Highlights

From Art to Innovation: Do They Really Need Us?

Gašper Beg (SI), Luka Frelih (SI), Miha Horvat (SI), Janez Janša (SI), Jurij Krpan (SI), Marko Peljhan (SI/US), Irena Pivka (SI), Marko Pritržnik (SI), Peter Purg (SI)

Despite the widely embraced opinion that involving artists and creatives in innovation processes contributes to better results, very few research and development platforms are employing artists or art thinking in their innovation teams. Die talk's participants will discuss the challenges for artists, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs stemming from essentially non-existing collaborative/open innovations.

The award ceremony of category u19–create your world

The award ceremony of category u19–create your world is the real highlight of the create your world festival. All 24 winning projects are awarded here. This year, the event serves as a kick-off for the subsequent networking opportunities within the create your world festival.

radio FM4

ORF radio FM4 (AT)

Radio FM4 will once again be plunging into the Ars Electronica Festival this year. The editorial team regularly reports directly from Johannes Kepler University on this year's unconventional festival, in which projects on art, society and technology will be streaming into the whole world. In addition to this, we'll be broadcasting an Ars special show on Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. on our in-house streaming channel FM4 Spielekammerl, featuring many guests from the festival. On Saturday, a unique hybrid radio show will then take place in cooperation with sound:frame.

robodrum

The robodrum project is a robotic setup consisting of 4 KUKA robotic arms equipped with drums, which doesn’t aim to replicate a human performance exactly, nor to be better or faster than one. Instead, it becomes an algorithmic system that allows visitors to leave acoustic traces.

S+T+ARTS Talk: Art & Tech for Urban Resilience

How can artists help to create new collective imaginaries and participatory systems, spaces for reflection and criticism for the future of our cities? How can urban planners and policy makers be inspired by these scenarios and reflections on urban citizenship in the light of digital innovation? Discover the full line-up of this talk.

Pianographique

Maki Namekawa (JP/AT), Dennis Russell Davies (US), Cori OʼLan (AT)

Pianographique is an ongoing artistic collaboration of the two pianists Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies with the digital-media artist Cori O‘Lan.

THE BAD WEEDS TRIPS

Rocio Berenguer (ES/FR)

In 2030, a human-plant hybrid guides us on a trip through the past, unveiling the origins of G5, the first inter-species political summit. The event was initiated by IOFLE, the Inter-species Organisation for The Future of Life on Earth. Its founders are thought to be the artist Rocío Berenguer and IA collaborator, IAGOTCHI.

Expanded Animation

In collaboration with the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences’ Hagenberg Campus, the 8th Expanded Animation symposium carries on a process launched in 2013: to map the wide-ranging domain of animated worlds of imagery beyond well-trodden paths. The symposium stays the course originally set at its inception, and presents theoretical positions and perspectives from the art world, the R&D field and the industrial sector.

Prix Ars Electronica u19–create your world

This year’s u19 exhibition will invite all winners to exchange ideas and projects with each other. Their “homebase” will be the physical exhibition of the projects, where the winners can explain these to other artists and visitors. They will share their talents and show the audience of Ars Electronica Festival their view of possible future scenarios. In 2019, the Prix Ars Electronica's u19–create your world category was divided into two sections. First, ideas and projects could be submitted to YOUNG CREATIVES (up to age 14). This sub-category impressively demonstrates how children can help shape the present and future from their own perspective. For YOUNG PROFESSIONALS (14 - 19 years), innovative lateral thinkers who have developed an artistic or critical project for the world of tomorrow are in demand.

STEAM Popup Lab

JKU Linz School of Education (AT)

STEAM Popup Lab is a virtual journey to understand the meaning of patterns all around us. Patterns are everywhere, from fractals in nature to blood vessels in the human body, through the oscillating signals produced by the sensors of a phone. You can control robots, fold origami patterns, measure the signal of a playground swing, be part of a live chemistry lab session, and more.

The “Aquaformations” Roundtable

The round table Aquaformations, (International S.A.I.N.T. Caffe) which is part of the Adriatic Garden project, will extensively focus on the values the project aims to stress, namely care, kindness, compassion, environmental justice, action-taking, and cooperation with the Adriatic Sea and its creatures. In discussion with local and international experts and citizens, we will delve into the anthropo-socio-technological relationship with the sea, describe the impact our enterprises have on waters, as well as address the issues we have to tackle to achieve sustainable collaboration among researchers, artists, institutions and citizens, who work in the field of maritime research and conservation. We will also point out how the collaborative endeavors of artists, scientists, citizen scientists and active individuals have the potential to provide excellent support to their local communities. We will host experts on environmental law, biodiversity, marine science, artists addressing ecological / environmental topics, experts working in the commercial sector, educators and many more.

