Conferences, Lectures, Workshops

This year’s ERROR – The Art of Imperfection conferences will spotlight the topic from different perspectives. Starting from a meta level discourse on the phenomenology of erring, it leads through bold approaches to conquering new risks and ends on Sunday with self-reflective perspectives on erring in various disciplines and practical fields. The Prix Forum holds talks and lectures with jury members and award winners together, focussing on this year’s Prix Ars Electronica categories: Interactive Art +, Digital Communities und Visionary Pioneers of Media Art.

Opening Symposium

The Opening Symposium offers an insight into the discourse contributions of Ars Electronica's core formats and is intended to serve as a teaser that arouses curiosity for more.

ERROR - The Art of Imperfection Conference

This year’s ERROR - The Art of Imperfection conferences will spotlight the topic from different perspectives. Starting from a meta level discourse on the phenomenology of erring it leads through valiant approaches of conquering new risks and ends on sunday with very self reflective perspectives on erring in various disciplines and practical fields.

Prix Forum I - Computer Animation

Meet the Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners in the Computer Animation category at this Prix Forum.

Prix Forums

One of the absolute highlights of every Ars Electronica is the opportunity to meet Prix Ars Electronica prize-winners and to attend Prix forums to hear the artists elaborate on their oeuvre and current work.

Prix Forum II - Interactive Art +

Meet the Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners in the Interactive Art + category at this Prix Forum.

Prix Forum III - Digital Communities

Meet the Prix Ars Electronica prizewinners in the Digital Communities category at this Prix Forum.

Prix Forum IV - Visionary Pioneers of Media Art / Leonardo Birthday Party

An insight into the 50 years of transdisciplinary work of Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) between art, music, science and technology.

Art Talks: Media Art Market Symposium

The discussion shows the current and future situation of the Media Art Market. It still suffers from less visibility on the common contemporary art market, even if the latest changes in art, science and technology are the essence of media art artworks.

Future Innovators Summit

Der Future Innovators Summit ist ein von Ars Electronica Futurelab und Hakuhodo entwickeltes kreatives Forum. Im fünften Jahr seines Bestehens versammelt der FIS erfahrene Fachleute sowie junge UnternehmerInnen und soziale AktivistInnen, TechnikerInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen und natürlich KünstlerInnen und DesignerInnen beim Ars Electronica Festival im September in Linz, um sich gegenseitig zu inspirieren als auch Ideen und Know-how auszutauschen.

ZusammenHelfen Conference: Day of Encouragement

This is the fourth consecutive year that ZusammenHelfen–Working Together in Upper Austria for Refugees is hosting a conference for all those who are committed to and interested in helping people forced to flee, or are affected by refugees and integration.

STARTS Day

STARTS Day on Friday will emphasize the potential of evolving future innovators and show extraordinary samples of innovation on the nexus of art, science and technology.

Digital Theater Network Meeting

European Theatre Lab: Drama goes digital is Europe’s first think tank devoted to researching a digital strategy for theater.

FuckUp Night Linz Special

The FuckUp Night talks about failures, their consequences and lessons from a social and personal point of view.

Spaxels Research Initiative

Both new and existing collaborators will talk about their interests and approaches to swarms.

Expanded Animation - Interfaces in Motion

This year’s symposium is an inquiry into future interfaces in animation. Interfaces in Motion will focus on animation technology at the manifold interface where humans, computers and interaction meet.

BR41N.IO Hackathon
g.tec medical engineering GmbH (AT)

In cooperation with g.tec, Ars Electronica will be hosting another large-scale BR41N.IO Hackathon: For two days, more than 100 hackers will be working on the potential of current Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI).

Future Sessions: Trust in Invisible Agents

Join a panel and roundtable session to co-create actionable recommendations for art interventions in the Internet of Things. The event will stimulate an interactive conversation around ideas of transparency, literacy, ethics and governance in the IoT.

Gallery Spaces Panel I: Beyond Patronage: Artists and Experimental Monetization

The Kickstarter Panel will discuss the basis question of how artists get paid. Digital art has always run counter to traditional instiutional modes, and sought direct engagement with audiences.

Gallery Spaces Panel II: Identification and Self-identification online. Technology and the true self

The correlation between representation and self-representation online vs real world will be at the center of the discussion. While talking about tech breakthroughs  the speakers will discuss how these innovations are changing the way we see and want to be seen online.

Prospects for Political Education Symposium

Is the world coming unhinged? Do young people see things that way too? Does the younger generation have answers to questions that aren’t even formulated the way they would have put it? Does peer education constitute the key to self-empowerment that opens the door for young people to assuming responsibility, making a commitment and a mark on society—in impudent, courageous and demanding terms?

Get Inspired Presentations

Impulse presentations on innovative best practice examples from the STARTUP scene. Established, developing and newly founded companies talk about their perspectives on creative forms of innovation.

Gallery Spaces Panels

Acknowledging the newly emerging forms and displacements of the media-art economy, the Gallery Spaces Panels as well as the Media Art Market Symposium faces the criticalities and strenghts of the art market, seen as a resource for supporting artists' activity and the development in this cultural field.

