Lynceus’ Dream

University of Arts Linz (AT)

At times we wish that we could foresee the future, whether near or distant, what might unfold in the world. Individual foresight and eyesight merely share etymological roots, with the latter, seeing, retaining some objectivity among us sighted creatures. Human vision, as a complex biological process, is shaped by the proximate empirical world. This intimate bodily connection renders a “disembodied” vision virtually inconceivable. However, the aid of optical devices and technical visual prostheses has allowed for the development of a distinct form of vision, reaching beyond the immediacy of our bodily experience. 

In many domains, vision is now delegated to technology. New tech sees for us—deep into our world, even into the future—leading to vision becoming increasingly detached from the body and its physiological functions. What does this mean for us?

Lynceus (from the Greek for “lynx-like”), a character from Greek mythology, had a special gift. Not only did he possess a keen and alert eye, helping him recognize our world’s beautiful moments, he also had a technical eye, allowing him to see through people, walls and objects to the very core of our world. As one of the most important Argonauts, his clear vision, both near and far, was an advantage. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe regarded Lynceus as remarkable. In his drama Faust II, Lynceus, the tower warder, announces the arrival of Helen in the third act, and witnesses Mephisto’s arson in the fifth act. The song of Lynceus the tower watchman begins with an ode to sight and the world:

To see is my dower,  
To look my employ,  
My charge is the tower,  
The world is my joy.  
My glances afar light,  
My glances light near,  
On sun, moon and star-light,  
On woodland and deer. 
In all the eternal  
Adornment I see,  
Well-pleaséd with all things,  
Well-pleased too with me.  
Ye eye-balls entrancéd,  
Whate’er ye have seen,  
Where’er ye have glanced,  
So fair hath it been !

The first part of the poem breaks off abruptly. Nature’s harmony seems but a memory, an internalized vision, while a looming threat of danger and devastation waits:

Not alone though to delight me  
Am I posted here so high.  
What a horror to affright me  
Threatens from the midnight-sky !  
Glancing sparks stream helter-skelter  
Through the lime-trees’ double night ;  
Ever wilder glows the welter  
By the draught fanned fiercely bright.  
Ah, the inner hut is flaming  
Moist and moss-grown that did stand there,  
Speediest assistance claiming,  
Yet no rescue is at hand there.  
Misadventure oh how dreadful !  
Woe is me !  The good old folk,  
Once about the fire so heedful  
Victims fall they to the smoke.  
Flames are flaring !  Glowing redly  
Stands the black and moss-grown frame.  
Kindly souls, if from the deadly  
Hell they could but rescue them !  
Lambent tongues of flame it launches.  
‘Twixt the leaves and ‘twixt the branches.  
Withered boughs that flicker burning,  
Briefly glow and fall, I see.  
Ill-starred eyes, such sight discerning !  
So far-sighted must I be !  
Crashes in the little chapel  
Burdened ‘neath the branches’ fall.  
Barbed flames already grapple,  
Wreathing, with the summits tall.  
Now unto the roots the hollow  
Trunks are glowing purple-red. — 
What the eye once loved to follow,  
With the centuries is dead. 

 Lynceus, the tower, a time marked by multiple crises and the many questions surrounding the power of sight: these are the starting points for the University of Arts Linz’s contribution to Hope—who will turn the tide—the theme of this year’s Ars Electronica Festival. On Linz’s Hauptplatz a tower built by die architektur, a department of the University of Arts Linz, allows visitors to reflect on themes of vision and sight, offering a variety of interpretations. The idea of having a tower rise over Linz’s Hauptplatz is something Paul Eis and Maximilian Meindl have been playing with for the last two years. Yet the tower is not meant to be seen as a symbol of power or control. On the contrary, the idea is based on critical self-reflection and encourages the ability to see different options: How do we see? Who sees for us and influences our perception? What is it we want to see?

