S+T+ARTS Exhibition & HOPE: the touch of many

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• All about the STARTS exhibition/ printable images
• all about the theme exhibition “HOPE: the touch of many” / printable images / photos press tour
• Best Of zum Ars Electronica Festival
• HOPE – who will turn the tide
• Ö1 podcast series on the Ars Electronica Festival
• Ars Electronica Blog: Interviews, background reports and photo stories

(Linz, September 4, 2024) “HOPE – who will turn the tide” is the theme of Ars Electronica 2024. The focus is on people and initiatives that give us reason to hope despite all the crises. Not because they want us to believe with simple solutions or perseverance slogans that everything will somehow work out. But because with their creativity and competence, their respect, courage and commitment they show that we can actively influence. Because they make us aware that there are hopeful people all over the world. And because they remind us that each of us can contribute and make a difference.

More than 1,200 artists, scientists, developers, entrepreneurs and activists from 67 countries are guests at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. They present ideas and visions, prototypes and initiatives, all of which have in common that they look ahead with hope and understand the uncertainty of the future for what it is: the chance for a change of course, the possibility of change. Above all, it is the S+T+ARTS exhibition and the festival theme show that are filled with this spirit. Both exhibitions can be seen from September 4 to 8 as part of the Ars Electronica Festival 2024 at POSTCITY. Visiting the S+T+ARTS exhibition is free of charge.

Platform Europe

Ars Electronica ist in zahlreiche EU-Projekte eingebunden, die von Konsortien europäischer Institutionen aus Kunst, Kultur, Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft realisiert werden. All diese Initiativen basieren auf respektvoller und konstruktiver Zusammenarbeit über Länder-, Sprach- und Kulturgrenzen hinweg und wollen ein stärker vernetztes und zukunftsfähiges Europa fördern. Mit der neuen „Platform Europe“ bündelt Ars Electronica diese Projekte, die den technologiegetriebenen Wandel durch die Kunst neu denken und ein Zeichen dafür setzen wollen, wie demokratiebildende Zusammenarbeit am Vorbild der EU auch in Kunst, Forschung und Technologie umgesetzt werden kann.

S+T+ARTS exhibition

S+T+ARTS is one of the most important initiatives. The name stands for “Science, Technology, and Arts” and represents a large-scale project by the EU Commission, which aims to promote socially, ecologically and economically sustainable innovations. A central component of this initiative is the S+T+ARTS Prize, which shines a spotlight on outstanding projects at the interface of science, technology and art. Ars Electronica has been in charge of running this competition since 2016.

In 2023, the EU Commission initiated S+T+ARTS4Africa, a program aimed at promoting innovation in Africa and strengthening exchanges and cooperation between Europe and Africa. A competition also plays a central role in this initiative, which is also managed by Ars Electronica.

The S+T+ARTS exhibition highlights the role and potential of artistic and creative communities for social development. Projects and initiatives from individual artists and large institutions are presented that actively and successfully drive change with their innovative ideas and actions. The exhibition includes works by the winners of the S+T+ARTS Prize and the inaugural S+T+ARTS Prize Africa. In addition, projects that were created as part of S+T+ARTS4Africa, S+T+ARTS in the City and the FUNKEN Academy will be presented. Part of the S+T+ARTS exhibition is curated by Label4Future.

Six projects at a glance

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Power and Technology, 1500-2025 / Kate Crawford (AU), Vladan Joler (RS)

Calculating Empires is a visual manifesto by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler that critically examines the relationship between technology and power over the past five centuries. It begins its investigation around 1500—a time of upheaval in European history in which printing was invented, scientific instruments were developed, new trade routes emerged, the unscrupulous appropriation of land and the systematic annihilation of indigenous populations began. Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler see the technology and military industries of the 21st century as an echo of these early and ongoing forms of exercise of power and take this as an opportunity to follow developments further.

