Ars Electronica Festival 2024 with Record

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• HOPE – who will turn the tide

(Linz, September 9, 2024) 1,260 artists, scientists, developers, entrepreneurs and activists from 67 countries were guests in Linz over the past five days and contributed to Ars Electronica 2024. 10 official and another 8 featured locations were used and 498 events were offered. “The program was top-class, the weather was beautiful and the atmosphere was great,” sums up Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica, with satisfaction. “With more than 112,000 visits, this festival surpassed all previous ones”.

Huge Crowds at Events

“The large crowds at our events have shown what is important at an art festival: creating space, time and an atmosphere so that people can talk to each other and inspire each other,” says Veronika Liebl, Managing Director of the Ars Electronica Festival. “Around 1,500 people were at the pre-opening walk and experienced six exhibition openings at six locations, more than 3,500 people who attended the festival opening with the ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! (JP) danced on the square in front of St. Mary‘s cathedral and then experienced a successful world premiere inside the cathedral with BruQner – The Sound of Entanglement. The Futurelab Night and almost all cultural heritage presentations in Deep Space 8K were sold out, and this year’s edition of Pianographique, the Mishima Concerto with Filharmonie Brno under its chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies (AT/US) and Ars Electronica‘s Big Concert Night with Cello Octet Amsterdam (NL), visual artist Nick Verstand (NL) and pianist Maki Namekawa (AT/JP) as well as the Nightline in the Train Hall of POSTCITY were also very well attended.”

Successful Premieres

The 2024 festival brought with it a whole range of innovations. The decision to show the Prix Ars Electronica exhibition for the first time in the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz turned out to be particularly positive. “On the one hand, the exhibition fitted perfectly into the museum context. On the other hand, the top-class show increased the attractiveness of the entire festival mile along the Danube and contributed to even more people visiting Lentos, the University of Arts and the Ars Electronica Center,” explains Christl Baur, Head of Ars Electronica Festival.

The Prix Ars Electronica Award Ceremony also took place at a new location this year. “The infrastructure of the Design Center made it much easier for us to hold this event with more than 1,000 visitors and contributed to an all-round successful evening for both the award winners and the audience,” says Markus Jandl, commercial director of Ars Electronica.

The JKU MED Campus was a completely new festival location. “This location also worked great,” sums up Christl Baur. “The diverse program, which included the exhibition of the Linz Institute of Technology, artistic and medical visualizations in the medSPACE and numerous XR projects, contributed to this. In addition, good accessibility by public transport—especially from POSTCITY—played an important role.”

Another innovation was the Ars Electronica Campus Award, worth 2,000 euros, which was intended to further increase the attractiveness of the extremely successful Campus platform. “If students invest their entire summer holidays to exhibit with us, then it is up to us to offer them as much visibility, attention and appreciation as possible,” emphasizes Veronika Liebl. All 42 participating universities each nominated a project, which was presented to an international jury. “ACV (Algorithmic Cultural Vandalism) by Pietro Lugaro (IT) und Alessandro Mac-Nelly (DE) was recognized as the best project on this year’s Ars Electronica Campus and presented on the large stage in the conference hall on Saturday.”

The Young Artist Space, which was offered for the first time together with OTELO, was also intended to support and motivate young artists in their next career steps. “As part of “create your world”—be it at the festival or the Prix Ars Electronica—we work intensively with young people who are often at a crucial point in their lives: deciding whether to pursue an artistic career or not.” explains Veronika Liebl. “Many of them who choose art feel left alone. To support them in this challenging phase, we launched the Young Artist Space, which enables exchanges with established artists from all over the world—an offer that went down well with many.”

Exciting Symposium

AI scientist Kate Crawford (AU) and neuroscientist Anil Seth (GB) are among the most renowned protagonists in their disciplines, and they both spoke at the three-day symposium on the festival topic in Linz. “The focus on people and initiatives perfectly conveyed the theme and the concerns of the festival,” summarizes Veronika Liebl. “We deliberately wanted to do less theoretical reflection and instead show who gives us legitimate reason for hope and why.”

