Ars Electronica Garden

Cairo is Data

Cairotronica (EG)

A film that shows Egypt through the eyes of 6 emerging new media artists sharing their grounds for inspiration. Their works that they are currently developing navigate the peculiarities, tensions and challenges that come at the intersection of technology, business, culture, and society.

Artificial Seascapes. Two female AI artists respond to current uncertainty with powerful art.

CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

​An one-hour live session with artists, Anne Spalter and Sofia Crespo, in discussion. We will dive into their artistic practices, their use of AI, and the relationship between data, GAN and human perception.

360º tour of Vigilantes (2018)

Iván Navarro (CL)

Immersive footage of Vigilantes, Museo del Hongo’s second exhibition at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Valdivia. Three species of mushrooms were grown from scratch and displayed in the museum’s underground vaults, with illumination from Navarro’s light sculptures, to create a biomimetic exhibition related to the cultivation of fungus gardens by ants and termites.

Local Fungi That Look Like Human Body Parts (2020)

Juan Ferrer (CL)

Digital installation composed of 3D models and a video that puts human body parts in conversation with a variety of mushrooms that grow in Chile. Our bodies are a fertile substrate for a complex microbiota that makes us who we are; this work aims to recreate a fungus garden within them, and to generate consciousness about the interconnection mycelium provides in nature.

Live Coding ALGORAVE

Antonio Roberts, Alex McLean (UK)

Live performance at the Piksel Cyber Salon and Twitch Live coding is a performance practice that revolves around the real-time creation and modification of code and algorithms. These events are also known as ALGORAVE, by joining the words algorithm and rave. On 13 September, we welcome artists Antonio Roberts and Alex McLean and their live audiovisual performance, taking place in parallel at the Twitch Pikselfest and the Piksel Cyber Salon.

Presence of Absence: Guided Tour & Demo

by Prof. Hiroshi Ishii, Liang Zhipeng

We will host a live talk featuring some selected projects inside Tangible Media Group | MIT MediaLab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the end audiences are invited to have an open conversation with us.

COPY PASTE Curator's Tour

Antonio Roberts (UK)

Video recorded lecture with Q&A from the curator Antonio Roberts will guide us through each work at the Piksel Cyber Salon exhibition. If you are an artist, then you have no doubt copied the work of others. This copying can range from using pages from a magazine in a collage to adopting the style of another artist, or simply being inspired by their work. This natural process of copying, taught to us at every stage of our artistic development, is burdened with a very complex and messy set of laws and social conventions which define and limit how we can use copying in our practices. They don't account for exceptions or nuances, and come from a historical world in which artworks were scarce physical objects, not translating well into a world in which culture is abundant and can be accessed and copied at will.

Presence of Absence: Garden

We will host an online garden to explore the “Presence of Absence.” Students and Professor Ishii from Tangible Media Group | MIT MediaLab will guide you through the future of Tangible Telepresence and Radical Atoms.

Artificial Seascapes

CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

Artificial Seascapes reflects on the impact humans and technology have on the environment and explores new ways to visualize it. By incorporating artificial intelligence, algorithmic tools and data processing into their practice, Spalter and Crespo allow us to see mundane events from the perspective of a machine. By shifting the focal point, scenes that are familiar to the human eye - cruise ship images or sea creatures - begin to evolve, resulting in new compositions that have never been seen. The artists invite the viewers to submerge in these new worlds, where beauty and technology collide to expose questions of human perspective, consciousness and preservation.

Worship - Dinner Performance (CH, KA, NO)

Video recorded lecture with Q&A from the artists. The Worship - Dinner Performance joins performers from Zurich, Almaty and Bergen. It is based on the exchange of food, gesture, rhythm and sensuality through a jistsi online meeting. It is a tangible stretch towards how sensuality is perceived in the digital realm through media.

