*God bless ‘em, they went from their biggest-scale festival ever, after forty years of dogged work, straight into an epidemic and this bizarre effort to virtualize their worldwide friends





Ars Electronica

Following last year’s brilliant 40-year festival, which brought more artists, exhibitors and international experts to Linz than ever before, this year Ars Electronica is going on a journey, or rather the festival itself is becoming a journey – a journey through “Kepler’s Gardens”, which are not just located in Linz at the JKU Campus but also 120 other locations worldwide. 120 locations between Tokyo and Los Angeles, where universities, museums, galleries, clubs, communes and businesses will hold hundreds of exhibitions, conferences, performances, concerts and workshops that are aimed at the local audiences.

From the perspective of 13 major cultural operators in Europe (Ars Electronica, Center for Promotion of Science, Zaragoza City of Knowledge Foundation, Laboral, Kapelica Gallery, Science Gallery Dublin, Onassis Cultural Center, The Culture Yard / clickfestival, GLUON, Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts Sciences, SOU Festival, le lieu unique, Waag), the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab centers visions, expectations and fears that we associate with the conception of a future, all-encompassing artificial intelligence. Through an extensive activity programme in the form of exhibitions, labs, workshops, conferences, talks, performances, concerts and residencies the project fosters interdisciplinary work, transnational mobility and intercultural exchange. Our Home Delivery session will give you insight into some activities that our partners are doing.

The Belgrade Garden, which is hosted by CPN (Center for Promotion of Science), will present the fifth edition of the art+science programme, which is titled Intelligence IO and runs in parallel to the Ars Electronica Festival. The art+science lab presents to the audience the artworks of local artists and transdisciplinary project teams engaged in particular topics within the vast field of artificial intelligence. They will present projects, such as Digital Prayer by Kristina Tica, which uses ML techniques for establishing a connection between the canonical structure of an Orthodox icon and the image artificially generated by a computer program. The Garden will also host a musical performance “I Sit and Worry About Her” by Jasna Jovićević (winner of the national selection in 2019), based on sonification of brain waves.

The Helsingør Garden is organized by The Culture Yard, who will be introducing their programme during the festival, which focuses on AI and humanity. Works produced by The Culture Yard, MindFuture Foundation, Kapelica Gallery, Quo Artis and memoryMechanics include everything from immersive experiences in the 4D Box hologram stage with a live performer and AI interacting with audiences to online artist talks and activities, e.g., a COVID-19 AI battle between Trump and WHO, where two politically biased AIs will challenge each other and the audience about the “right” interpretation of “reality”.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Ars Electronica

https://ars.electronica.art/

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