Sold out Deep Space 8K

Deep Space 8K was literally stormed. “Tickets for the immersive cultural heritage presentations such as Notre-Dame Immersive were sold out, as were Futurelab Night or the Ars Electronica Solutions presentations. There was also a huge turnout for the performances like WHAT IS REMAINING,” says Veronika Liebl.

Ingenious POSTCITY

“Even after seven festivals at the POSTCITY, this location deserves a special mention,” says Veronika Liebl. “The decommissioned postal distribution center, waiting for its future use in the heart of Linz, is simply an ideal place to discuss future visions and become aware of the necessity for change. Once again this year, POSTCITY has significantly contributed to the atmosphere of the festival. A big thank you to the Austrian Post AG for allowing us to use this wonderful location again.”

Support from Linz and all over the World

“Without the global network of event, cooperation and project partners as well as the support from funding agencies and sponsors, a festival of this dimension and quality would be unthinkable,” says Gerfried Stocker, thanking everyone who contributed to the festival. “The broad support from all areas of our society clearly shows how relevant Ars Electronica’s mission is. This is underlined by 242 media representatives from 29 countries who have been accredited for the festival.”

Next Projects and Ars Electronica 2025

The festival is over and preparations for Ars Electronica’s next projects are already in full swing. “A team from the Ars Electronica Futurelab is currently on its way to Vienna, where the Pillars of Democracy project launched during the festival will stop in front of the Austrian Parliament. In the run-up to the National Council election, people should be encouraged in an entertaining and emotional way to engage with the basic values ​​of democracy and go to the polls on September 29th,” explains Gerfried Stocker. “At the same time, Ars Electronica Futurelab is preparing a high-resolution scan of Linz’s St. Mary’s Cathedral (Mariendom) for Deep Space 8K. The scan created by the construction engineering office Nöbauer and ii3D will be presented at the end of September as part of the European Cathedral Builders Conference.”

The Ars Electronica Solutions team is currently working in China. “The next Deep Space is scheduled to open in Hangzhou on October 1st of this year,” says Markus Jandl, pleased that the infrastructure developed in Linz is attracting increasing interest and that the next Deep Space is now being built on behalf of Shanghai Shen Wei Culture, Science and Technology. “This continuously growing network gives us the opportunity to play an important role as a content provider in the future.”

The Ars Electronica Center team, in turn, is working with the Climate and Energy Fund on a new exhibition that will open in mid-November. “The focus is on the energy transition and holistic visions of the future,” explains Gerfried Stocker. “Artistic installations will question our role in this planet’s ecosystem and demonstrate how fragile the system is that makes our survival possible.”

Together with the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the OeAD, the “create your world” team is preparing the relaunch of the media literacy award (MLA). “From 2025, we want to honor innovative and creative media education projects from Austrian schools and bring them to the forefront,” says Gerfried Stocker.

Last but not least: The next Ars Electronica Festival will take place from September 3 to 7, 2025.

Statements

“The Ars Electronica Festival 2024 has once again transformed Linz into a center for innovation and creativity. Under the motto of hope, we experienced pioneering projects that showed how art and technology can offer solutions to the challenges of our time. Visionary projects, interactive installations and exciting performances offered visitors an impressive mix of creativity and technological progress. The Ars Electronica Festival showed once again that Linz remains a global hotspot for innovative solutions and creative impulses. My heartfelt thanks go to the organizers as well as the employees and numerous helpers for organizing this great festival!”

Karin Hörzing, Vice Mayor of the City of Linz

“The Ars Electronica 2024 has kept its promise and inspired us with its enthusiasm for the new, its openness to the different, and its passion for diversity. Whether during the Pre-Opening Walk, Festival Opening, Award Ceremony, or the Grand Concert Night—the atmosphere was consistently fantastic. Particularly enriching were the new locations, especially the JKU MED Campus, where art and science met in an impressive symbiosis, or the impressive opening at St. Mary’s Cathedral (Mariendom). I am already looking forward to the next festival, and the artists who give us hope for our common future with their projects. Thanks to the amazing festival team.”

