SUPER DOMMUNE tuned by au5G Presents “TOKYO REAL”
Naohiro Ukawa (JP), Seiichi Saito (JP), Ei Wada (JP), Yamakawa Fuyuki (JP), ZVIZMO / Tentenko(JP), Atsuhiro Ito, (JP)

Created by artist Ukawa, DOMMUNE has been running for over 10 years and has been fusing academia, music, entertainment and art together in a live setting. This experimentation, methodology and way of creating online shows has influenced many people around the world and has been a big influence in the various online developments at Covid-19.

Addressing Ethics, Bias and Colonial Legacies in Emerging Media 
Courtney D. Cogburn (US),  Moderator: Jesse Damiani (US) 

In this talk, we will examine the relationship that emerging technologies have with the past, ranging from biased algorithms to the unequal degree of access that has been granted to different communities—and by extension how they have been respectively represented in media and technology. As art created with these technologies increasingly enters the public discourse, how can artists thoughtfully engage these media as tools to subvert the legacies of colonialism rather than unwittingly reinforce them? 

Habitat 
Heleen Blanken (NL)

The environmental crisis and the destruction of habitats forces us to imagine a future in which nature can be remembered in digital form. Natural history museums seek to preserve nature physically by fixing it in time and space. How might the archiving of nature evolve in a digital context? Could it bring us even closer to nature?  Habitat is a data-driven installation that uses 3D scans of organic artefacts such as stones, corals and fossils from Leiden’s Naturalis Biodiversity Center and transforms them into a game-like, meditative environment. You are invited to reconnect with the wonder of nature as you navigate through a series of ever-evolving digital worlds, each accompanied by its own soundscape. Original installation is on display at Nxt Museum. 

Within a Latent Space
LOREM (IT) 

Entirely realized though AI systems, "Within a Latent Space" is an AV performance about exploring past, present and future as it relates to our constant journey between our transpersonal psyches and non-human unconscious. A Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) was trained on an original plot based on a dataset composed by multiple transcriptions of dreams.  AI-generated images and sound interpret than those words, disclosing an eerie, uncanny journey into our common deepest.

Econtinuum
Kathy Steppe (BE), Thijs Biersteker (NL). Moderation: Bogomir Doringer (RS/NL) 

We do not acknowledge that collaboration with plants is paramount to our existence.  Econtinuum is a new installation by ecological artist Thijs Biersteker, in partnership with different scientists and commissioned by Nxt Museum. It visualises the latest pioneering research into plant-to-plant communication. In discussion with the artist and bio-engineer in environmental technology, we will uncover how trees work together, how to learn from each other, warn each other and share nutrients, but also how we can learn from it to improve our own communication and relationships. We can again connect with nature by using the latest technology.

Autonomy & AI: Who is using Who?
Sari Depreeuw (BE), Francesco D’Abbraccio aka LOREM (IT)

Creative Artificial Intelligence and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are by now daily used in the production of images, videos and art. This creative relationship is exciting yet not very clear. Largest part of production feeds into popular deep fakes and face swapping tendencies. We do feel a layer of suspense and concern when it comes to ownership of AI produced artworks. For this reason, we are meeting an expert in digital law, AI media artist, to discuss the role of AI in society today and tomorrow.

Zero Footprint
Douglas Rushkoff

In the 2020 festival “Zero Footprint”, subtitled “Living and Connecting on a Damaged Earth”, IMPAKT will focus on the climate crisis through the eyes of artists and radical thinkers. How can we create structural change that can serve the many instead of the few?

Influencer
oneseconds (NL)

A 20 minute online interactive performance where the audience decides the faith of the protagonist. Influencer questions the autonomy of the human being in modern times. How far are we influenced by the majority?

Future Focus – Fragile Worlds I
Invisible Flock, Kasia Molga, Dr. Joanne Tippett, Irini Papadimitriou

This session takes viewers on a virtual studio tour and conversation with artists sharing work, and engaging with and responding to environmental change, and an exploration of how stories of a changing landscape are communicated through nature and other species.

Radicalization by Design - Panel discussion
Joanna Bryson (UK/DE), Bharath Ganesh (US/NL), Richard Rogers (UK/NL), Sahana Udupa (DE). Moderation: Arjon Dunnewind (NL) and Marc Tuters (CA/NL)

Live panel discussion - Speakers from the “Radicalization by Design” web project and other guests will discuss issues of freedom of speech, of extreme speech and deplatforming. Recently the big corporate social media platforms have come under immense pressure to clean up their act.