Is it possible that Lynceus has grown weary of his analytical and predictive vision? Has it reached its limits? A vision that not only impresses with its clarity but is aware of its own limitations and directs attention to openings and potential. A vision that engages with obscurity playfully rather than attempting to lift its veil?  This brings up the question of what happens after vision. What is next? What would you dream of if you could see everything? In short, what are Lynceus’ Dreams?

ARCHITECTURE

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DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

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FASHION & TECHNOLOGY

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FINE ARTS

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FINE ARTS / CULTURAL STUDIES

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GRAPHIC-DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY

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INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

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  • UN.DISCIPLINED 

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INTERFACE CULTURES

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    Maria Dirneder (AT)

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  • Shock Value (or Cadavre Exquis) 

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  • Super Tapestry

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  • Tangible AI 

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  • The Scream of Music

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  • Through Other’s Eyes

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MEDIA CULTURE AND ART THEORIES

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  • Dreaming in Bubbles 

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MEDIA DESIGN

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PhD-PROGRAM

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POSTDIGITAL LUTHERIE

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SCULPTURAL CONCEPTIONS / CERAMICS

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    Jieun Kim (KO)

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    Younggon Kim (KR)

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    The idea for this project came during my early days of migration when I left Iran. In a new place with no memories or sense of belonging, the most frequent sound I heard was the map guide helping me find my way. Often, I got lost in the city.

SPACE&DESIGNSTRATEGIES

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    Robin Renner (AT)

    The mixed-media installation pays tribute to our deepest feelings that we fail to express in words; occurrences that our minds cannot grasp; to people prosecuted for having no acceptable explanation; to us letting go of written identities.

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    Lorenzo Iannantuoni (IT)

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TEXTILE ART AND DESIGN

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    pisskino

    Aleksandar Murkovic (HR)

    This project is about taboos, fetishes, and fun. By focusing aesthetic value around the objects themselves, I hope to construct a kind of unreal beauty, combining surreal elements in digital space. I created this short using Blender 3D software.

  • Sodium Alginate Yarn Samples Project 2023

    Sodium Alginate Yarn Samples Project 2023

    Woonji IM (KR)

    This project explores the use of yarn made from seaweed-derived sodium alginate as a bioplastic. Over 100 samples of 10cm segments of yarn are dyed using spices, tea powders, cosmetics, markers, and paints to highlight recyclability.

TIME-BASED AND INTERACTIVE MEDIA ARTS

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    Pal Klex (AT)

    The video installation a² addresses physical and psychological expectations placed on people socialized as men. The artist assumes the role of a man under pressure, symbolized by a self-optimization coach. This tension leads to an endless “optimization loop,” a constant interplay between food, sport and the pressure to live up to the image of the…

  • An der Kassa musst’ ich an dich denken

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    Lisa Studener (AT), Pat Göckert (AT)

    What is falling in love, and how does one experience it? The documentary thoroughly explores the multifaceted theme of falling in love, shedding light on various realities through the perspectives of its protagonists.

  • Bare Souls

    Bare Souls

    Elena Jäger (DE)

    The work arose from the problem of having unrealistically high expectations of myself when it came to the perfection of a work of art. To compensate, I chose techniques where I could not influence the outcome as much as I would have liked (pottery, drawing, and for the first time 3D-modeling and -painting).

  • Catfeet 

    Catfeet 

    Maryam Ibrahim (DE)

    Gummy bears are artificial objects designed in vivid colors, with bright smells to generate an assumption of ongoing fun. In Catfeet, the famous candy is taken out of its consumption context and instead transformed into a material that provides a variety of patterns. Furthermore, it has a complex relationship with light where it reflects, reacts…

  • Dream States

    Dream States

    Maxemilian van der Meer (DE)

    Dream States captures the unique warping of reality and perception in dreams, which only becomes apparent when reflecting on them after waking up. Recurring dreams of being stuck at a train station / on a train going nowhere are reinterpreted as 3D-scanned environments.

