All the target-group-specific offerings that make up this year’s program designed to mediate visitors encounters with festival content having to do with the “Human Nature” theme focus on a concept invented by Paul Crutzen: the Anthropocene Age, a time in which we human beings exert ever-greater influence on our planet, assume what is tantamount to control over it, and thus have more and more influence on society and our natural environment. Achievements in genetic engineering and biotechnology emerge from the depths of the laboratory and are changing our everyday life as well as the entire spectrum of forms of artistic expression. Many questions remain open and some problems still haven’t been cleared up, but cloning and experimentation goes on, boldly and unabated. Plus, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Ars Electronica Festival, we’ll also be taking a few retrospective looks at comparable projects, ideas, exhibitions and personalities of the past. And doing so while we continue to peer far into the future. The key issue: What will this new human-engendered nature look like and what undreamt-of possibilities and niches exist for us human beings within it?

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