The result of their meticulous work is a 24 x 3 meter, incredibly complex diagram that traces social power constructions over time. It is designed as a diptych: one half of the visual data preparation focuses on the development of communication devices, infrastructures, computational architectures of algorithms, and hardware. The other half examines the history of control and classification in various areas: in education, in policing, in prisons, in military systems, in the treatment of bodies and biometrics, all the way to the astrosphere.

Together, both maps illustrate how technological and social structures have developed together and supported each other over centuries. The artists break down the traditional representation of the history of technology and show how to “calculate” the present through the lens of the past.

Credits
Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power, 1500–2025
Artists: Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2023)

Arts at CERN

Arts at CERN is the arts program of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva (CERN), Switzerland. Where physicists and engineers use complex scientific instruments to try to better understand the universe, a sustainable dialogue with artists has been promoted since 2012. The laboratory setting becomes a collaborative field in which theoretical models, mathematical formulas, and artistic approaches are combined.

Arts at CERN explores what art can contribute to basic research and, conversely, how scientific research can inspire art. The aim is to promote artistic reflection of scientific and technological progress and its effects on our world and society as well as the dialogue between art and science. In addition, it is about the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration, the reflection of the social structure of science, historical narratives, and special features that make CERN a unique place for artistic research.

Credits
Arts at CERN is supported by the CERN and Society Foundation.

Balot NFT / Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise—CATPC

While museums in the Global North are using NFTs to further promote the privatization of art objects, the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (Congolese Plantation Workers Art League – CATPC) initiative is using them to re-collectivize stolen works of art.

The focus is on the Balot sculpture, which was carved by rebellious Pende people in 1931. After years of oppression and exploitation by Belgian plantation owners, the rape of the wife of a Pende chief triggered a revolt, during which the colonial administrator Maximilien Balot was attacked by the angry crowd, killed, beheaded, and dismembered. Before the uprising, which lasted several months, was brutally suppressed by the Belgian army, the Pende carved a wooden figure about 60 centimeters tall that was intended to contain spiritual powers and serve the community. After the riot, the statue disappeared. It resurfaced in 1972 and was purchased by Herbert F. Weiss, then a political scientist at the City University of New York and a collector of art objects. In 2017, Weiss sold the statue to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), which owns it today.

Since 2020, CATPC has made several loan requests to exhibit the sculpture at the White Cube Museum in Lusanga. Because these requests were all rejected or not answered, CATPC began looking for alternative ways to reclaim the sculpture and its meaning for the Pende descendants.

Members of CATPC used photos from the VMFA website to create a digital Balot sculpture floating above the fragment of a drawing by Ced’art Tamasala. The drawing maps global value flows of capital, goods, and cultural exploitation. The digital work has been turned into NFTs that are available for purchase. With the proceeds of these NFTs, CATPC is buying back Pende land that was seized and depleted by colonial plantation owners for 100 years. The goal is to restore the sacred forest of their ancestors. Each NFT is therefore sold for the price of one hectare of land and helps pursue the original purpose of the Balot sculpture: to protect or restore the Pende community and land.

In 2024, CATPC obtained a temporary loan of the Balot sculpture to display in the White Cube. The sculpture will be on display at Lusanga from April 20 to November 24, 2024, while also being connected via a livestream to the Rietveld Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Balot NFT is an innovative model for collective ownership—particularly that of indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage—in the digital world. Furthermore, it represents a new and proactive form of restitution. CATPC advocates for museums and art institutions worldwide to support reconciliation and work with indigenous communities. With the sale of the Balot NFTs as well as the temporary return of the Balot sculpture, the CATPC movement is reclaiming what belongs to them: not just art, but also land.

Credits
The Balot NFT is created by CATPC and supported by Human Activities.
Human Activities takes care of the technical, legal, and financial production.
All sale proceeds and resale royalties, minus gas fees, go to CATPC for the acquisition and restoration of land.

Revolution Refridge / Rojava Center for Democratic Technology & Dani Ploeger (AANES/SY/NL)

The device combines traditional cooling methods with modern solar energy, combining the aesthetics of science fiction with regional folklore.