  • echoes of ferro

    echoes of ferro

    Janik Valler (DE)

    An arm raises dust, shaping it into a drip-like form before allowing it to settle back into its original state. It is a cyclic procedure of chance, existing somewhere between control and chaos. The mechanism remains constant, yet each outcome is distinct and unique.

  • Entre deux mots

    Entre deux mots

    Cécile Bucher (CH)

    Entre deux mots is an audiovisual and immersive dance piece developed for the deep space environment. Fragmented words and past conversations echo in the visualization in an abstract manner while performers navigate between the seen and the unseen, the spoken and the unspoken.

  • everything beautiful and everything dead

    everything beautiful and everything dead

    Isabel Schulz (AT)

    This animated short aims to experiment with an abstract way of storytelling – reminiscent of poetry – in animation. In the story we are transported to a foreign, drab world made up only of grayscales, where its inhabitants strive for a way to turn their world colorful.

  • HUMAN BREEDER: PROTOTYPE: 01

    HUMAN BREEDER: PROTOTYPE: 01

    Sidse Rebien (DK)

    Human Breeder: Prototype: 01 is a sculpture made of metal, paper and bio-foil. Recordings of breath are implemented inside a sound system to give the artefact mechanical lungs and the association of life, which also grows within.

  • ILLUMINATED NOTHING

    ILLUMINATED NOTHING

    Emilia Vogt (DE)

    A public 24-hour act of doing nothing: non-action is contrasted with external influences, reversing the roles within the context of art. InILLUMINATED NOTHING, performer Emilia Vogt spends 24 hours in a publicly visible room doing nothing except basic life-sustaining needs like sitting, standing, drinking, using the toilet, etc.

  • Im Lot

    Im Lot

    Noah Berger (DE), Josef Hamberger (DE), Emilia Vogt (DE)

    Im Lot was originally an installation by Josef Hamberger, featuring hundreds of sheets marked by Rosa Still, an Alzheimer’s patient. Rosa, now deceased, wrote nearly all her thoughts, from basic needs like “I’m hungry” to expressions of her fear of death.

  • Klaus – Special Episode #2 

    Klaus – Special Episode #2 

    Daniel Walter (AT)

    Klaus is a man of European origin who emigrated to America and attempts to showcase his life from his small apartment. He aims to share his experiences on his own YouTube channel with the world, hoping to build a small community with which he can interact.

  • Like a hippie on an island

    Like a hippie on an island

    Friederike Weber (DE)

    The artist explores the concept of freedom by asking various people abstract questions. Questions like “What color is freedom?” invite the interviewees to reflect on the topic. The documentary features 11 people of different ages, backgrounds, and beliefs, allowing them to share their personal views on what freedom means to them.

  • Linear Dialogue 

    Linear Dialogue 

    Daniel Walter (AT), Sofiia Zeifert (RU)

    Linear Dialogue is an improvisational piece between a guitar player and a dancer who are both trying to read the other person’s movements and actions to sync with each other. The performance is visualized with a reactive patch made in Max Msp which functions as a backdrop projected on a screen.

  • LINIE 101 

    LINIE 101 

    Joachim Smetschka (AT), Holunder Manuel Heiß (AT)

    An interactive light installation consisting of 101 light bars, a touchscreen and tracking sensors: for the first time ever, it seems to have become possible to move through space at the speed of light without huge danger.

  • Lost Iterations

    Lost Iterations

    Ariathney Coyne (GR/US), Hazem Wakaf (SY)

    Lost Iterations is a visual experience, approaching abstraction and narration. A random reconfiguration of light, movement, cameras, and humans, leads to organic, hypnotic, and abstract visuals.

  • Murmur

    Murmur

    Lynn Mayya (SY)

    Murmur is a sound installation that creates a sensory trip within space and body; it harnesses the qualities of white noise. The aim is to create a soothing hypnotic space by simulating the wind’s movement and the changes the thin surfaces dance to.

