HOPE: the touch of many

Theme Exhibition Co-Curator
Olga Tykhonova (UA)

During the five days of the festival, the exhibition inhabits the architecture of the POSTCITY’s bunker and unfolds as a shared space and a contact zone. It is a tapestry of conceptual, sensual and emotional journeys through and within artistic inquiries and research domains. It is also an interface that reveals the collaborative and empowering endeavours of Ars Electronica, its multiple partnerships and commitments. The extensive journey through the concrete underground maze is divided into five parts. A prologue in the festival’s opening area is followed by an underground descent unfolding across three chapters that follow the twists and turns of the bunker’s architecture. The journey concludes with an epilogue before resurfacing from the depths of POSTCITY.

Hope is a great intangible.

Neither a belief that everything was, is, or will be fine, nor a substitute for action, hope is rather a basis for action. We choose to hope. Amidst defeatism and cynicism, amnesia and ignorance, we choose to recognize, commit to and develop radical possibilities built on alternative views of a more compassionate, communal and cooperative human nature. To be hopeful without being delusional we need an account of the complexities and uncertainties that provide openings for collective power and action towards collective transformation. Scientific arguments alone apparently cannot compel us to act, as the urgency of climate change clearly demonstrates. But if scientific evidence is not enough, what is?

It can be—the power and impact of affecting our sensory and emotional capacity can be. As Rebecca Solnit warned us, we need to recognize the shades of grey between black and white to maybe see the world in full colour, to be hopeful in a meaningful and impactful way. How can we cultivate and enhance this sensitivity if we aim for actionable hope, hope that bridges the gap between envisioning a better future and taking action in the turbulent present? Affects, emotions and our entire sensory capacity—rather than rational arguments alone—play a decisive role in and impact on changing behaviour and culture. As a society, we depend on an ongoing boost of imagination activism to set up better (if not new) and more mindful ways to communicate and organize in exhilarating alliances across distance and difference. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that mutual aid is an important evolutionary factor among all non-humans. Despite difference, time pressure and resources scarcity, not because of altruism, calculation, advantage or survival mechanism—but from a deep understanding of kin, interconnectedness and structurally embedded mutuality and interconnected wellbeing. Our lifestyle choices are not driven solely by rational factors. To counter the destruction of the earth and foster coexistence, we need to develop more complex ways of thinking that go beyond the logical cause and effect and ensure that poetry too survives in the world.

That powerhouse of imagination and worldbuilding, the writer Ursula Le Guin has heeded great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. “What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel – or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel – is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become… For the story is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding.” Within the overarching theme of this year’s festival, “HOPE,” the exhibition spotlights and underlines the “superpower” of artists and their role in society as significant critical others and storytellers.

Artists have the superpower to eliminate indifference, to ignite hope that moves us, ultimately and at its best, hope that moves us to act. Hope is neither a gift nor a remedy, but something that artists can spark and cultivate within us all. They inspire confidence to endeavor and a commitment to pursuing possibilities, protecting the ineffable, the unmarketable, the poetic and the eccentric. Artists challenge us to see beyond the confines of what is, highlighting and activating what is or should be within our view, and scattering seeds of awareness and courage. The exhibition showcases various strategies and methodologies, including scanning the horizon, intertwining social design with eccentric engineering, creating interfaces for dialogues and polylogues and triggering, translating and expanding the senses.

And as we move along the concrete maze, artists stress and stretch both our sensory and our emotional capacities as far as possible. The power and impact of this influence must go beyond mere aesthetics of watching and listening. It should enhance compassion, collaboration and mindful coexistence rooted in solidarity and kinship. As artists translate future uncertainties into present-day choices and we encounter both their tangible and imaginative worlds, we might discover personal and collective power and a sense of connection that is both emotional and political. To follow Octavia Butler’s notion of “new suns,” artists help us collectively to envision these new horizons, allowing other landscapes to emerge. Embarking on a journey in a bunker, we embrace two forms and promises of hope: hope created by us and for us to create. We are challenged to feel and urged to act, invited to touch and be touched.

Text: Olga Tykhonova

Presented in the context of the European Digital Deal project, part of the theme exhibition is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The exhibition features works from EMAP (The European Media Art Platform) residency created through the European Media Artist in Residence Exchange (EMARE), the CIFO x Ars Electronica Award supported by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) and a work supported by the Institut Ramon Llull. The exhibition also includes artworks awarded the ArTS (Art, Technology, Society) Production Grant for Swiss Artists, a grant supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and a project awarded the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity, supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. Another work was co-produced by Ars Electronica and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and one project has been developed during the TAICCA x Ars Electronica Art Thinking program.