Simon Schmid

  • Open Futurelab 2025

    Open Futurelab 2025

    Participate @ Ars Electronica Festival

    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.

  • Inference Ground Truth

    Inference Ground Truth

    Human Experience and Machinic Reality

    Inference Ground Truth explores how machines and humans perceive and record reality. Modern philosophy tells us that true objectivity is impossible. Today’s culture and media often compare personal impressions of shared moments. But even what we seem to agree on is filtered through human perception. This project is a reminder of that deep subjectivity.

  • Open Futurelab 2024

    Open Futurelab 2024

    Shaping HOPE @ Ars Electronica Festival

    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.

  • Mariendom digital

    Mariendom digital

    Zooming In on Cultural Heritage

    The New Cathedral (Mariendom) in Linz celebrated its centenary in 2024 with a large-scale digitization project and a new visitor center including a multimedia exhibition. Here, digitally enhanced showcases for sacred objects and gigapixel images of the cathedral windows await visitors, who can even populate the cathedral digitally with their portraits.

  • missimo

    missimo

    Mobile STEAM Learning for Kids

    missimo is a project for children aged eight to ten that offers many experiments on topics such as AI, robotics, and programming. The special appeal: missimo visits primary schools in Austria’s rural areas by truck.

  • Open Futurelab 2023

    Open Futurelab 2023

    Social Technology @ Ars Electronica Festival

    Reaching out to one another, spreading hope in trying times and literally grasping technology as a social tool for the futures: this is what the Open Futurelab as part of the Ars Electronica Festival 2023, from September 6 to 10, was all about.

  • Futurelab Night Performances 2023

    Futurelab Night Performances 2023

    Futures Report @ Ars Electronica Festival

    Just as in previous years, the Futurelab Night Performances were one of the highlights of the Ars Electronica Festival 2023. This “Artistic Futures Report”, delivered live on Saturday evening in the Deep Space 8K, was a great opportunity to experience the Futurelab’s multifaceted work in concentrated form and up close.

  • Oribotic Instruments

    Oribotic Instruments

    Folding Sound with Origami Robotics

    Our question for this work, What happens to our experience of space when we fold sound? is situated in our research into fundamental artistic methods for origami and robotics, following our central theme of Fold Sensing.

  • Future Teams

    Future Teams

    Communicative Robots for the Workplace

    The Future Teams project aims to develop innovative technologies, spaces, and services that enhance team creativity and foster mutual care in the workplace. Prototypes include three buddy robots with communication skills aimed at enriching future teamwork.

  • Futurelab Day 2022

    Futurelab Day 2022

    Creative Resilience @ Ars Electronica Festival

    In 2022, the Ars Electronica Futurelab once again organized a special “Open Futurelab” program for the general public during the Ars Electronica Festival: Futurelab Day on September 8, themed “Creative Resilience for a Planet B.”

  • Alchemists of the Future

    Alchemists of the Future

    25 years of Ars Electronica Futurelab

    In 2021, the Ars Electronica Futurelab celebrated its 25th anniversary. Under the heading Alchemists of the Future, the Open Futurelab therefor presented a look back at the lab’s challenges and successes, but most importantly its latest ideas and glimpes into the future.

  • Stream of Hope

    Stream of Hope

    Large-Scale Fluxel Performance in Japan

    Ars Electronica Futurelab’s Fluxels, a scalable swarm of ground robots equipped with hexagonal LED displays, brought about a new language of visual expression. Stream of Hope in Osaka and Yokohama showcased their versatility at large-scale events.