La Machine à Tubes / My name is Fuzzy – Bastien Bron (CH), Photo: Das Playground

For AI Inquirers

Suggesting products for online shopping, creating videos or composing music: Artificial Intelligence has many applications. If we want to use it safely in domains like medicine, industrial production or self-driving cars, we need to understand how it works. During the festival, extraordinary artistic works shed light on AI development and application.

Projects

  • Anatomy of Non-Fact

    Anatomy of Non-Fact

    Martyna Marciniak (PL)

    Anatomy of Non-Fact is concerned with the phenomenon of distorted and excessive information in the context of the looming threat of AI-generated images. The work seeks a definition of the aesthetics of fact, via an in-depth analysis of known cases of visual hoaxes, fakes and conspiracies, through visual mapping and artistic responses. Anatomy of Non-Fact…

  • Calculating Empires

    Calculating Empires

    Kate Crawford (AU), Vladan Joler (RS)

    Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualization and physical installation exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries. It traces technological patterns of colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure since 1500 to show how these forces still subjugate and how they might be unwound.

  • GPT 1400: The AI Apothecary

    GPT 1400: The AI Apothecary

    Nathan Cornish (GB)

    If medieval people had had artificial intelligence, would it have made any difference? In fact, AI systems produce very similar nonsense from large databases as pre-scientific Western European physicians! Neither of them has much conception of critical thinking, but rather pulls from ancient texts to throw out cure suggestions from an abstract corpus of ideas.…

  • Intelligent Instruments in Citizen Science

    Intelligent Instruments in Citizen Science

    Thor Magnusson (IS)

    Artificial Intelligence is becoming increasingly human-like and is now proficient in a key human activity: musical creativity. But what does this mean? How does creative AI change our notions of art, culture and society? As new machine learning technologies begin to mirror ourselves, we need to look into that mirror and ask how this is…

  • La Machine à Tubes

    La Machine à Tubes

    My name is Fuzzy—Bastien Bron (CH)

    LA MACHINE À TUBES combines pop music and new technology, creating unique songs by My name is Fuzzy. Bastien Bron explores AI’s potential for entertainment and creativity, rather than its impact on humanity. Audience interaction influences the song generation. This playful, ironic work questions algorithms’ impact on our tastes and the artist’s identity, blending contemporary…

  • Maria CHOIR

    Maria CHOIR

    Maria Arnal (ES)

    Maria CHOIR is an immersive human-AI musical installation that invites participants to explore the boundaries of singing and listening through real-time interaction with an AI that evolves with each interaction, becoming a choir. This artwork is not just an artistic experiment; it is also a social experience of building novel AI musical live tools, collective…

  • ReVerie

    ReVerie

    Pinyao Liu (CN), Keon Ju Lee (KR/CA)

    In collaboration with dream scientists, the ReVerie AI system reflects on the misuse of dream technology by inviting participants to relive their dream experiences and develop new understandings about their waking lives. The audience enters a ritual of whispering their dream objects. A generative diffusion AI model then manifests the dream objects in the shared…

  • Songs about AI

    Songs about AI

    LIT Robopsychology Lab (AT)

    When it comes to AI and music, much focus these days is on AI-generated songs. JKU’s Robopsychology Lab takes a different approach by letting human artists create songs about AI. Why? Research shows that many people feel poorly informed about AI. At the same time, everyone likes music. To promote AI literacy among diverse target…

  • The Turing Game

    The Turing Game

    Bernhard Nessler (AT), Gregor Aichinger (AT), Katharina Leitner (AT)

    Can machines think? Alan Turing’s decades-old question and his famous Turing Test has triggered a new and controversial discussion following the emergence of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models. When do we start to perceive an AI bot as equal to or even more human than other people? Are you able to distinguish an AI…

  • Washed Out “The Hardest Part”

    Washed Out “The Hardest Part”

    Paul Trillo (US)

    A trip and a fall down memory lane. A continuous push forward through time, tracking the relationship of a couple from middle-school into the afterlife. This is the first officially commissioned music video collaboration between a music artist and filmmaker made with OpenAI’s Sora video model. This video is about learning to let go of…

Events

  • Against AI Narratives

    Against AI Narratives

    Rasa Bocyte (LT)

    Mainstream AI narratives suck. We are stuck with language, visuals and metaphors that force us to think about AI’s “transformative potential” and “inevitable adoption”. But is that what we want? At this workshop we will collectively create alternative AI narratives and examine their building blocks.

