The LabOratorium exhibition being staged during the festival scrutinizes the alchemists of our time and the forces that impel them to do what they do. One spontaneously associates the word alchemy with the—eternally frustrating—handiwork of transforming base metal into gold, the endless search for the Philosopher’s Stone, or even with the likes of Paulo Coelho—quirky geniuses in antique laboratories full of odd apparatuses and bubbling flasks full of spooky substances.
Festival-goers visiting the LabOratorium won’t be receiving any prefab answers; instead, they’ll get an invitation to come along in search of the alchemists’ still-fascinating approaches and their current protagonists. To this end, the entire exhibition space is being transformed into a playful World_Lab in which a colorful assortment of stations offers opportunities for research, discussion, interacting and hacking. You might say we’re relaunching the mission to discover the Philosopher’s Stone. The issues we’re confronting thereby have to do with the information society, globalization, technology, medicine and ethics.
Visitors can take part in workshops, project presentations, discussions, hack attacks and experimental formats designed to come to terms with pressing issues together with invited artists and scientists.
Text: Michael Badics, Senior Director AE Solutions
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