The Gallery Spaces Program was successfully established to bring international galleries and collections on digital art to the Ars Electronica Festival — and 2020 is no exception. Not content with showing digital art represented by galleries, it is especially concerned with the changing conditions of creating and marketing art under digitalisation, which are now more relevant than ever.
In the months prior to the festival, societies around the world changed drastically under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis has led to an explosion in the usage of digital technologies. The advantages provided by these tools are already visible in online exhibitions and in virtual and augmented reality. There are countless ways in which the creation and presentation of connected, interactive and web-based art has been investigated and experienced. The contemporary art world is now rushing to adapt to an unprecedented situation that compels everyone to think beyond the physical space, and to question how we perceive the artwork as an object. There is a real opportunity to conceive of exhibitions as cultural events to be experienced both online and offline, where the content is not merely documentation, but an integral part of the curatorial endeavour.
Hence, Ars Electronica invites galleries from all over the world to participate in this far-reaching online program, and to connect within the Ars Electronica Gallery Spaces Garden — a platform to discuss new tools and technologies, which result in a multiplicity of novel approaches, methods and developments. Due to its continuous work and experience in the production and presentation of media art and digital art since 1979, Ars Electronica is the ideal environment for an exchange among collectors, exhibitors, artists and other parties involved or interested in the field.