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

“The Medical Campus of Johannes Kepler University Linz celebrated a successful premiere as one of the venues of the Ars Electronica Festival: Countless visitors experienced impressive projects at the intersection of science and art and fascinating insights into the world of medicine—all in the heart of Linz. This year’s Ars Electronica Festival has shown that the collaboration between science and art can provide impulses to effectively address our global challenges sustainably!”

Stefan Koch, Rector of Johannes Kepler University Linz

“Ars Electronica is the leading international festival for media art. We are thrilled that the Kunstuni Campus has been a fixture of the renowned festival for two decades, which our Interface Cultures study program co-founded. Unforgettable in 2024 will be POSTCITY, threatened with demolition, as a brilliant place for media artists, the impressive tower created by our architecture graduates in the main square, and the many artists, scientists, and visitors from near and far who engaged in dialogue with us. ”

Brigitte Hütter, Rector of the University of Arts Linz

„The Ars Electronica Festival has offered IT:U the chance to bring our main philosophy of learning to the stage. Six outstanding projects from our Founding Lab students presented on a highly professional level what interdisciplinary work can result in. What it means to break down boundaries between disciplines such as history, art, healthcare, neuroscience and computer science. With our project-based learning approach we bring people together—we talk the same language in an open, playful atmosphere of our specifically designed learning labs. And we work on the whole in order to address the challenges of industries, cities and the society itself. The Founding Lab Conference on Wednesday offered us a platform to exchange with international experts on digital transformation in learning in higher education. The Ars Electronica Festival itself stands for collaboration and innovation with an international outreach—a place to be when addressing societal challenges.”
Stefanie Lindstaedt, IT:U Founding President

“We are pleased to once again be making a contribution to the interdisciplinary and international future dialogue initiated by the Ars Electronica Festival this year. In a time of great challenge and uncertainty, art and especially music offers a unique opportunity to nourish one’s own optimism and hope. Our task as a university is not only to give the next generation the essential tools that are needed to turn the proverbial rudder around, but it is all about conveying this awareness of what art can achieve: music is not just sound, it is also an emotional resonance space. This touches us in our innermost being and provides impulses to open up diverse perspectives.”
Martin Rummel, Rector of Anton Bruckner Private University

“The exhibition of the Prix Ars Electronica winners in the Lentos Art Museum was a great success and attracted numerous interested visitors. Our annual cooperation with Ars Electronica as part of the festival is a proven and valuable partnership. We look forward to continuing to set new trends together in the future.”

Hemma Schmutz, Artistic Director Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

“Once again the festival focuses on animation art. The Ars Electronica Animation Festival showed a total of twelve screening programs in the JKU medSPACE, including highlights from the Prix Ars Electronica categories New Animation Art and *AI in Art* as well as, for the first time, guest programs from SIGGRAPH, ISEA and Runway AI Film Festival. The Expanded Animation conference, organized by the FH Upper Austria, Campus Hagenberg in cooperation with Ars Electronica, was once again all about animation in the context of media art.  The event, which has been held since 2013, became a scientific conference this year. EXPANDED 2024: Conference on Animation and Interactive Art presented a total of 35 lectures over three days. This top-class event with international experts from science and art focused on topics such as Interactive Experiences, AI & Speculative Futures, Creative AI, Hybrid Spaces, Extended Reality, Performance and Animation. New to the Expanded Animation program this year was the exhibition format Expanded Play, which showed playful, interactive student work. A total of 13 media installations by students from the Department of Digital Media at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and the Department of Visual Computing at Masaryk University (Brno) could be experienced up close in the Salzamt Atelierhaus.”

Jürgen Hagler, Director Ars Electronica Animation Festival