Themes
Fertile Methodologies
Tactical Space Lab (AU)
The Tactical Space Lab is a research initiative focusing on the intersection of art and technology. We are committed to expanding the diversity of stories and voices represented through new technologies via collaborative projects and educational programs across all ages, with the aim of ‘demystifying’ VR, not just for artists, but for the wider community.
Visit the Moon with an astrophysicist!
Cité de l’espace (FR)
Come visit the Moon with French astrophysicist and co-discoverer of ice on the Moon, Sylvestre Maurice! He will guide you through the “Moon exhibition” in Cité de l’espace, the space museum in Toulouse, France. These 4 videos were made as part of the “children’s science conference” that invited pupils to imagine their schools on the Moon. Through the eyes of an astrophysicist who has dedicated his life to solar system exploration, click and discover step by step the immersive "Moon exhibition".
Expert Tour: Technology and Uncertainty with a glass of wine
Maurice Benayoun Olga Vad & Helena Nikolone, Bohdan Shumylovych
This tour is dedicated to the theme of Technology and Uncertainty, which are one of the concise, red threads running through this year's Ars Electronica Festival. Together with project coordinator Manuela Hillmann, you'll get a detailed look at it through the organizers of selected online gardens. We will start with a glass of wine at a wine tasting party in Hong Kong and look ahead to Moscow and Lviv. You'll explore a wide variety of approaches to this theme and be surprised at the variety of ways in which it can be illuminated from artistic, scientific and social perspectives.
Expert Tour: Ecology through the looking glass
Robertina Sebjanic, Gjino Šutić, Newcastle Garden - Kristefan Minski Hana Yun
This tour is dedicated to the theme of ecology, which is one of the concise, red threads running through this year's Ars Electronica Festival. Together with the project coordinator Manuela Hillmann, you'll get a detailed look at the theme through the organizers of selected Online Gardens.
Austria in Space Garden
Austria in Space (AT)
Austria in Space is more than just another website. It is THE place for Space in Austria. At the Ars Electronica Festival, the Austria in Space initiative will present some of their program highlights and show how relevant Austrian innovations are to the global space exploration sector.
Robots in Action - fast and sensitive!
Institute of Robotics, Johannes Kepler University Linz (AT)
Robots can be strong and sensitive at the same time! They can move extremely fast but also handle fragile objects like champagne glasses. Imagine you want to carry a tray with several glasses of filled liquid without spilling –and you may even be adventurous and try to wave the tray over your head. Most of us will fail to perform such a stunt without breaking some glasses, but our robots are smart and agile enough to do just this. The Institute of Robotics at Johannes Kepler University will open its lab and showcase what modern industrial robotics are, and how fun they can be.
Nushin Isabelle Yazdani und Internet Teapot (Karla Zavala und Adriaan Odendaal): [d/r]econstructing AI - dreams of visionary fiction and zine-making
How to Become a High-Tech-Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
With this workshop we investigate the structures behind algorithmic decision making systems, discuss why their design is normative, and how AI systems reinforce structural discrimination. We embark on a speculative journey and discuss how to design to create a more just world. Which artists inspire us? Which values are important to us? We want to collect our thoughts and creative outputs in a zine.
LAB ON STAGE (Adriana Torres Topaga, Martyna Lorenc and Andrea Maria Handler): Phantom Data in our bodies and imagination
How to Become a High-Tech-Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
This workshop undertakes a performing arts’ approach. Our departure is the embodiment of imagination and perceptual processes. With somatic exercises and performative games, we notice the data flowing in from our bodies: sensation, image, emotion or memory. Imagination has its own training dataset - therefore a specific priming/bias/imprint. We look for practices of becoming aware of HOW we imagine things and what escapes our field of attention.
Astrid Mager und Hong Phuc Dang: How to create your own AI device with SUSI.AI - An Open Source Platform for Conversational Web
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
The workshop introduces SUSI components like SUSI’s technology stack, its wiki-like skill editor and hardware prototype; participants work together to create a simple bot, develop new skills and test them. A reflection on data bias and algorithmic discrimination invites to collectively think about creating non-discriminatory digital technologies.
Doris Allhutter: “When I encountered discriminating IT-systems and did not want to take it anymore” - deconstructing affective entanglements in society-technology relations
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
This workshop uses the deconstructive method of mind scripting to understand the grip that even technologies that we reject may have on us. Using our own memories as an experimental resource we will explore how discrimination and privilege materialize in our practices. This aims at developing collective agency and activisms.
Safiya Umoja Noble: Algorithms of Oppression - How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new demands are increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical scholars continue to demonstrate how many technologies are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial, disembodied, or lacking positionality. Technologies hold racial, gender, and class politics. In this talk, Dr. Safiya Noble will discuss her recent book, Algorithms of Oppression, and the impact of technology on the public.
Lisa Nakamura: Estranging Digital Racial Terrorism After COVID
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
This talk argues that COVID-19 forced an accelerated migration to digital networks that exposed new audiences to traumatically racist digital events as well as new openings for critique and resistance.
The Woman-Machine
le lieu unique (FR)
The Woman-Machine is a two-day event on the main stage of le lieu unique. In response to La Mettrie (and Kraftwerk) le lieu unique invites artists, scientists and performers to discuss the relationship between AIs and gender, robots and feminism, machine learning and the world after the pandemic.
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
IFG-LIT (AT)
New technologies have penetrated all aspects of our lives and promise a wide range of improvements and efficiencies. Contrary to general perception, though, the algorithms on which these technologies are based are neither neutral nor do they treat everyone equally.
Beside the Nibelungen bridge & Oribokit: Gardening for Robots
Studio Matthew Gardiner (AU)
Wherever you are today and whenever you may have sat or stood somewhere, late late late at night, in Linz, this work is for you, this work invites you use our AR gadgets to place a Wurststand in your town, or place a Leberkässemmel on your plate at home. Share a post and write a short memory of a day (or night) at an Ars Electronica Festival.
EMAP Tour
Kontejner (HR), FACT (UK), LABoral (ES)
In this tour, EMAP member organizations will give insight into their Ars Electronica Festival program and projects that address ecological issues. Many of the ecological challenges of our time will only be mastered with creative and cooperative approaches.
AI x Humanity - an AI LAB Tour
CPN (RS), Culture Yard (DK), Kapelica Gallery (SI)
AI x Humanity: How is AI impacting our humanity, impacted by our humanity, and what does it all mean for the future? Focusing on these aspects, the partners of the AI LAB will take you on a journey through their program.
Space Art Tour – Educators Edition
Ars Electronica (AT), Ciência Viva (PT), Leiden University (NL)
Check out Space Art at the Ars Electronica Festival and get introduced to various tools for teachers and educators!
Gallery Spaces Tour
For the Gallery Spaces Tour Ars Electronica invites Gallery Spaces participants to check out each other’s online exhibitions beforehand and present their perspective and interpretations. This event will allow Gallery Spaces participants to get connected, evaluate how online exhibitions are received by a new audience and also offer the general public access to navigate online exhibitions.
Magic Darts or, when every throw is a perfect hit
Andreas Stelzer (AT), Rudolf Scheidl (AT)
Darts is a popular game, but difficult to master. In this version of darts, players always hit the bullseye. What looks like witchcraft is revealed as a mechatronic system, with a novel microwave sensor network and ultrafast hydraulic actors interacting. Such technologies will affect our future daily life, e.g. in self driving cars, with microwaves allowin us to see in the dark, with fog or dust; or in exoskeletons, where hydraulic actuation enables ultimate compactness.
