SYNTHESIZING / DISTANCING – Isolation, Ecology and Democratic Space

The Platform

The crisis in recent months is forcing us to rethink matters that we took for granted. Among them is the notion of ​​public space as an open platform for meeting people and exchanging ideas, a space without borders that is suddenly confronted with security rules. At the same time, Ars Electronica is moving from the closed underground spaces of POSTCITY to Kepler Gardens, a public space that must cope with new demands, while maintaining the extant values ​​of a democratic space. The thematic installation, in the gardens of a private gallery in Prague, deals with distancing in public spaces. The Platform, a public meeting and distancing space, will be created on 30 square meters. It generates new textures that should manipulate the visitors into the new demands being made on public spaces. The project as a whole is conceived as an experiment, in which targeted data collection during the festival will be assessed and processed as a separate case study on the topic of public space texture. There will be an instant access to the installation via a project website and a live camera broadcasting the experiment in real time.

Photosynthetic Landscapes

Crop production is currently undergoing many changes. The current trend is to play for time: to meet the high requirements for the quality and quantity of production as quickly as possible, in order to respond to the increased consumption of a fast-growing company.

The technologization of the natural element is being negatively associated to the loss of the „natural“ at the expense of the „technological“. But what happens if these elements support each other? One of the ambitions of Photosynthetic Landscapes is to present algae as photosynthetic organism against greenery loss in the urban environment, with its related growth in CO2 and impact on diminished quality of public space. The spaces in Kepler’s gardens and their flora contrast with the technologically grounded *Photosynthetic Landscapes* prototype: a modular, organic system that pushes the boundaries of thinking about the penetration of nature and technology in the context of an environmentally-oriented spatial installation. The prototype will be a modification of the installation presented at the Landscape Festival 2020 in the courtyard of the Nevan Contempo Gallery.