Conferences / Lectures / Talks

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Opening Talk
In this opening talk, the directors of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, Horst Hörtner, Roland Haring and Hideaki Ogawa, will talk about the role of the Ars Electronica Futurelab – Ars Electronica's research and development department –, its current research topics and projects as well as what you can expect at Open Futurelab this year.

The Wild State
Campus
THE WILD STATE is the title of this year’s Kunstuniversität Campus activities at Hauptplatz Linz during Ars Electronica Festival 2020 from 9. – 13. September 2020. Existing since 2002, the intention of the Campus format is to invite outstanding international universities working in the academic fields of media arts and design. This year with an exhibition with contributions by various partner universities, as well as the departments Interface Cultures, Visual Communication, Fashion&Technology, Art Education, and Design: Tech.Tex. Special events comprise façade projection “Interfacing Hauptplatz”, the Internet flea market “Yami-ichi”, discursive format “Agora Digitalis” and the top notch nightline “Sound Campus”.

Sensory Orders
ŁAŹNIA Centre for Contemporary Art (PL)
The Ars Electronica Garden Gdańsk, hosted by ŁAŹNIA Contemporary Art Centre, features Sensory Orders, a project examining the different orders of sensemaking taking place under our (current) conditions of extreme precariousness and uncertainty.

Chronicles of an Art and Science Collaboration, Otaniemi-Espoo, Finland
Aalto University (FI)
The project highlights the use of autoethnographic narrative as tool for artistic and design research. It brings together self-reflections from three scientists who participated in an art and science collaboration dealing with the use of bio-cellulose for art and design purposes. Through their stories we learn about what inspired them to follow careers in science and how the making of a contribution to sustainability and the good of humankind sustains their work objectives.

Uncertain Practices
Aalto University (FI)
Uncertainty requies that one be able to cope with doubt, something that 2020 took to unusual lengths. uncertainty is also the basis for experimental art practices. The Aalto Garden presents three artists ―Koray Tahiroğlu, Laura Beloff and Andy Best― working through AI, music, artificial biology and an art-science network platform through studio visits, talks and a performance. The Aalto Garden events are produced by Aalto Studios at Aalto University.

Presence of Absence
Tangible Media Group | MIT Media Lab (US)
The Cambridge Garden by Tangible Media Group for Ars Electronica Festival 2020, we will be featuring selected projects that materialize the Presence of Absence. Our garden introduces the latest in Tangible Telepresence research to engage people who collaborate across time and space with synchronized tangibles. We also feature a variety of dynamic computational materials we call Radical Atoms that foster a new form of human-material interactions.

Speculating on the Future
Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) (BE)
BOZAR explores the role of scientific and technological research as an engine for creativity. The meeting of science, technology and the arts is the favoured basis for finding innovative responses to the social, ecological, and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. BOZAR joins the Ars Electronica Festival with its own interpretation of the Kepler’s garden, through the curation of 3 online events under umbrella name "Speculating on the future".

Real Feelings. Emotion and Technology
HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel) (CH)
Emotions are at the core of human experience. They influence every aspect of our lives and shape our social behaviour. In the 21st century, technology has started to engage with emotions like never before. The international group show at HeK presents works by 20 artists ―in mediums ranging from artificial intelligence, interactive installations, robotics and biometrics to gaming, video installations and virtual reality by 20 artists― that explore how technology can assess and trigger our emotions.

Thoma Foundation’s pioneering Digital & Electronic Art collection
Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico (US)
The Thoma Foundation’s Curator of Digital Art, Jason Foumberg, leads a behind-the-scenes video tour through the Foundation’s Digital & Electronic Art collection, offering personal anecdotes about the artworks that excite him, how the Foundation decides which artworks to collect, and a peek into our public exhibition space and private art storage vault. Foumberg’s lushly illustrated talk is organized around the Ars Electronica 2020 festival theme of Autonomy, especially spotlighting digital artists who use technology to automate creative labor and increase viewer interaction.