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(Linz, 18.3.2021) Ars Electronica is offering a new service that any institution can benefit from, whether it’s an elementary school or a technical college, a regional SME or an international corporation, a local public authority or an interest group, an art museum, a science center or a university.
“Our new ‘Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES’ are virtual and interactive programs and services that make Ars Electronica’s expertise available online, harnessing the creative and innovative potential artists can bring to education, events, innovation and artistic endeavors,” summarizes Gerfried Stocker, Artistic Director of Ars Electronica.
“Our goal is to tap into an additional value-added component that can integrate the know-how of our international network into our year-round offerings even more effectively than before,” says Markus Jandl, Commercial Director of Ars Electronica, who sees great potential in building this bridge between art and business.
“It’s not just about powering through a crisis, it’s about taking it as an opportunity to move forward and sound out what direction things might take in the future – that’s precisely what has made Ars Electronica such an important driver of innovation for Linz since 1979,” emphasizes Mayor Klaus Luger. “With ‘Home Delivery SERVICES,’ Ars Electronica is once again adapting to new times. This new offering underscores our efforts to take strong steps towards digitalization in the state capital. Our ‘Digital Linz’ program with many offerings for Linzers, as well as the new Digital Innovation Hub for the SME sector, consolidate our status as a strong location for business and innovation.”
“The Corona crisis has further accelerated the technology-driven transformation of our society,” agrees Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, City Councilor for Culture and Chair of the Advisory Board of Ars Electronica. “The challenges we face couldn’t be greater, and art can contribute crucial impulses here. With the new ‘Home Delivery SERVICES,’ Ars Electronica has developed formats that now perfectly combine the innovative potential of art and the innovation needs of business in a virtual way.”
Virtual, innovative, free of charge – “Home Delivery” online since May 2020
With a piano concert by Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies and visualizations by Cori O’Lan, “Ars Electronica Home Delivery” made its online debut on May 1, 2020. The new format, supported by the AK Future Fund, began by making a virtue out of necessity – i.e., the lockdown – and went on to provide guided tours, presentations, tutorials and concerts from the Ars Electronica Center week after week. “We started from scratch and had a really steep learning curve,” says Gerfried Stocker, looking back. “But even after the first live events, which were a little rocky, we all agreed that we weren’t just tinkering with a Corona emergency solution. We wanted to establish a new, sustainable Ars Electronica education track.” Almost exactly a year later, the efforts have long since paid off and everything is ready for the next big step.
Customer-oriented, interactive, fee-based – the “Home Delivery SERVICES” will be launched in March 2021.
“Our new ‘Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES’ targets customers whose industries are in a state of upheaval,” says Karin Gabriel, who heads the Future Thinking School at Ars Electronica and will also be coordinating the new SERVICES, effective immediately. “We help our customers understand what these technology-driven changes mean for our society and their target demographics, and support them in working on the questions that are crucial for their future.”
The interests and needs of customers are therefore always the starting point. “First and foremost, we listen to our customers and find out exactly what they expect. Then we develop customized programs for them,” says Karin Gabriel. It is a highly interactive process. “We work with simple but very effective tools such as Miroboards or Mentimeter surveys to actively involve the participants.”
Presentations, tests, discussions and reflections always take place within the exhibitions, the labs, or the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K. “Who else can make use of infrastructure like the BioLab, the CitizenLab, the MaterialLab, the Machine Learning Studio or Deep Space 8K, and who else has so many artistic installations for exciting storytelling around questions about the future?” says Karin Gabriel, emphasizing the unique character of “Home Delivery SERVICES.”
The key word is “uniqueness.” The virtual workshops, talks, break-out sessions, tours, exhibits and concerts are developed and conducted by experts from all areas of Ars Electronica: from the info trainers and educators at the Ars Electronica Center, to the curators of the Ars Electronica Festival and the Prix Ars Electronica, to the artists and researchers at the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the developers of Ars Electronica Solutions. In addition, numerous creatives from the international network of the Linz-based platform for art, technology and society also contribute their talents to “Home Delivery SERVICES.”
Right from the start, the portfolio will include more than 20 different programs in the fields of education, innovation, events and art.
Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES for Education
Would you like to visit the Olympus of modern astronomy, where you can take a look at the “Very Large Telescope” and talk shop with the ESO staff? Or would you prefer a trip that sheds light on the black box of “Artificial Intelligence,” which is smarter than any human on earth but also hopelessly inferior to a toddler? Or perhaps a visit to the children’s research lab, where Tardi the tardigrade is already waiting to set off and playfully explore which technologies and tools we will all be using on a daily basis tomorrow. “Our virtual school program is already a big hit,” says Christoph Kremer, Director of the Ars Electronica Center. “40 to 50 bookings a week show that our workshops, tours and talks for all levels and types of school are going down really well.” In order to provide the best possible support for the students and teachers who have been under pressure for many months, all offerings can be booked free of charge until the end of the current school year. “We won’t be charging the usual rates for our school program again until September 2021,” says Christoph Kremer.
Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES for Innovation
Artists surprise us with their unusual approaches and perspectives. They see things in a different way. And that might be exactly what an industry needs for success. “As part of our “Art Thinking” workshop, the artists and researchers of the Ars Electronica Futurelab apply thinking strategies from art to business and industry as well, and initiate the creative development of new projects, products or services here,” says Hideaki Ogawa, Director of the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
Everyone’s talking about sustainability and neo-ecology, and rightly so – but the path to an individual solution strategy that meets a company’s specific requirements is still a rocky one. “With our ‘Sustainability Thinking’ workshops, the experts at Ars Electronica Solutions and the Institute for Clean Technology help companies seek and find their own path to a sustainable future,” says Chris Bruckmayr, Head of Products & Events at Ars Electronica Solutions.
“The workshops around ‘Art Thinking’ and ‘Sustainability Thinking’ are two exciting examples of how we translate and harness expertise from the art world for industry and business,” adds Karin Gabriel.
Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES for Events
The combination of corporate brands and products on the one hand and Ars Electronica’s approaches and narratives on the other has a long track record of success. Since March 2020, this has been implemented not only on-site, but also in the context of hybrid or virtual events. The customized break-out sessions, customer events and product presentations impress participants with their innovative staging and guarantee a completely new experience. “Our customers want to charge their topics with more information and, above all, more emotion, and that’s exactly what we help them do,” says Andreas Bauer, Director of the Ars Electronica Center. “Last September, we staged the launch event and world premiere of the Rosenbauer RT fire engine for customers in Linz, Berlin, Amsterdam and Dubai as an innovative hybrid event – and we’re delighted that ‘Österreich Werbung’ recently selected this as a best practice example for this event category.”
Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES for Art
Year after year, thousands of media artists from all over the world submit their new projects to the Prix Ars Electronica. As part of the new “Curators Bootcamp,” curators from privately or publicly funded art and cultural institutions now have access to the world’s largest media art archive and can work together with Prix Ars Electronica experts and jurors to develop innovative exhibition and education concepts.
The key word is “innovation.” Despite local lockdowns and worldwide travel restrictions, the most international Ars Electronica Festival ever took place in September 2020. Instead of trying to hold the usual festival with Covid precautions here in Linz, the event was conceived in a completely new way, i.e. decentralized and hybrid. Ars Electronica, which until then had always been held only in Linz, suddenly made guest appearances at 120 locations around the world and on the Internet. “In 2020, we dared a lot and learned even more,” says Martin Honzik, CCO of Ars Electronica. “We want to build on these experiences in 2021 and beyond, and make Ars Electronica the international role model for running a festival in the 21st century.” The inquiries that have been steadily rolling in since last September about becoming part of this innovative endeavor suggest that participation should also be offered as a separate “Home Delivery SERVICE.”
How do customers book an Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICE?
“Our entire portfolio is displayed at ars.electronica.art/homedeliveryservices,” says Karin Gabriel. “Clicking on an offer opens a compact summary of its content, a description of the format, information about the procedure and methodology, and the maximum number of participants.” Initial contact is made via email. “Our customers fill out a short online form that gives us an indication of their interests, we then get right back to them by phone with a proposal – and off we go!”
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Press Conference Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Future Insights for apprentices: Artificial Intelligence / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Hybrid Transformation Workshop / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Future Matters / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Get.Inspired Journey / Photo credit:Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Future Thinking School / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES – Virtual Tour AI & You / Photo credit: Ars Electronica – Robert Bauernhansl / Printversion / Photo album Ars Electronica Home Delivery SERVICES
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