Natalia Fedorova: To be the wind for the tree

Did you ever want to hear a tree talk?  Did you ever want to feel how the water goes up the tree crones? How does the wind feel for the tree? The project of the artist and curator Natalia Fedorova is based on the idea of the Internet of Trees (IoT) verbalizing the tree sensualities. It consists of a poetry generator producing iterations based on TT and sensor data.

HackAthens 2021: What Comes After - A Discussion with Participating Artists

A panel discussion, featuring a prerecorded introduction by curators Angelos Varvarousis (GR) and Prodromos Tsiavos (GR), a live show of the developed works and live discussion with participating artists.

Science Gallery Detroit Presents Shigeto

Shigeto

Artists take on pseudonyms for a multitude of reasons, but in Zach Saginaw’s case those reasons run deeper than most. Shigeto is Zach’s middle name as well as his grandfather’s name: a tribute to the Japanese branch of Zach’s family tree. Shigeto also means “to grow bigger”—appropriate, given Zach’s premature birthweight of less than a pound. Today, Shigeto stands for Zach’s vividly beautiful electronic music. Beat-driven, but given to richly textured sound design; rhythmically fractured, but melodically sumptuous, Shigeto’s music is a bridge between the past and present, bringing the artist face to face with a creative legacy that spans decades.

Curators’ Conversation

Ralph Borland, Cezanne Charles, Olga Stella, Antajuan Scott, Mark Sullivan, Devon Akmon

Take a look into the process of planning our third exhibition FUTURE PRESENT and hear from the panel of curators to get an overarching view of our subthemes. We will also answer questions from the Science Gallery Community.

DïaloG

Refik Anadol (TR) and Maurice Benayoun (FR)

DïaloG is an urban media art installation developed by Maurice Benayoun (MoBen/CityU HK) and Refik Anadol: In the public space (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain) two “living” entities face each other. They don’t look like the living beings we know. They don’t speak any language we know. They are aliens, strangers, immigrants. Facing each other they gradually mutate.

Panel – Daejeon Biennale 2020

AI: Sunshine Misses Windows  Garden has a long history as the form of art in Korea. Garden is more than a place for enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. It embodiment of a philosophy of life. The garden reflects the transformation of a vaster cosmic universe. If we glimpse at garden with the lens of Artificial Intelligence, garden is the special time and space where nature and human beings coexist, society and human beings interact, and human beings and A.I. pursue co-evolution.

SUPER DOMMUNE tuned by au5G Presents “TOKYO REAL”

Naohiro Ukawa (JP), Seiichi Saito (JP), Ei Wada (JP), Yamakawa Fuyuki (JP), ZVIZMO / Tentenko(JP), Atsuhiro Ito, (JP)

Created by artist Ukawa, DOMMUNE has been running for over 10 years and has been fusing academia, music, entertainment and art together in a live setting. This experimentation, methodology and way of creating online shows has influenced many people around the world and has been a big influence in the various online developments at Covid-19.

Abducting Europa - Live artist talks

Simon Denny (NZ/DE), Andy King (UK), Szabolcs KissPál (HU), Annika Larsson (SE/DE), Liliana Piskorska (PL), Jonas Staal (NL/GR)

Artists from the “Abducting Europa” exhibition will discuss their work in a series of artists talks, live and pre-recorded. Political fantasy, from myths of national rebirth to the esoteric dimensions of deep web conspiracy theories, these talks will discuss the use and abuse of history, the lure of a Golden Age, and alternative visions on Europe.

Role of Media Art

Etsuko Ichihara (JP), Nao Tokui (JP), Natsumi Wada (JP), Shiho Fukuhara (JP), Asako Tomura (JP), Minoru Hatanaka (JP)

Japan Media Arts Festival, which was founded in Japan, focuses on the field of art, entertainment, manga and anime, and is becoming more and more centripetal in its inclusion of various fields. What is the role of media arts in this context? This session the panelist will be discussing the future of media art along with the unique setting of this year’s Ars Electronica to be held online.