Campus Panel I: Hexagram Panel

For the very first time this year, a selection of universities will not only present their work in a special Campus exhibition, but also host their own discursive format – the Campus Forum Conferences. Hexagram will present their research network, dedicated to research-creation in the fields of media arts, design, technology and digital culture.

Campus Panel II: Teaching a digital native generation for a sustainable future technology

This panel will discuss teaching a digital native generation for a sustainable future technology.

Campus Panel III: ERROR in Education. A profiting relation.

Participants will present and talk about cases of study that had served as an example of “profitable errors” in their academic experience.

Campus Panel IV: Digital Communties Lounge & Prix Ars Electronica Prizewinners

Winners of the Prix Ars Electronica 2018 will discuss the role and development of social activism, responsible innovation, and digital communities in today's media art with students and professors from all participating campus institutions.

Gallery Spaces Panel IV: Preservation of Media Art

Every artwork needs is own conservation strategies to survive the usage over time. Especially the technical diversity of media artworks need the awareness of every possible preservation scenario.

Artists Talks: Error, Fake & Failure

Selected artists from different areas of Art&Science will present their artistic work, showing from a forensic approach the deconstruction of their processes of creation and research.

Artists Talks: Error in Progress

Selected artists from different areas of Art&Science will present their artistic work, showing from a forensic approach the deconstruction of their processes of creation and research.

Artists Talks: Art & Science

Selected artists from different areas of Art&Science will present their artistic work, showing from a forensic approach the deconstruction of their processes of creation and research.

Gallery Spaces Panel III: Digital presentation strategies and collections

How does new technologies of presentation influence the market and where are the problems of the various collection platforms?

CAMPUS Forum

For the very first time this year, a selection of universities will not only present their work in a special Campus exhibition, but also host their own discursive format – the Campus Forum Conferences.

EMAP Jam-Session

The EMAP Jam-Session gives artists and interested people the possibility to obtain more information about the program and the member institutions.

STEAMing up Austria! Bridges Linz 2019 Information Event

Meet the organizers of the interdisciplinary conference of the world's largest mathematics and art community, Bridges Organization's interdisciplinary conference, and explore cooperation opportunities for 2019.

The Politics of Fashion: Fashion as Social Bot

The concept of expanded fashion research permits a shift of perspective to look beyond the fast fashion system to an approach that’s not yet marketable—rethinking the positioning of fashion as social, processual sculpture at the interface of technology and of art, and enabling it to manifest political, social and aesthetic forms.

ORI*gen

Matthew Gardiner and his team at the Ars Electronica Futurelab will present work in progress from recent research on ORI*, the Art and Science of Folding and Robotics.

Chilean Artist Talks

The participants in the roundtable will discuss the current developement and tendencies in the Chilean media art scene.

Music Education Day

This event is an outgrowth of Music Summit, a working group formed at the 2017 Ars Electronica Festival; now, one year later, they’ve put together a program for musicians, teachers and musicologists.

… under control of music, music under control of …; composing (in) digital worlds

The symposium brings together artists, thinkers and researchers from different fields to shine a light on the manifold challenges for the sonic artist composing (in) the digital worlds today.

EU-Copyright vs open Internet?

In adapting copyright to the digital age, the EU is facing landmark decisions. EU MEPs will discuss this topics with representatives of the art scene and civil society.

Panel Discussion: Immersify - Content and Tools for Next Generation Immersive Media

Virtual reality and other forms of immersive media have the potential to disrupt the entire media industry with new user experiences that are more immersive and interactive compared to current video, cinema and TV.

Digital Communities Lounge

Digital Communities Lounge is open In the Ursulinensaal im OÖ Kulturquartier to provide a meeting & sharing platform within the CyberArts exhibition 2018 for different “Digital Communities”.

The New Infinity - New Art for Planetariums

In their programme series “The New Infinity”, Berliner Festspiele and Planetarium Hamburg will present new artistic fulldome productions from the autumn of 2018.

LINZ-V.R.-(T)RAUM

The notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk, with its distinctive aspect of performative art, as well as the idea of art as a counter-world – as a “dictatorship”— is the topic of the artist talk and can be also found in the first virtual reality production by Jonathan Meese and his mother Brigitte Meese.

Build a Musical Wearable with Paper Circuitry and Bela Mini
Dr. Rebecca Stewart (UK), Andrea Guidi (UK), Queen Mary University

You are invited to colour, cut, and design a wearable audio object using paper.

Digital Communities Lounge - with Future Innovators Summit

& Prix Ars Electronica Prizewinners Inspiration Tour.

Workshop Space

The workshopspace is an open room that belongs to the program of Theme Conferences and Exhibitions in POSTCITY, mainly focused on the experts experience, the artistic work and processes of creation.

Lecture Stage

As every year, the Festival provides different spaces where international speakers take part in discursive program topics. The Lecture Stage is the second main room dedicated to these purposes.

Innovation Forum Get Inspired

The Innovation Forum "Get Inspired by Ars Electronica" invites businesspeople from Upper Austria to work on different aspects of deviations, the innovation potential of mistakes, and constructive error cultures.