Events, Concerts, Performances

Music and visualizations are mainstays of the Festival program. An opening extravaganza on Thursday kicks off the five-day media art festival. Linz’s spacious riverside Donaupark will once again be serving as an open-air stage—on Saturday, centerpiece of the Visualized Klangwolke (Cloud of Sound); on Sunday, the site of the Big Concert Night when orchestral music and digital sounds intermingle with live electronics and visualizations. Sonic Saturday and Music Monday are great opportunities for aficionados of digital music and sound art to enjoy up-close-and-personal encounters with the festival’s lineup of artists and musicians.

Ars Electronica Opening

As every year, the Ars Electronica Opening will bring compelling and thought-provoking acts to the stages of PostCity.

Ars Electronica POSTCITY Nightline

Once again the Ars Electronica Nightline will be showcasing contemporary electronic music by international and local performers.

The Big Concert Night 2018
of Ars Electronica, Bruckner Orchestra Linz and Brucknerhaus Linz

The Big Concert Night has become one of the festival’s fixed points and absolute highlights.

Stage Your City

Everyone is asked to bring their own smartphone, install the app “Zigmagora” and follow its commands into a city of the future. The digital dramaturgy takes the audience in groups through dystopic situations – and several consumer technologies.

Of wall to ground
Faye Mullen (CA)

Walls are a vestige of colonization and political instrument since the Anthropocene began; we have never been faced with more walls than we are today.

Microbiome Rebirth Incubator
François-Joseph Lapointe (CA), Marianne Cloutier (CA)

This project symbolically explores the possibility of ​​repairing the microbiome, as a way to re-empower the mother and her child, and to erase the traumatic experience of caesarean birth.

0FF8N0FF | Spaces Alive #abstract 
Mihaela Kavdanska & Dilmana Yordanova (RO/BG/AT), Maria Mora (RO), Mariana Gavriciuc (RO), Mirian Kolev (BG)

Spaces Alive #abstract is a site-specific performative intervention presented within the frame of 0FF8N0FF, a collaborative exhibition and concert series by Memphis Art Space and Tresor Linz.

The 4D Box - a holographic live stage
The Culture Yard (DK), Very Mainstream Studio & Very Theatre (TW), Noora Hannula & The Nordic Beasts (DK/FI), Carl Emil Carlsen (DK), Bjørn Svin (DK)

The 4D Box is a multimedia digital live stage and includes hologram technology, advanced sound and live performance in a single expression.

Kissing Data
Karen Lancel, Hermen Maat (NL) 

Kissing Data encourages shared agency to explore, co-create and co-interpret intimate BCI data, to share dialogue and reflection on ethical design concepts.

Generative Chorus
Marine Theunissen (BE, CA)

The Generative Chorus project is an artistic research laboratory on the chorus in movement.

Animation Festival 2018

220 works selected from among this year’s 1,007 submissions to the Prix Ars Electronica’s Computer Animation category constitute the lineup of the 2018 Ars Electronica Animation Festival.

KOSMICA Parliament
Miha Turšič (SI/NL)

KOSMICA Parliament is a series of performative events featuring the artistic community of Ars Electronica and their views about human activities in outer space.

Piano Music Meets Digital Images
Maki Namekawa (JP), Dennis Russell Davies (US), Cori O‘Lan (AT), Andreas Bitesnich (AT)

Piano Music Meets Digital Images is the programmatic title of the Monday evening concert by Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies with visualizations by Cori O’Lan that concludes this year’s Ars Electronica Festival.

Leonardo Slam Session
Ben Olsen (US), Dawn Faelnar (US), Christa Sommerer (AT)

A group of Interface Cultures students will rummage through the archive and interpret it in the Poetry Slam style.

Spiel | an in-situ performance for prepared mouth
Peter van Haaften (CA), Michael Montanaro (CA)

Spiel physically unravels the tenuous synesthetic relationship between what is seen, heard and understood.

πTon
Cod.Act (CH)

A long rubber tube, closed in a loop, is animated by contortions and undulations like an invertebrate body.

Sonic Saturday

Sonic Saturday, part of the digital music focus at Anton Bruckner University, presents a symposium, a guided tour through the university's computer music studio, a multichannel listening room featuring compositions and much more.

ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!
Ei Wada (JP), Nicos Orchest-Lab (JP)

With the help of festival visitors, Ei Wada will bring back to life the spirits of retired consumer electronics devices.

Aerial Being
Yasuhiro Suzuki (JP)

Blending into its surrounding environment due to its transparency, Aerial Being serves to transform familiar places into a fresh scenery that extends beyond context and meaning.

Feedback Cycles for Oscillographs
Guillaume Arseneault (CA)

Activated by movement on two wheels, this installative action seeks to reveal the unknown between void and short circuit.