In Rojava, northern Syria, electricity supply is severely limited due to war damage, Turkish bombings and general fuel shortages. In order to operate refrigerators according to European standards, large solar systems are necessary, the price of which often exceeds the equivalent of an annual income. At the same time, cheap alternatives based on historical methods are rejected and viewed as “primitive”.

The *Revolution Refridge* offers a solution: It combines evaporation-based cooling with modern solar technology and its design represents an alternative, regional future that fuses science fiction elements with tradition. The device’s shape is inspired by space rockets and regional architecture, while its gold surface, decorated with fragments of Kurdish carpets, is reminiscent of both traditional jewelry and high-tech circuitry.

Credits
Concept, design and proto-type construction: Rojava Center for Democratic Technologies (Basil, Ciwana, Dani, Khalil, Siham, Jihan)
With support from: University of Rojava (Qamishlo, Autonomous Adminstration of North and East Syria), The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London, UK)

How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car / Tomo Kihara (JP), Daniel Coppen (GB)

How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car is a game installation that uses self-driving cars as an example to make people aware of how (strongly distorted) training data influences the output of AI systems and that this can sometimes have catastrophic consequences. Tomo Kihara and Daniel Coppen use a cordoned-off piece of road or parking lot as a playing field; they apply the characteristic white stripes of a cross walk to the asphalt. The players start at one end of this cross walk, opposite them, and on the other side of the street there is a truck parked with a huge screen that shows the perspective of an AI-controlled camera. As soon as the players enter the cross walk, they are captured by the camera and can be seen on the screen. While people try to cross, the AI system calculates the probability that it is a pedestrian. If the players are recognized before they get to the other end of the street, the machine wins, if not, it loses. Whether with a traffic cone on their head, hidden behind a stroller or crawling on the ground—if the players want to remain “invisible” to the AI system, they must not match the patterns of its training data.

Credits
Music: Plot Generica
Support: Saki Maruyama (Playfool)
Photography: Luke O’Donovan, Playable City Bristol July 2023; Daniel Coppen
Videography:
Jon Aitken, Playable City Bristol July 2023
Jack Offord, Playable City Bristol July 2023
Jacob Gibbins, Playable City Bristol July 2023
Daniel Coppen, Playfool
Commissioned by: Playable City Sandbox 2023 supported by MyWorld

Soft Collision / Anna Schaeffner (FR)

Soft Collision (2024) deals with the safe physical interaction ofpeople and robots. Based on findings from five European pilot projects withindustrial robots, Anna Schaeffer developed a malleable pneumatic membrane thatfollows a robot’s complex movements and allows it to easily adapt to thephysical environment during collisions. This process works by the surfacecontaining flexible sensors that can directly control and adjust the robot’smovements. Inspired by natural movements, such as those of caterpillars, thedesign aims to change the way we view and interact with robots.

Credits
Artist: Anna Schaeffner
Performer: Michela Filzi
VOJEXT S+T+ARTS Art Residence 3: Social Robots  Residence lead by VOJEXT PARTNERS: Fondazione Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologica (IIT), Universdidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Universidad Nebrija (UNNE) and WAAG

All projects of the STARTS-Ausstellung.

HOPE: the touch of many

The large exhibition on the theme of Ars Electronica 2024 transforms the spacious POSTCITY bunker into a space for shared experiences and artistic explorations. The show invites you to take a sensual and emotional journey through conceptual art. The focus is on “hope”—not as faith or passive optimism, but as a basis for concrete action. The exhibition highlights the role of artists whose projects spark hope, challenge indifference and inspire to think and create a future built on empathy and collaboration. 24 works will be shown that, like Octavia Butler’s “new suns,” make other horizons and landscapes visible and allow us to look and think beyond what already exists.

