The Platform

The crisis of recent months is forcing us to rethink topics that we until recently took for granted. One of them is the idea of public space as an open platform for meeting people and exchanging ideas, a space without borders that is suddenly confronted with security rules. Just as these risks first affected the public areas of airports and later social public events, now the public space in general is affected by strengthen security rules.

At the same time, Ars Electronica is moving from the closed underground spaces of POSTCITY to Kepler´s Gardens, a public space that must cope with new demands, while maintaining the existing values of democratic space. The thematic installation in the gardens of private gallery in Prague deals with the topic of distancing in public spaces. The Platform, a public meeting and distancing space will be created on 30 m2. Following the example of baroque gardens, The Platform creates new textures that should manipulate the visitors into the new demands on public spaces. Can these public space textures meet new demands? The whole project is conceived as an experiment. Targeted data collection during the festival will be evaluated 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 current state of the experiment.