Lecture: Authors of the Future. Re-imagining Copyleft

Constant (BE)

Video recorded lecture with Q&A from the artists The Authors of the Future. Re-imagining Copyleft, by Constant (BE), seeks to address burning issues around licensing and collective creative practices. How can we limit predatory practices without blocking the generative potential of Free Culture? What would a decolonial and feminist license look like, and how could we propose entangled notions of authorship? Constant is a non-profit, artist-run organisation based in Brussels since 1997 and active in the fields of art, media and technology.

Scientific papers

Paper authors: It starts with an inverted map. Chronicle of an imaginary and literal navigation through the southern tip of America. By Paula López Wood "Roots and inorganic forces, tectonic-climate interaction: its meaning in the evolution of the landscape and the habitability of the territory " By Gerd Sielfeld Art, science and society from a critical museology. THE OPEN LANDSCAPE BEHIND THE BORDERS By Alessandra Burotto Tarky Remain or Return: The Ancestral Communities of Magallanes from Hornos Island By Alfredo Prieto

Digital Exhibition Sojourner 2020 – A conversation among all artists

Through the ages, artists, writers, and filmmakers have been inspired by space. Their visionary depictions of space as an environment for people have influenced the scientific and engineering feats we know so well today. How will artists continue to inspire the future of space exploration? What are the opportunities and challenges in the creation of art for our interplanetary futures?

COPY PASTE Exhibition at Piksel Cyber Salon

The COPY/PASTE exhibition features the work of nine artists and art collectives who make copying a core aspect of their work. Taking the form of an online exhibition at Piksel Cyber Salon, it aims to show that copying is natural, and to re-think how we create/share/copy and paste. If you are an artist, then you have no doubt copied the work of others. This copying can range from using pages from a magazine in a collage to adopting the style of another artist, or simply being inspired by their work. This natural process of copying, taught to us at every stage of our artistic development, is burdened with a very complex and messy set of laws and social conventions which define and limit how we can use copying in our practices. They don't account for exceptions or nuances, and come from a historical world in which artworks were scarce physical objects, not translating well into a world in which culture is abundant and can be accessed and copied at will.

CADAF presents Sofia Crespo and Anne Spalter

CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair is honored to present Anne Spalter and Sofia Crespo, two female artists working with AI technology. Spalter and Crespo explore current socio-economic issues, including COVID19 and ecological uncertainty, in their work. Both artists exhibited their work at CADAF Online, which took place June 25-28, 2020. Artificial Seascapes​ reflects on the impact humans and technology have on the environment and explores new ways to visualize it.

Digital Exhibition: Sojourner 2020

In 2019, the Space Exploration Initiative announced an open call to invite artists to submit artworks for an exciting ISS launch opportunity. After three rounds of reviews, nine groups of artists are selected to be on board Sojourner2020, an international art payload. For this year's Ars Electronica In Kepler’s garden online program, we created a digital spaceship to share the diverse portfolio from the initiative. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in this digital world, walk around and encounter each other.

Bengaluru: City of Water

Harini Nagendra, ecologist

Ecologist Harini Nagendra’s talk takes the audience on a journey through the history of water systems in Bengaluru - starting from the 6th century CE to the present day. She explains how lakes were built and how they became an important source of water for the city. Today they are used solely for recreation, environmental support and ornamental views. She argues that urbanization and water conservation can go together and that we need to look at our history to manage our future.

The Unquiet River: Brahmaputra

Arupjyoti Saikia, historian

From landscapes to livelihoods, the river Brahmaputra has shaped the history of Assam. Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s Confluence lecture brings together history, geology and hydrology to present a comprehensive understanding of this mighty river. He speaks about how the river was formed, what makes it unique, and why it is important to think about its future. His lecture is based on his book by the same name.

A new moon landing

Mehak Sarang

We are going to the moon again, and this time, to stay. But how should we do it this time and do it right?

Interplanetary Time, Communication, and Longevity

Che-wei Wang, Sands Fish

When distance is measured by light years, how do we learn from the past and make decisions for the future?