New this year are the “Artist Spotlights”: four selected rooms invite you to look through the lenses of the artists Tega Brain (AU) and LaJuné McMillian (US), and to become familiar with the approaches of the collective Time’s Up (AT) and the perspectives of students from Anab Jain (IN/GB) from Superflux. The “Artist Spotlights” demonstrate innovative ways of thinking and working and encourage people to recognize the impact potential of artistic research through imaginative suggestions. The topics range from new, sustainable energy concepts to actively making diverse stories visible to dealing with personal memories in a digital world. All stations are linked by the question of how we can address ecological and social problems—and what alternatives are conceivable.

Part of the exhibition, presented as part of the European Digital Deal project, is co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe program. Works presented are from EMAP (The European Media Art Platform), projects created as part of the European Media Artist in Residence Exchange (EMARE), the winners of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards 2024 (supported by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, CIFO) and an art installation sponsored by the Institut Ramon Llull. The exhibition also includes works that were awarded the ArTS Production Grant for Swiss Artists (Art, Technology, Society)—a scholarship supported by the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia—as well as a performance that was awarded the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity, which is supported by the Austrian Foreign Ministry.
Another work was co-produced by Ars Electronica and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and another project was implemented as part of the TAICCA x Ars Electronica Art Thinking program.

Eight projects at a glance

Just asking for a friend / Time’s Up (AT)

With Just asking for a friend, the Linz artist group Time’s Up encourages people to critically reflect on hierarchies and privileges when it comes to shaping the future together. The room-filling light projection asks visitors a provocative question: “How dare you maintain hopeful visions in times like these?” What is meant is the challenge of creating positive visions while the effects of ecological, economic and social crises seriously threaten the livelihoods of many people around the world. The project should be seen as an invitation to maintain courageous, visionary thinking and to conduct a dialogue about who approaches hope and how, who takes care of it, who speaks about it, how it is allowed to speak, and who uses it for what purpose.

Credits
This project emerged from audience interactions with the exhibition “Dr Ruhsam: or how we learnt to love sleep” in Romania and reflections within the FWF funded arts-based research project “Curiouser and Curiouser Cried Alice.”

Solar Protocol / Tega Brain (AU), Alex Nathanson (US), Benedetta Piantella (US), Solar Protocol Collective (INT)

The Solar Protocol is a global network of solar-powered servers installed and maintained by volunteers around the world. These servers jointly host the Solar Protocol web platform and make it available from the location that currently collects the most sunlight and therefore the most energy. The control is automatic and takes into account the season, time of day and weather conditions. Solar Protocol is an algorithmic system that opens up new perspectives on intelligence and automation and raises the question of how Internet infrastructure and web design can be made sustainable.

Credits
The Solar Protocol Collective is led by Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson, and Benedetta Piantella and includes project contributors and stewards: Anne Pasek, Caddie Brain, Brendan Phelan, John Samoza, Camilo Rodriguez Beltran, Daniel Ñuñez, Alejandro Rebolledo, Graham Wilfred Jnr, Tim Chatwin, Bridgit Chappell, Baoyang Chen, Denzel J. Wamburu, Cyrus K, Chris Stone, Jesse Li, Zoë Horsten, Jarl Schulp, Crystal Chen and Jonathan Dahan.

Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions / Sam Lavigne (US), Tega Brain (AU)

Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions is an unconventional carbonoffset program that aims to disrupt the fossil fuel industry using workersabotage methods. Time theft occurs through fake sick days, sleeping at work,extended breaks, or non-work-related activities—any behavior that reduces acompany’s productivity because employees waste their (working) time and getpaid for it. That is exactly the goal of *Cold Call*. The installationsimulates a call center in which fossil fuel industry executives are called andkept on the phone for as long as possible. The time stolen from them is thenquantified as a carbon credit.

Credits
Commissioned by the STRP Festival, Eindhoven with support from Creative Capital.
Presented in the context of the European Digital Deal project. *European Digital Deal* is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport.

