Workshops

Synthenesis workshop by Fara Peluso, 2025. Overview of Spirulina harvesting and spherification processes - Photo: Quo Artis

Networking, Workshops

Collection

Workshops

At the Ars Electronica Festival workshops, you will meet creative minds from all over the world – including artists, scientists, activists and curious festival visitors like you. Together with experienced experts, you will delve into fascinating topics, exchange ideas and develop new perspectives. Let yourself be inspired!

Most workshops have a limited number of participants, so you must register in advance. To do this, click on “Register” on the workshop page and fill out the registration form.

  • 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), Nadia Piet (NL), Ploipailin Flynn (US)

    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.

  • Bias Card Game

    Chikako Asai (JP), Yasuaki Kakehi (JP)

    The Bias Card Game is a tool to help uncover unconscious biases hidden in our daily lives. Through play, participants reflect on how biases arise in everyday products and services, and explore ways to address them.

  • Canary in the Coal Mine

    Denisa Pubalova (CZ), Léna Defay (FR), Lina Mittendorff (DE)

    A game of absurd sensing infrastructures that explores the forced convergence of technological sensing and more-than-human sensory capacities. We invite you to make sense of the world, raise your awareness on techno-ecological entanglements, and reclaim sensible agency in an overstimulated world.

  • Crafting Futures Lab – (Ex)Sample Making

    Irene Posch (AT)

    Discover how textiles respond to electromagnetic forces and explore their visual, physical, and functional qualities in this hands-on workshop.

  • Crafting Futures Lab – Radical Crafting Salon

    Anna Blumenkranz (DE/UA)

    Join the Radical Crafting Salon, a playful space for collaborative stitching. Work alongside scientists and e-textile practitioners in a subversive, deliberately “inefficient” activity where words, threads, and sparks fly.

  • 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.

  • Feeding the Future: Robotics and technology as a practice of care

    Mónica Rikić (ES)

    Have you ever imagined a robot feeding you in old age? Would that mean you’re not dining alone? Is it care — or just convenience? And how political could those questions become? Join this participatory workshop by Mónica Rikić for a glimpse into a possible future.

  • Find the Tick: Recipes for Times of Radical Change

    Zane Cerpina (LV), Stahl Stenslie (NO)

    Enter a world of heat, scent, and touch. CIFRA serves tick-inspired dishes to give you a taste of the future. Dare to feast like a parasite? Panic and empathy—your favorite spices? Then our experimental kitchen awaits your order.

  • From Generative to Regenerative Technologies

    Ola Bonati (PL), Judith Veenkamp (NL)

    This interactive session delves into regenerativity and permacomputing in creative practice, inviting participants to explore these ideas through a practical, hands-on exercise.

  • From Nature to Nozzle

    Sebla Harnuboglu Ogur (TR), Axel Sylvester (DE), Umut Ogur (TR)

    Explore the intersection of sustainability and creativity in this hands-on workshop. From crafting your own bioplastic filament to experimenting with energy-efficient 3D printing, discover how innovative ideas and natural materials can help shape a greener future.

  • Human-Machine Teamwork

    Adrian Rudershausen (DE), Hanke Homburg (DE), Florian Ullrich (DE), Benjamin Buck (DE), Nils Penner (DE), Sylvia Amman (AT)

    Can AI become a productive team member within educational and cultural organizations? This workshop explores the possibilities and challenges of designing and integrating AI systems in such a way that they credibly emulate human roles, personalities, and behaviors and participate productively in organizational work processes.

  • Keep Calm and Create a Critical ChangeLab

    Critical ChangeLab Consortium (EU), Tactical Tech (DE), Eva Durall Gazulla (ES), Ana Maria Salinas Bojaca (CO)

    Explore practical tools and real-world strategies for designing democratic learning spaces. This workshop helps educators foster youth voice, civic imagination, and critical engagement—building partnerships across schools, culture, research, and industry.

  • Modern architecture along the Danube river, old town, and castle of Linz

    Harald Wimmer (AT)

    Experience Linz’s unique blend of medieval heritage and striking modern architecture on a scenic walk along the Danube from the Ars Electronica Center to the historic old town and castle.

  • Monster Writing

    Milena Leybold (DE)

    A writing space for anyone who collaboratively wants to (re)write the future through creative and experimental forms of writing—between irritation, play, and uncertainty.

  • Object-Object Mending

    Xueyi Sun (CN)

    Focusing on reuse and repair aesthetics in urban villages, the project Object-Object Mending constructs a decentralized material ecology from items discarded by mainstream market logic. The artist will perform live repair of collected old objects, transforming them by giving them new functions.

  • Supporting your Research with the ERC

    Aneta Krzemień Barkley (PL)

    The European Research Council (ERC) supports excellent frontier research across all fields of scholarship. The session will provide an overview of ERC funding opportunities, the evaluation procedure and general advice on preparing a proposal.

  • Semantic Remixing @ The Artificial Literature Laboratory

    Eugénie Desmedt (AT), Paul Kloker (DE), Marton Zalka (HU), Jonas Martschin (AT), Christine Haupt (DE)

    The Artificial Literature Laboratory explores Large Language Models (LLMs) not as services, assistants, or all-knowing agents, but as instruments for creative writing. In this workshop, we delve into how their statistical approach can inspire poetic practices and approaches to experimental writing.

  • Synthenesis

    Fara Peluso (IT/DE)

    The Synthenesis workshop explores how to build a DIY bioreactor for cultivating spirulina microalgae and producing pills. In this participatory format, participants will envision shaping the future by promoting collective practices of care and decision-making connected to well-being and empowerment.

  • What does a healthy river mean to you?

    Alexandra Albert (UK), DANUBE4all (EU)

    This interactive data “walkshop” is for anyone interested in talking about citizen data and river health while walking along the Danube.

  • Why African communities should be training, and machines learning, or maybe not?

    Ndapewa Onyothi (NA), Chris Emezue (NG), Kasia Chmielinski (US), Sanjana Paul (US), Olanrewaju Samuel (NG), Camille Minns (US)

    The workshop invites a profound exploration of the dynamic relationship between marginalized (human) communities and Artificial Intelligence, highlighting their crucial role in providing data for training AI models but also questioning the ethical implications and ownership of this process for language AI.