Dream of Walnut Palaces weaves history, Daoist philosophy, and AI imagery into a transformative space where alternative forms of knowledge emerge.

In “Run Motherfucker Run,” the body becomes the controller: those who run experience virtual immersion—those who stop fall. A powerful critique of passive consumption in digital worlds.

Guanaquerx by Paula Gaetano Adi, winner in the Artificial Life & Intelligence category 2025, reclaims the Andes as a site of resistance and reimagines robotics as a tool for planetary liberation.

Requiem for an Exit by Frode Oldereid and Thomas Kvam, winner of a 2025 Golden Nica, explores memory, violence, rhetoric, and the unsettling voice of a machine.

This year’s Golden Nica in the category “Digital Musics & Sound Art” goes to media artist Navid Navab and Garnet Willis for their project “Organism.”

„Das Ziegenkäsemachen aus der Sicht der Ziege“ (Goat Cheese Making from the Perspective of the Goat) reveals the digital overload, the dependency on algorithms, and the longing for liberation. It is a film that understands art as a radical scream against mindless, endless media consumption and indifference. 

The HEROINES project shows how citizens can help shape social change through research. In 2025, it was awarded the European Union Prize for Citizen Science.

What does a sustainable future in a big city look like? The Wild Future Lab in Nairobi showcases new paths for a renaturalized city through wearable, innovative artifacts made from local materials.

SHARESPACE explores new forms of collaboration between people, avatars, and AI in hybrid spaces. The focus is on connection, participation, and creative interaction, accompanied artistically by Ars Electronica Futurelab. One space, infinite possibilities.

In “Run Motherfucker Run,” the body becomes the controller: those who run experience virtual immersion—those who stop fall. A powerful critique of passive consumption in digital worlds.

Guanaquerx by Paula Gaetano Adi, winner in the Artificial Life & Intelligence category 2025, reclaims the Andes as a site of resistance and reimagines robotics as a tool for planetary liberation.

Requiem for an Exit by Frode Oldereid and Thomas Kvam, winner of a 2025 Golden Nica, explores memory, violence, rhetoric, and the unsettling voice of a machine.

This year’s Golden Nica in the category “Digital Musics & Sound Art” goes to media artist Navid Navab and Garnet Willis for their project “Organism.”

„Das Ziegenkäsemachen aus der Sicht der Ziege“ (Goat Cheese Making from the Perspective of the Goat) reveals the digital overload, the dependency on algorithms, and the longing for liberation. It is a film that understands art as a radical scream against mindless, endless media consumption and indifference. 

The HEROINES project shows how citizens can help shape social change through research. In 2025, it was awarded the European Union Prize for Citizen Science.

What does a sustainable future in a big city look like? The Wild Future Lab in Nairobi showcases new paths for a renaturalized city through wearable, innovative artifacts made from local materials.

SHARESPACE explores new forms of collaboration between people, avatars, and AI in hybrid spaces. The focus is on connection, participation, and creative interaction, accompanied artistically by Ars Electronica Futurelab. One space, infinite possibilities.

In this issue, Horst Hörtner presents a project that shows how art, technology, and participation can come together: the Klangwolke 2012, in which swarms of drones were used for the first time and thousands of people became part of the production.

This year, the Ars Electronica Festival is once again focusing on the major crises of our time—and the panic they cause in us. At the same time, it shows how art can help us cope with these turbulent times.

The 13th edition of Expanded focuses on scientific contributions from the fields of animation and interactive art. The emphasis is on innovative audiovisual forms of expression at the interface between art and technology.

Amid global crises and radical upheavals, the Ars Electronica Festival asks what role art can play—as a catalyst for new perspectives, as a space for reflection, and as a driving force for a collectively shaped future.

In “Run Motherfucker Run,” the body becomes the controller: those who run experience virtual immersion—those who stop fall. A powerful critique of passive consumption in digital worlds.

Guanaquerx by Paula Gaetano Adi, winner in the Artificial Life & Intelligence category 2025, reclaims the Andes as a site of resistance and reimagines robotics as a tool for planetary liberation.

Requiem for an Exit by Frode Oldereid and Thomas Kvam, winner of a 2025 Golden Nica, explores memory, violence, rhetoric, and the unsettling voice of a machine.