Iron 56 / Carlos Sfeir Vottero (CL/ES)

The universe is governed by four fundamental forces: the strong interaction, the weak interaction, electromagnetism and gravity. Iron 56 invites you to explore these fundamental powers. Compasses hanging from the ceiling attempt to align but are disrupted by the mass and magnetic field of their neighbors. The result is a constant swinging back and forth of the needles, performing a complex dance between synchronicity and drift.

Credits
Fabrication – Iron and Electricity
Interaction – Gravity and Electromagnetism
Text – Matteo Rapini
Install – Rebekka Jochem

Organism + Excitable Chaos / Navid Navab (IR/CA), Garnet Willis (CA)

Excitable Chaos is a triple, robot-controlled pendulum that swings back and forth chaotically, Organism is a robot-controlled organ that is conducted by this same Excitable Chaos. What can be seen here (as movement) can be heard there (as sound). With their installation, Navid Navab (IR/CA) and Garnet Willis (CA) create chaotic sound patterns that are modulated by the changing ratios of mass and period length of the three movable arms. They then dismantle the socio-historical tonality of the organ and make long-repressed timbres audible again. Like nature, the work is a non-linear system in which even events of the smallest magnitude can cause unexpected reactions whose next states are always unknown.

Credits
bit.studio was responsible for the development, design, and implementation of all aspects of the project.

Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica / Federico Gloriani (AR)

Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica (Reciprocity of Electronic Fantasmatics) is a performative and relational project that aims to collect and reuse electronic devices from municipal waste containers in Rosario (Argentina). Discarded microwaves, toasters and irons are dismantled and their usable components collected. Artists use these components to build four overhead projectors, which are shown in the exhibition and project images of the original devices onto the wall. Videos and texts document and explain the entire process. All components obtained as part of Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica will also be made available to the Argentine artist community, giving them a second life in new works.

Credits
Curatorship: Clarisa Appendino
Gathering and Disassembly: Buan Binario, Juan Ignacio Cabruja, Belén Céspedes, Lara Ferré
Inventory: Abril Contreras, Iñaki Solá
Design and Construction of overhead projectors: Guido Bertos
Photography: Sofía Desuque
Video: Federico García
Acknowledgements: Biblioteca y Archivo América Elda Nancy, Julia Levstein, Damián Monti Falicoff, Johana Celman + Belén Antola (Ula Lab)
The project has been produced as part of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards, a cooperation between Ars Electronica Festival and Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

Black Movement Library / LaJuné McMillian (US)

The Black Movement Library is an archive for activists, performers and artists working on XR projects. The goal is to build an engaged community through performances, XR experiences, workshops, conversations and tool development. A core VR experience at the Black Movement Library is Movement Portraits, an abstract documentary that delves into the movement and life stories of five Black female performance artists from New York City. Spirit and Child follows the inner journey of LaJuné McMillian (US) as she explores an alternative reality through meditation and prayer.

Credits
Production Credits: Movement Portraits / Creator: LaJuné McMillian / Performers: Roobi Gaskins, Lamb, Renaldo Maurice, Roukijah Rooks, RaFia Santana

All projects of the theme exhibition “HOPE: the touch of many”

Statements

“Whether in the large exhibition on the festival theme or in the S+T+ARTS exhibition – here and there, the decisive role that art plays in the further development of our society is palpable. It challenges us to break out of habitual patterns of thought, encourages us to approach one another and seek exchange. It puts people at the center and sees technology not as a means to replace us, but as an opportunity to expand our abilities and develop our creative potential.”

Dietmar Prammer, City Councilor for Urban Planning

„A visit to POSTCITY is a real experience—this is especially true for the bunker. The extensive, dark catacombs form the perfect setting for a media art exhibition, which this time is all about hope. Almost 30 projects show why art is irreplaceable for us: it is the look that artists take at things that allows us to find unexpected ways out of dead ends, their willingness to work with others, their fearless approach to the unknown and the joy of new things. With its exhibitions, Ars Electronica demonstrates that art can always inspire hope in us.“

Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, City Councilor for Culture, Chair of Ars Electronica’s Supervisory Board