  • AI & HUMAN

    AI & HUMAN

    Ethel Lilienfeld (FR), Ines Sieulle (FR), Tomás García (AR), Paul Trillo (US), Ida Kvetny (DK), Glenn Marshall (GB)

    The AI & Human program is an annual celebration of the intersection between Artificial Intelligence and animation art, showcasing recent innovations in the field. This year a remarkable one-third of the submissions to Prix Ars Electronica New Animation Art were projects created using AI tools or centered around AI as a theme—the highest number to…

  • AI and Artistic Creation

    AI and Artistic Creation

    Prix Ars Electronica Forum 2024 co-hosted by European Digital Deal

    A day of thought-provoking sessions, interactive workshops, and inspiring case studies on AI and creativity. As AI enters a wide range of spheres in the creative industries, the Prix Ars Electronica Forum program brings together artists, academics, researchers, technologists, and activists to share their perspectives on how AI and artistic creation can intertwine. What is…

  • AI BIAS & BLOOD FOOD WORKSHOP

    AI BIAS & BLOOD FOOD WORKSHOP

    Dimension Plus (TW)

    In globalized AI culture, resource allocation and biases often lead to text-to-image generation. Given the lack of cultural diversity in databases, AI may produce images that do not correspond to reality. This workshop will educate participants on the principles of text-to-image generation and its limitations.

  • AI x Art

    AI x Art

    Ali Nikrang (AT), Susanne Kiesenhofer (AT)

    At a time when generative AI systems are autonomously creating images, videos, and music, the importance of human creativity is increasingly being questioned. But rather than viewing AI as a substitute for our creative abilities, it can support and enhance them.

  • Critical Cartography of the New Extractivism

    Critical Cartography of the New Extractivism

    Vladan Joler (RS)

    This workshop explores different theoretical concepts related to the topics of power, control, digital labor, and exploitation. It is designed to help us understand the complexities enabling the new structures of power hidden behind the screens of our devices.

  • Culture, Democracy, the Rule of Law and the Critical Practice of AI

    Culture, Democracy, the Rule of Law and the Critical Practice of AI

    Paul Nemitz (DE), Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)

    The idea that an innovative and positive future will emerge from artificial intelligence is misguided. It is time for us to stand up for the primacy of democracy over technology and business models.

  • GIRL AI: Playful Subversion with AI & Design

    GIRL AI: Playful Subversion with AI & Design

    Dominika Čupková (SK)

    Our virtual and real lives are almost completely interconnected. Online, offline, virtual, physical & genders—all blend into a hypersoup with one ingredient particularly standing out. AI has furiously entered the chat.

  • Guest Program: Runway’s AI Film Festival

    Guest Program: Runway’s AI Film Festival

    Emeric Leprince (FR), Carlo De Togni & Elena Sparacino (IT), Johans Saldana Guadalupe (PE/US), Katie Luo (US), Junie Lau (CN), Daniel Antebi (MK/US), YZA Voku (ES), Rufus Dye-Montefiore (UK), Luke Dye-Montefiore (UK), Alice Boyd (UK), John Semerad (US) & Dara Semerad (US), Leo Cannone (FR)

    Runway’s AI Film Festival was established in 2022 and welcomes artists embracing new and emerging AI techniques for filmmaking. The selection presented at Ars Electronica features the previous edition’s festival finalists and offers a glimpse into a new creative era.

  • Illuminated Canvases

    Illuminated Canvases

    David Szauder (HU)

    Illuminated canvases is both a visual delight and a reflective journey, emphasizing the role of innovation in the stewardship of cultural treasures.

  • Meet the Artist: Rachel Maclean

    Meet the Artist: Rachel Maclean

    Rachel Maclean (GB)

    Alongside the rich and diverse screening program of Ars Electronica Animation Festival, we are thrilled to announce that several artists awarded at Prix 2024 will be joining us at medSPACE and Deep Space 8k to present their work in person.

  • Open Research & Education

    Open Research & Education

    IT:U FOUNDING LAB Day

    Join us for an enlightening exploration into the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education. This conference brings together leading researchers, academics and practitioners to discuss transdisciplinary AI education and research.

  • Reclaim, Relearn, Resist: Strategies and Practices for the Future of Digital

    Reclaim, Relearn, Resist: Strategies and Practices for the Future of Digital

    S+T+ARTS Day Conference

    This year’s STARTS Day Conference sets out to re-tell the story of inevitable technological progress as contingent and contextual, the result of decisions dictated by particular desires, interests or preferences. To back up this narrative, we spotlight brave initiatives and projects that open up other paths and bifurcations on the road of technological progress that…