This year’s Golden Nica in the category “Digital Musics & Sound Art” goes to media artist Navid Navab and Garnet Willis for their project “Organism.”

„Das Ziegenkäsemachen aus der Sicht der Ziege“ (Goat Cheese Making from the Perspective of the Goat) reveals the digital overload, the dependency on algorithms, and the longing for liberation. It is a film that understands art as a radical scream against mindless, endless media consumption and indifference. 

SHARESPACE explores new forms of collaboration between people, avatars, and AI in hybrid spaces. The focus is on connection, participation, and creative interaction, accompanied artistically by Ars Electronica Futurelab. One space, infinite possibilities.

Publié le 25 juillet 2025 par Lyndsey Walsh

From the 30th of June until the 6th of July 2025, ArtLabo Retreat took place on Île de Batz, Finistère, France, inviting artists, designers, scientists, and students to explore the unique landscapes of the island and experiment with possible materialities of coastal ecosystems.

Can the solar web invite us into a more intentional relationship with computers and connectivity? 

In an age of abundant computation and connectivity, this was the question that animated Rhizome’s recent workshop series, Solar Web in Schools, funded by grants from Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and the New York City Cultural Development Fund. 

The project emerged from thinking about our own digital footprint. Over the past decade, Rhizome has created a Winchester mansion of software infrastructure on the cloud. The effort to keep legacy digital art alive has led us to spin up server after server, making our archives dependent on a vast and resource-intensive infrastructure. It’s an incongruous match for a bastion of independent digital culture.

As participants in the 2023 Teiger Foundation Climate Action Pilot, we began to take a closer look at this dependency. Our erstwhile Lead Developer Mark Beasley developed a portal to track Rhizome’s digital carbon footprint. This effort illustrated that server computation is the most costly aspect of common hosting infrastructure, and thus the most energy-intensive. 

But beyond resource use, is it really in keeping with Rhizome’s ethos to mirror the behavior of large platforms, gobbling up cloud computing? What other kinds of relationships with digital culture would emerge from a different approach to infrastructure?

We decided to explore an alternative approach by joining the “naturally intelligent” network of Solar Protocol. Established by artists Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson, and Benedetta Piantella, Solar Protocol is a network of solar-powered servers. Each server can only offer sporadic connectivity that is dependent on available sunshine, the length of day, and local weather conditions. Requests for a given website are routed by the network to whatever location has the most sunshine at that time.

To keep the equipment required lightweight, the Solar Protocol network imposes certain constraints on websites, which offer an opportunity to get creative with the web. 

Solar Web Workshops

Now…back to the workshops! Taught at four schools—Brooklyn Arbor Elementary, Waterside Studio School, PS.96, and PS.01 throughout May and June; third, fourth, and fifth grade students learned about digital art and the resources underlying their online actions. We discussed what they use the internet for (Roblox, TikTok were popular responses), what the web is made up of, and how it stays online. Students learned that the internet is a resource-intensive space which is made up of the labor of engineers and users, physical components, energy, and physical spaces. 

Unsurprisingly, students shared that their internet usage is high—they use the internet, in some form, constantly. When learning about the solar server, students learned that sometimes we don’t need to be online 24/7. Humans need to take breaks, and our hardware should too. Better yet, we can plan for this so it’s not an inconvenience, but rather a short pause in our everyday lives.

To conclude the three-part workshops, students learned to make their own ASCII artworks, which now live on a dedicated website hosted on Rhizome’s solar server. ASCII was chosen because, unlike large, hi-res images that often contribute to website bloat, ASCII is just text and characters. If we make images solely out of text, this results in a more environmentally-friendly approach to making digital art. 

Students “translated” their own drawings and photos to ASCII using a variety of open-source tools. Resources, including a kid-friendly guide to making digital art, our lesson plans, and workshop materials, are available to access for free. (PW: asciiart123).  

Workshops at Brooklyn Arbor and Waterside Elementary were taught by Kayla Drzewicki, Archive & Program Manager, Rhizome. Workshops at PS.96 and PS.01 were taught by Bri Griffin, Community Designer, Rhizome, and Diwa Tamrong. 