  • mushroom universe

    mushroom universe

    Elena Katharina Richtsfeld (AT), Hannes Buchwieser (DE)

    The project mushroom universe creatively displays mushrooms to inspire curiosity and appreciation for fungi and science. It combines minimalist art with scientific concepts, featuring living mycelium in terrariums, videos, photos, mushroom paper, dried mushrooms, and spore prints.

  • NOUMENON

    NOUMENON

    Hannes Buchwieser (DE)

    NOUMENON shows microscopies from the Bio Lab of the Ars Electronica Center, featuring microorganisms like tardigrades and amoebas, revealing a hidden world alongside images from the NASA archive. It showcases environmentally harmful “glitter” which creates striking optical effects, while nothing living remains in the sample after it is added to the water.

  • Obsessive Realities 

    Obsessive Realities 

    Milena Stępień (PL)

    what if you live out the darkest thoughts / recreating the unimaginable outcome / diving into and / exploring paranoia / obsessive realities / the worst that could happen / that one scene, that could not have been real

  • Paragon

    Paragon

    Carlotta Borcherding (DE), Semi Lim (KR), Veronika Maidukova (UA)

    Paragon tells a story of two characters, their dynamic with each other and their relationship to light and darkness. The performance is based on an interactive program responding to movement within a sensory tracking system.

  • Persona

    Persona

    Teodor Dumitrache (RO)

    Persona is an experimental, interactive, audio-visual exploration of how we constantly change our inner selves. With a control surface, it is possible to change the two halves of the virtual psyche to assemble a new persona. In this implementation, each variant of the psyche has an accompanying sound; sounds combine to convey feelings that cannot…

  • Rivity

    Rivity

    Alex Villard (MX), Julian Villegas (AR)

    This project showcases a live collaboration between a drum player and an electronic-based musician. The performance brings with it an unlearning philosophy as it distances itself from all traditional paradigms of traditional sounds and rhythms and incorporate new technologies as well as coming back to the roots.

  • Sachen die keinen Grund haben

    Sachen die keinen Grund haben

    Ronja Hoffert (AT)

    In the rarest events, it is satisfying to accept not knowing things, although it seems like the easiest and most satisfying thing to do, because all you must do, is nothing. Or not? Without knowing what it is, the whole theme about nothing caught my interest (intensively).

  • SHE MAKES ME FEEL 

    SHE MAKES ME FEEL 

    Stella Weiß (DE)

    This work highlights the emotions of two women discovering their true sexualities together for the first time. Three different surfaces (Plaster Pussy, Soft Spheres, The Layers In Between) were made by the artist to serve as a projection backdrop.

  • Sojakas Boating (Arcade version)

    Sojakas Boating (Arcade version)

    Jakob Florian Luckeneder (AT)

    Sojakas Boating is another playable excerpt from the Sojakas-Universe: A dystopian sci-fi universe with critical undertones. The game takes the players to an absurdist cyberpunk version of Venice and places them in the roles of delivery/taxi drivers, competing for the high score and avoiding water traffic.

  • tell me everything about love 

    tell me everything about love 

    Julian Holzer (IT)

    The short film tell me everything about love is a personal artistic exploration aimed at describing and depicting love. Inspired by the artist’s own curiosity about love, having never experienced it firsthand, the movie explores this emotion through interviews and recordings.

  • The Mark of Them

    The Mark of Them

    Hazem Wakaf (SY/BR), Mahsa Jalili (IR)

    The Mark of Them is a poetic digital installation navigating the depths of alienation and the fractured identity of being an outsider; too Eastern for the West, too Western for the East, non-belonging and constantly defeated.

  • Universal Story 

    Universal Story 

    Florian Klammer (AT), Naho Takeda (JP), Lynn Mayya (SY)

    Universal Story is a collaboration between Time-based and Interactive Media Arts, University of Arts Linz and the Anton Bruckner Private University. It follows a hero and their journey in three parts: departure, initiation, and return.

  • What Awaits Out There?

    What Awaits Out There?

