-ink displays at the entrance to the Ars Electronica Center slowly presents the things we need to act on now. If you look closely at the words, you will notice that the messages were created by combining hand scans. As visitors raise their hands to take action in the installation, their hands are captured and become part of the larger message.
Hands for the Future; photo: Birgit Cakir
Hands for the Future; photo: Birgit Cakir
Hands for the Future; photo: Birgit Cakir
Hands for the Future; photo: Birgit Cakir
When the work was initiated, the world was facing a pandemic and its cascading changes. The lab team derived various questions from these challenges: How can we transform the conventional framework, that has become fatigued, into a better social system? Where will people live in the 21st century, and how will they cope with limited resources and environmental crises?
Hands for the Future will continue to ask us what actions we should take as responsible citizens.