From self-playing instruments and virtual debates to databases that make the deadly dimensions of automated warfare visible: Artificial intelligence is shaping the present and the future in radical ways. At the festival, artistic works and forums explore how democracy can be rethought, how education can become a protective shield against digital dangers and how intimacy, emotion and language are transformed by AI.
The Falling City / Noemi Iglesias Barrios - Photo: Noemi Iglesias Barrios
Collection
For AI Inquirers
AI TOOLBOX – PREMIERE PROJECT
Pablo Palacio (ES), Daniel Bisig (CH), Farzaneh Nouri (IR)
The workshop introduces the AI Toolbox, a collection of open-source tools custom-developed within the context of the Horizon Europe project "Premiere". These tools are designed to facilitate the use of computer-based generative methods for creative work in the performing arts.
Archival Images of AI
Rasa Bocyte (LT)
Tired of seeing the same blue circuit boards or shiny white robots every time someone talks about AI? Yeah, us too. Join this hands-on workshop if you want to learn how to replace these misleading visual tropes with more inclusive and realistic imagery by reusing cultural heritage collections.
Art Thinking Experience
HAKUHODO Inc., Sei-katsu-sha insight R&D Institute (JP), Denise Hirtenfelder (AT)
Discover how Art Thinking can shift perspectives and serve as a transformative methodology for shaping a better society and economy. This interactive experience guides you through three diverse prototypes created by artists, researchers, and businesses—each exploring ways to engage with the needs of future citizens.
Anatomy of Non-Fact
Martyna Marciniak (PL)
Anatomy of Non-Fact critically examines synthetic image-based disinformation and explores its wide-ranging cultural, technological, and social consequences.
Archipelago of Possible Futures—Breaking Control, Building Democratic Imagination
Francesca Bria (IT/DE) & José Luis de Vicente (ES)
Archipelago of Possible Futures is a one-day forum that traverses from panic into possibility. The forum unfolds across three movements—Reckoning, Rebuilding, and Reimagining—as we confront the rise of authoritarian infrastructures, forge Europe’s democratic alternatives, and venture into visions and speculations for future democratic technologies.
CreAItivity
Philipp Wintersberger (AT)
This workshop invites artists from all disciplines to explore the increasingly fluid boundaries between human and machine creativity. Together, we will discuss both the potential and the limitations of AI systems, helping to gain a clearer sense of how this novelty can inform artistic practice.
Digital Deities: The Spirit of Restoration
The Metaverse Alliance (TW)
In shifting digital light, AI twin technology merges their forms with yours, creating a dialogue across time. Stand before the digital gate—your image fuses with the divine, inviting you to share in protection and tradition. This union of art and tech honors Taiwan’s spiritual heritage.
Digital Shadows
René Mayrhofer (AT), Philipp Hofer (AT), Laura Poulbot (FR), Airan Berg (AT), Andrea Hummer (AT), Ilona Roth (DE/AT), Linda Huber (AT), Gisela Klammsteiner (AT), Sara Koniarek (AT), Simon Sharkey (GB), Valerio Iurato (IT), Doris Roth (DE), Alina Lugovskaya (UA/RU), Selina Nowak (AT), JeanClaude Grieco (AR/AT), Florian Böttcher (AT), Ethem Saygieder-Fischer (AT)
Digital Shadows confronts visitors with their digital self—copied, measured, analyzed. An experiment on data power, visibility, and control in the digital age.
Educating an A(ctivist) Intelligence
This session centers on radical AI education as civic armor, aligned with the festival’s call for a “digital immune system” rather than alarmism. Educational activists, youth organizers, and techno-critics will spotlight initiatives that transcend basic digital literacy.
HandsOn AIxMusic
Instruments that play by themselves? That must be the latest technology! Or is it?
HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM
Kristina Tica (RS/AT), Joaquín Santuber (CL/DE)
HUMAN OVERS[A]IGHT: THE OPS ROOM is a generative interactive installation that envisions human oversight for high-risk AI systems as proposed in Article 14 of the EU AI Act. The visitors are invited to take upon a central role and attempt to stop or affect the system.
Inside the AI War Cloud
Sarah Ciston (US)
What responsibilities do users and makers have in choosing AI tools, when their development can also lead to deadly outcomes at massive scales? Explore the interactive database that investigates both automated warfare and the seemingly innocuous devices we use every day.
Large Language Writer
Lucy Li (AT), Leo Mühlfeld (AT), Alan Schiegl (AT)
The Large Language Writer (LLW) is a tangible prototype exploring honest interactions with LLMs. Instead of hiding mechanisms behind seamless experiences, it offers a “seamful” workflow that places users within the generative process.
STAGED REALITIES
Technology has always been both at the core of stagecraft and fueling the imagination for playwrights. Today, AI enters the stage, bringing new possibilities. The conference brings to stage leading practitioners, technologists, and researchers of AI in theater and performative art.
The Falling City
Noemi Iglesias Barrios (ES)
The Falling City is an installation that measures levels of emotional display in public space by detecting affective actions like holding hands, kissing, and hugging. The aim is to explore how urban structures shape or suppress emotional expression.
WHISPERS
Calin Segal (RO)
WHISPERS is an immersive debate platform between virtual actors. These AI-driven personas embody and amplify the rhetoric of social media influencers, escalating ideological clashes to their most extreme forms and in the process exposing the viewers to the mechanics of dogmatic tribalism.
XXX Machina
Erin Robinson (GB), Anthony Frisby (GB)
XXX Machina examines how Artificial Intelligence destabilizes erotic desire, identity, and intimacy.