    Sharon Nesyt (DE)

    What Awaits Out There? invites viewers on a journey into the unknown. The work consists of a painting and an accompanying sound installation. The painting explores the beauty of a future world, still open and uncertain to us humans. The sound represents the here and now – the concrete human experiences in the moment.

TIME-BASED MEDIA

  • Biophony: Dancing Nature 

    Biophony: Dancing Nature 

    Lesia Kvitka (UA), Cameron J Laing (GB/LU), Miriam Strasser (AT), Alina Tofan (RO), Alberto Monreal (ES), Lucía Callén (ES), Alec Ilyine (BE), Salomé Méndez (CO), Fernando Fernández Sánchez (ES)

    The Biophony art project, from interdisciplinary research at the MolinoLab Residency in May 2024, showcases the synergy of technology, science, art, and human interactions. This collaboration illustrates how humans can create with nature using technology.

  • Blütenstaubzimmer  

    Blütenstaubzimmer  

    Stephanie Bergwinkl (DE), Caroline Alena Bergwinkl (DE)

    Two artifacts from the family archive – our grandma’s poetry album from 1943 and our granddad’s clothing as a Bavarian police officer after 1945 are featured. Artifacts from our father’s side act as pollen, as the male part that contributes to inheritance.

  • Cultural Reorganization 

    Cultural Reorganization 

    Yinglin Zhou (CN)

    Cultural Reorganization by Zhou Yinglin is a textual-video piece based on her research on cultural issues. Described as a fictional narrative, it falls under her concept of cultural futurism. The narrative envisions an experiment of Earth’s civilization reorganization after human extinction, exploring cultural relativism, inclusivity, diversity, and addressing issues like cultural hegemony and homogenization.

  • Dirty Data

    Dirty Data

    Simon Hehl (DE)

    Whenever we think about data and data-processing systems, we are mostly thinking of something clean. So, what do we mean when we use the term “dirty data”? What does “dirty” signify? What makes our data dirty? And how do we deal with it?

  • Disrupted Reality 

    Disrupted Reality 

    AmiRali Bashiri (IR/AT), Sashe Urdovski (MK/AT)

    Disrupted Reality is a collaborative live video-audio performance/installation project where equipment serves as the medium rather than just tools. Input devices are being fed with the same material they are producing. Therefore, there is a considerable time delay in this re-feeding process.

  • Eigengrau 

    Eigengrau 

    Verena Mayrhofer (AT)

    Eigengrau is described in German, as well as in English, as that color which one perceives in complete darkness. Since a perception of black is only possible with simultaneous bright contrast, black exists for humans in the external, but not in the internal.

  • Gomboc in Space  

    Gomboc in Space  

    Onur Sekmen (CY/TR)

    Gomboc in Space is created through a callandresponse technique formed between Gökçe Göbüt, Neslihan Yakut, and Onur Sekmen. Visuals from Göbüt’s art game “Quasicritical ” and Yakut’s text “The Space” are brought together by Sekmen in a media form that explores the relation between body and space using the form Gomboc as the body in…

  • HyperHuman

    HyperHuman

    Vildan Dülgeroglu (TR), Güney Tombak (TR)

    A phase space is a diagram that defines all possibilities within a system. HyperHuman, composed of a phase space diagram, exists through the dark possibilities of our personalities, drawing from our losses within the systems we create and inhabit. By digitalizing extreme individuality, HyperHuman survives, mirroring our undefined forms through phase space visualization.

  • sehen, gesehen werden, sich selbst sehen und drunter, drüber, gegenüberstehen 

    sehen, gesehen werden, sich selbst sehen und drunter, drüber, gegenüberstehen 

    Isabel Wöckl (AT), Ellinor Brandenburg (DE)

    A figure crafted from multiplied and distorted fragments of various people and body parts: not an individual but representing a group that is shaped, altered, and defined by its environment. Visitors are invited to wander through the space and take a closer look at the installation, placing not only their gaze but their entire body…

  • The Garden of Earthly Delights – Bird, Human and Geology 1&2 

    The Garden of Earthly Delights – Bird, Human and Geology 1&2 

    Jieyuan Huang (CN)

    Inspired by Bosch’s work, the first video uses generative adversarial networks and 3D graphics to create a digital Garden of Eden. Birds, humans, and geology are rendered as virtual forms, symbolizing technological algorithms.