Vocalise
Miyu Hosoi (JP)

The vibrations of voices in the air create a recognizable sound that spreads through space. Through the Internet, it transcends location and is delivered to the audience. We hope that people all over the world will enjoy her live performance at Ars, where she experiments with her own voice.

Museum inside Network 91 Revisited
Akihiro Kubota (JP), Kazuhiko Hachiya (JP), Koichiro Eto (JP), Yukiko Shikata (JP), Minoru Hatanaka (JP), Seiichi Saito (JP)

NTT ICC in 90s represented an exhibition without reality? This session will invite panelist to think about what media art can do for society in the present day and age, referring to past examples.

Feminist Structures: Networks and the Collective
Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem (CL)

One-actress experimental theatrical performance via webcam, in livestream format, where the original video component is visually transformed and processed in real time through Max/Msp Jitter, in a way that the resulting image is affected by the sound of the voice and body of the same performer, reacting to the energy, rhythm and/or dynamics of the speech and movements.

Elliptical Memories, for six plus one performer
Cristian Galarce López (CL)

Specially composed and designed for Ars Electronica 2020, this work will be performed at a distance from multiple locations and presented in a VR room. The sound sources are centralized in a single platform designed in Max/Msp, to perform Real Time Processing over six independent audio channels.

Rhizomatiks presents PLAYING TOKYO Vol.09 “Special Edition”
Seiichi Saito (JP), Carsten Nicolai (DE), Kazunao Abe (JP), Marko Peljhan (SI), Yukiko Shikata (JP), Daito Manabe (JP)

"Staying TOKYO" originally started as "Flying TOKYO," the talk and workshop event we have been holding since 2009 inviting some of the renowned international artists with whom Daito Manabe has a close relationship. Since the self-restraint advice by the Japanese government, the event has evolved as "Staying TOKYO" and has been running online every week. The first half of the event is a remote talk session with me, Seiichi Saito, inviting guests, and the second half is DJ/VJ session led by Daito Manabe and the engineers at Rhizomatiks introducing online experiments and tool development. Now that self-restrain advice is pull off, with the end of the emergency declaration, we changed the name to "PLAYING TOKYO" and shifted to a new phase to try to include the audience as much as possible in our expressive activities in real space. What can artists do now and what should they do in the field of entertainment? This is a "PLAYING TOKYO: Special Edition" by Rhizomatiks.

Rewinding the History of Japanese Media Art
Ai Hasegawa (JP), Akinori Goto (JP), Ken Furudate (JP), Michiko Tsuda (JP), Minoru Hatanaka (JP), Seiichi Saito (JP)

The history of Japanese media art is very diverse and profound, and it has found various new frontiers. This talk session explores the history of modern Japanese media art in reverse chronological order.

Lenna – Sound installation for personal computer
Miyu Hosoi (JP)

I've heard it said that sound, namely voice, created by human structures has too different a resolution for artificial sounds created with tens of thousands of lines of programming. In this work, Lenna uses her own voice as a medium, and by designing the equipment and space with precision, it feels like an experiment in which the entire space becomes music.

Round Table: Nouvelles technologies et pratiques artistiques dans le contexte d’une crise mondiale:
Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem (CL), Gustavo Celedón Ph.D. (CL), Makis Solomos Ph.D. (FR), Adolfo Vera Ph.D. (CL)

Éthique, Politique, Esthétique et Écologies de l’art - In the round table “New technologies and artistic practices in a global crisis context: Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics and Art Ecologies de l’art texte d’une crise” we aim to reflect collectively about the role of new technologies and art in the current global context with its ethical, political, aesthetical and ecological implications.

(In)audible Valparaiso
Paul Hernández (CL), Marcelo Raffo (CL), Fabián Villalobos (CL), Verónica Francés (ES)

Documentary premiere followed by a talk: A brief excursion to Valparaiso streets that is shaped as an essay-documentary. This 30-minute film shows the city from the perspective of sound and silence, aiming to narrate us part of a hidden history, starting from missing or absent sounds that have disappeared by the passing of time and also, recently, due to confinement.

Irons
Gustavo Celedón Bórquez (CL)

A documentary-essay film of an art-action made in Valparaíso, Chile, in December 2019. The country had risen without return against a ruthless neoliberal economy. On a ruin of irons, a metaphor about the ending of modernity, this small art-action makes a conjuration with the installation of a symbol that sentences a destiny of justice and equality.