Challenge: Emergency Error Battle
Oö. Landes-Feuerwehrverband (AT), Rosenbauer International AG (AT), Ars Electronica (AT), g.tec medical engineering GmbH (AT)

In the Emergency Error Battle, voluteer fire brigades from Upper Austria will face challenges of the future. How can new technologies provide support for an existing and functioning team structure? And can natural human intuition be replaced by artificial intelligence?

Dilate
Queensland University of Technology (AU)

Dilate is an interactive wearable that responds to human data; dilating, pulsating and expanding.

Hebocon
Korinna Lindinger (AT), Romedius Weiss (AT), Michael Hackl (AT), Andreas Pils (AT); Ars Electronica (AT)

According to Japanese tradition, a Hebocon is a sumo fight for low-tech robots and a wrestling match of the technical dilletans.

Farmers' Market
BIO AUSTRIA, Oberösterreich (AT)

POSTCITY will be welcoming farmers on Saturday. In addition to sustainably produced foodstuffs, the focus is on alternative future agricultural scenarios in which technological innovations play an essential role.

OK Night

The OK Night, much appreciated by music enthusiasts and night-owls, is the place to be on the Festival Saturday for everyone who wants to crank it up after the Electronic Theatre or the Klangwolke.

The Vibrationeers
Bernhard Breuer (AT), Didi Bruckmayr (AT), Chris Bruckmayr (AT), Stefan Fuchs (AT), AS50e Akkustampfer / Wacker Neuson

A performance with 5 wired, modified battery tampers from Wacker Neuson in a special electro-acoustic sound environment.

Listening Room

In the Listening Room of the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, visitors will encounter a big spectrum of Austrian electro-acoustic compositions and how this genre has evolved over time.

Listener
Suzanne Kite (US)

Listener is a site specific performance artwork that engages with Lakota epistemologies through computational media and narrative.

Hidden Alliances Soundbrunch

Performances of the Hidden Alliances artists

Holy Hydra
Amanda Augustin (AT), Lorena Höllrigl (AT)

Holy Hydra is a two-day event involving contemporary performances, electronic sound art, interactive light installations and a symposium about "Sacral Space vs. Urban space" in the parish church of Urfahr.

Music Monday

Euphoric connoisseurs and fervent fans, once again this year the seasoned professionals and intrepid amateurs who make up the digital music and sound art scene will gather for Music Monday on the last day of Ars Electronica.

Ars Electronica Gala

An evening dedicated to the world's best representatives of the digital arts: the Grand Gala of Ars Electronica 2018 with the presentation of the Golden Nicas to the winners of the Prix Ars Electronica and the European Commission's STARTS Prize 2018.

Electronic Theatre

The Electronic Theatre presents all of the award-winning works of the 2018 Prix Ars Electronica in an entertaining presentation on a large screen.

Listening Session Andrea Sodomka

a concept by Andrea Sodomka & Doris Ingrisch in cooperation with Ö1 Kunstradio and IKM

Tagtool Community Showcase

For over 10 years now, building façades and stage sets worldwide have been illuminated with spontaneous images rendered and animated live.

The 4D Box: Silicium
The Culture Yard (DK), Carl Emil Carlsen (DK), Bjørn Svin (DK)

The 4D Box is a multimedia digital live stage and includes hologram technology, advanced sound and live performance in a single expression.

The 4D Box: The Ultimate Battle
The Culture Yard (DK), Noora Hannula & The Nordic Beasts (DK/FI)

The 4D Box is a multimedia digital live stage and includes hologram technology, advanced sound and live performance in a single expression.

CyberArts Opening

Highlights of Digital Media Art! Opening of the CyberArts exhibition in the OÖ Kulturquartier.

The 4D Box: Chronicle of Light Year
The Culture Yard (DK), Very Mainstream Studio & Very Theatre (TW)

The 4D Box is a multimedia digital live stage and includes hologram technology, advanced sound and live performance in a single expression.

Hidden Alliances - Liesl Ujvary / Maryanne Amacher

presented by Christian Scheib and Norbert Math

Medium Sonorum

Medium Sonorum is a concert of electroacoustics in the Sonic Lab of Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz.

0FF8N0FF II – Concerts
Minim | Diana Dulgheru (RO), Stefana Fratila (RO/CA)

0FF8N0FF is an event within the frame of 0FFXN0FF, a collaborative exhibition and concert series by Memphis Art Space and Tresor Linz.

Featured Artist Guided Tour

A performance by Featured Artist Elisabeth Schimana (AT) as part of her exhibition "Hidden Alliances" at the LENTOS Art Museum.

Pre-Opening Tour

For particularly interested visitors, selected festival locations along the Danube will already open their doors on September, 5th. The Lentos Art Museum, the Canadian Media Art Network Hexagram and the Ars Electronica Center are pleased to give initial insights into their exhibition program.

STWST48x4 SLEEP
Stadtwerkstatt (AT)

With a major focus on sleep, the 4th edition of the 48-hour non-stop program brings together artists and critical producers to address an aesthetic of the unconscious. Art for Sleepers, Art by Sleepers and Art as Sleep.