The Ars Electronica Festival 2024 “HOPE who will turn the tide” offers over 500 projects in the PostCity and throughout Linz from September 4 to 8. “The abundance cannot be consumed in its entirety,” Ars Electronica director Gerfried Stocker recommended to guests during the presentation of the highlights on Monday, setting focus points. Also being celebrated are the 200th birthdays of Bruckner and Smetana, 20 years of Interface Culture at the Art University and ten years of the Linz Faculty of Medicine.
City Councillor for Culture Doris Lang-Mayerhofer (ÖVP) stressed that in these crisis-ridden times, only we can all work together to turn the tide. “Ars Electronica has been proving this for decades with its global and regional collaboration.” Norbert Trawöger, Artistic Director of the Bruckner Orchestra and the KulturEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024, presented a first highlight: The festival opening on Wednesday evening in St. Mary’s Cathedral also marks the end of the 24-hour celebration of Bruckner’s 200th birthday.
The gala, the ceremonial awarding of the Prix Ars Electronica trophies, will take place for the first time on Thursday in the Design Center. On Friday, the Grand Concert Night in the PostCity track hall will feature the Cello Octet Amsterdam with eight robots, “which once again highlights the connection between humans and technology,” says Stocker – after that, pianist Maki Namekawa will play with the cellists. She will also perform “Ma Vlast” by Bedrich Smetana four-handed with Dennis Russell Davies on Saturday, accompanied by visualizations by Cori O’Lan. To round off the musical event on Sunday, Davies and his Brno Philharmonic Orchestra will present the Austrian premiere of the Mishima Concerto by Philip Glass, with Namekawa as soloist.
The Anton Bruckner University is a partner of the festival for the ninth time and will try to “express the connection to one another in the listening experience” on Sonic Saturday, said Rector Martin Rummel, who announced 29 artists from 17 countries in cooperation with students and teachers of the university.
The exhibition of the Prix winners is being held for the first time in the Lentos Art Museum on the Danube. Director Hemma Schmutz emphasized the intensifying collaboration and was looking forward to the start of the autumn with the Prix show. For the first time, the MedCampus of the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) is being included in the festival. JKU Rector Stefan Koch emphasized that the connection with art is essential. The “Art and Science” show features seven projects from the Linz Institute of Technology.
42 international universities are presenting their students’ work in the campus program, according to festival organizer Christl Baur. Art University Rector Brigitte Hütter announced an 18-meter-high tower on the main square that offers unexpected perspectives. “Hope lies in the fact that each and every one of us can do something to overcome the multiple crises of our time,” she said, summing up the festival theme. The themed exhibition “Hope: The Touch of Many” makes it clear that “hope is the basis for action,” emphasized Baur. The Ars Electronica Platform Europe with the StartsPrize shows and the Ars Electronica features of the partner organizations can also be seen in the PostCity.
The IT:U Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria will present the top five projects that emerged from the Founding Lab held in 2023. Among other things, they will address the participation of disabled people and the care of the future, says founding president Stefanie Lindstaedt.
This year, the conferences and symposia will take a more practical approach, with many companies and organizations “all of which have one thing in common: they present new approaches to driving digital, ecological and social change,” said festival director Veronika Liebl. A highlight will be the keynote speech by AI author and scientist Kate Crawford, who won a StartsPrize with partner Vladan Joler and “Calculating Empires” and sheds light on the centuries-long history of technology and power. One day will focus on the AI act and Paul Nemmit, one of the main figures in the European Commission, will speak about it. The future of cities, the Linz hydrogen initiative, sustainability in culture and media, and the use of artificial intelligence in art are other topics of the symposia.
Much space is traditionally given to animation art: The Expanded Conference on Animation and Interactive Art at the Ars Electronica Center brings academic and artistic presentations. The animation festival, which has been running since 2005, shows projects from the Prix category New Animation Art and thematic screenings on the festival theme, says Animation Art Festival Director Jürgen Hagler.
There is also a focus on the cultural heritage programs in the Ars Electronica Center’s DeepSpace, including a virtual tour of the Notre-Dame church in Paris, which burned down in 2019.
The Ars Electronica companies Solutions and Futurelab are giving insights into their work in the PostCity. Solutions director Michael Mondria invited visitors to interactive installations and prototypes, for example, you could observe the earth as a satellite. The Future Lab is showing a project from Japan on the phenomenon of migration in rural areas and a work commissioned by the Austrian Parliament that deals with citizen participation in the run-up to the National Council elections, says director Horst Hörtner. Young artists and cultural workers are present in the Young Artist Space in the PostCity, next to the youth festival Create Your World.
Because of the wide range of options, Liebl recommended the “We guide you” program, which offers over 20 different tours that you can register for online. Stocker advised getting a good night’s sleep beforehand in order to build up sufficient energy reserves for the festival.
(SERVICE – Ars Electronica Festival “HOPE who will turn the tide” from 4 to 8 September in Linz, program and highlights at
