They are between 16 and 24 years old and live in 50 different countries. They are on fire for the new and are doing everything they can to make our future better than the present. Without hesitation, they applied for the first “Festival University” offered this year by Ars Electronica and Johannes Kepler University (JKU) thanks to the support of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the province of Upper Austria. 100 applicants were accepted. Accompanied by renowned mentors from the international network of Ars Electronica and JKU and actively supported by artists and activists from Linz and Upper Austria, 100 creative minds from all over the world will participate from August 30 to September 19 in an experiment that rehearses the interplay of art, technology, science and society in the 21st century. On the one hand, the aim is to sound out what it takes to get going in terms of the future here and now, and on the other, what learning should look like in the 21st century. The outcome of this “festival university” will be presented and discussed in typical Ars Electronica fashion in and with a broad public: on the main square in Linz.

On the eve of the official festival kickoff, this year’s Ars Electronica goes into medias res. The program includes a Pre Opening Walk that starts at the OK in the OÖ Kulturquartier and continues with the example of award-winning artworks in the CyberArts exhibition to show how civil society in the 21st century is using new technologies to document subtle and deadly forms of violence and to hold their creators accountable (Cloud Studies / Forensic Architecture). Or how a unique collection of edible earth samples can become the starting point for reflecting on our complex and partly lost relationship with nature (The Museum of Edible Earth / masharu).We continue our walk to the “University of Art and Design Linz on the main square of Linz, where the exhibition “Loops of Wisdom” explores the question of how we generate our knowledge about the world and why – given the state of this world – we develop very little wisdom despite all this knowledge. A guide to action is proposed to help us finally make more of our knowledge and get into action.

The last stop of the evening is the Ars Electronica Center, which makes it clear with the show “There is no Planet B” that the species Homo Sapiens will not be able to cheat its way through. Artistic projects make us aware that we don’t lack solutions, but rather the will and the consistency to use them and to develop ourselves as individuals and as a society in such a way that the generations after us will still find a future worth living on this planet. Freely adapted from Carl Sagan: „There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.“