  • Y O U  W E R E  A L W A Y S  T H E R E

    Y O U  W E R E  A L W A Y S  T H E R E

    Sanaz Rafii (IR)

    This project revisits significant pages from Iran’s history with the focus on the presence of women in Iran and the struggle of the people for freedom. I captured these photos during the human chain event amid the presidential election period in 2009.

VISUAL COMMUNICATION

  • Regimes of Growth 

    Regimes of Growth 

    Anika Haider (AT), Jakob Hauser (AT)

    Given beneficial environmental conditions, algae populations double their numbers every few hours, pushing ecosystems past tipping points. Algae goes from a crucial energy base to a destructive force.

  • The Beauty of Decomposition

    The Beauty of Decomposition

    Rehab Hasanen (EG)

    7 days of more-than-human impressions It all started when I began observing the bio trashcan and my flatmates’ consumption habits. I realized they would buy many vegetables and fruits, let them rot without consuming them, or throw them away owing to small defects.

MORE PROJECTS

  • BIP on Critical Data

    BIP on Critical Data

    The Blended Intensive Program (BIP) on Critical Data is a collaborative effort with partner universities in Sevilla (Spain) and Limassol (Cyprus) together with the University of Arts Linz (Austria). It was established to address issues, challenges, and perspectives in a technology-dominated world. Students and professors of the three institutions engage in regular knowledge transfer sessions…

  • Circular Consumer Experience

    Circular Consumer Experience

    Bruna Petreca (BR), Ricardo O’Nascimento (BR), Marianna Obrist (IT), Christopher Dawes (UK), Nona Shabanova (RU/CA), Sharon Baurley (UK)

    Research by the Textiles Circularity Centre reveals that linking human well-being with material flow contributes to reducing textile consumption. Visitors will experience a multisensory VR simulation of the future High Street and will use a special keyboard to express their well-being.

  • DORFTV – Radical Broadcast 

    DORFTV – Radical Broadcast 

    In 2024, DORFTV will once again set up its studio in the former ‘Studio Schirmmacher’ at the Infopoint of the University of Arts Linz at Hauptplatz, and invite guests for an afternoon/evening. Students, teachers from the University of Arts Linz and artists will present their projects in a live open house broadcast and talk about…

  • SOUND CAMPUS 

    SOUND CAMPUS 

    Sound Campus is a program presented in collaboration with Ars Electronica and University of Arts Linz, from September 3-5, 2024. This year’s edition Sound Campus – Sonic Fever takes the shape of a carrier bag of sounds and diverse forms of musical expression. Looking to the power of sound as catalyst and shapeshifter, it proposes…

  • entangled homes

    entangled homes

    Catrin Manoli, Sule Suarez, Sofia Talanti, Kristina Tica, Mobina Vatandoost, Anna Kraher

    The exhibition entangled homes explores themes of home, identity and belonging intertwined with power dynamics. It blends analog and digital spaces, featuring diverse artworks including comics, GIFs, and memes. Selected works will be displayed at WHA Gallery, University of Arts Linz.

Credits

Manuela Naveau 
Initiator and Curator of Kunstuni Campus@Ars Electronica Festival, 
Professor of Critical Data at the Interface Cultures Department 
of the University of Arts Linz 
 
Viktoria Angyal, Barbara Jazbec, Sylvia Leitner, Reinhard Reisenzahn, Alexander Wöran 
Project Management of Kunstuni 
Campus@Ars Electronica Festival 
 
Paul Eis, Maximilian Meindl 
Architects of Tower Hauptplatz

MOOI Design
Design

Translation of the excerpts from Faust II by Albert G. Latham (Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Goethe’s Faust: parts I and II, London 1912)