Website design by Kayla Drzewicki with support from Mark Beasley. 

Special Thanks to Brooklyn Arbor Elementary, Waterside Studio School, PS.96, PS.01, Solar Protocol, Mark Beasley, Diwa Tamrong, Nafisa Skeie, Rachel Shapiro, Manhattan Borough Arts Director, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

A liberal might argue the crisis is the result of individual consumer behavior, whereas a libertarian sees an opportunity for geoengineering markets. A conspiracist might not believe the climate is at risk, whereas an ecofascist sees a chance to double down on the argument about who has the superior racial right to survive extinction….

Qui dit Arles dit Rencontres de la photographie fondées en 1970, et une offre culturelle qui s’est singulièrement renforcée ces dernières années avec le campus créatif Luma, la Fondation Lee Ufan et plus récemment Thalie, entre autres propositions artistiques.

De nouveaux lieux régulièrement intègrent les Rencontres d’Arles comme, depuis trois ans, les Cryptoportiques. Cette année, c’est Batia Suter qui en a investi les galeries souterraines avec l’exposition Octahydra associant des tirages photographiques à une installation vidéo toute de transparences. Tout se passe entre les images que l’artiste suisse basée à Amsterdam a collectées en grand nombre pour les assembler dans l’espace comme au sein de séquences en d’infinies transitions. Et c’est en faisant émerger l’évidence de proximités esthétiques entre monuments du monde et objets manufacturés qu’elle capte immédiatement l’attention du public dans une atmosphère empreinte d’antiquité romaine.

L’artiste et autrice Carine Krecké qui s’est installée dans cet autre lieu patrimonial des Rencontres qu’est la Chapelle de la Charité est aussi lauréate du Luxembourg Photography Award. Son exposition intitulée Perdre le Nord nous renvoie à la guerre civile syrienne en cette époque où un conflit, médiatiquement, en chasse un autre. Nous déambulons parmi des documentations associant photographies satellites et témoignages textuels collectés par cette artiste d’investigation sur la destruction d’Irbin. Quand toutes et tous, nous avons aujourd’hui la possibilité de pratiquer le renseignement de sources ouvertes au risque de nous perdre parmi des myriades de données, entre fragments d’information et de désinformation.

A Luma, l’exposition Sensing the Future est dédiée aux recherches de la fin des années soixante du groupe Experiments in Art and Technology engageant artistes et ingénieurs. On y découvre l’installation interactive Photoelectric Viewer-Controlled Coordinate System (1968) de l’Allemand Hans Haacke qui scanne la présence des membres du public, à grand renfort d’électronique mêlant projecteurs infrarouges et capteurs photoélectriques, pour en éclairer les positions avec un pourtour d’ampoules. Un dispositif tout aussi novateur pour l’époque que prémonitoire pour la nôtre, considérant que nous sommes désormais géolocalisables où que l’on soit via nos objets connectés.

Toujours à Luma, il y a une autre installation à l’approche tout aussi contextuelle qui, quant à elle, regroupe une série de peintures monochromes qu’une scénographie en drapé de rideaux tombant tout autour du parcours théâtralise. L’ensemble intitulé [Seven Stars] de la Coréenne Koo Jeong A est régulièrement plongé dans l’obscurité. Ce qui a pour effet de révéler les représentations phosphorescentes d’étoiles évoquant les planètes du système solaire qui nous entourent. Un dialogue, donc, entre les deux tendances essentielles de l’histoire de l’art, c’est-à-dire entre figuration et abstraction.

C’est d’un autre dialogue dont il est question au sein de la Fondation Lee Ufan où les œuvres du Coréen sont confrontées à celles de l’Italien Michelangelo Pistoletto dont son célèbre Metrocubo d’Infinito (1966-2025). Il s’agit d’une sculpture aussi minimale que conceptuelle regroupant six miroirs refermés sur eux-mêmes qui seront brisés à la fin de l’exposition. Car le seul moyen d’entrer physiquement dans cette création d’un parfait infini que l’on ne peut qu’imaginer revient en effet à la briser. Ce qui renvoie à ces expériences scientifiques de laboratoire qui interdisent toute forme d’observation susceptible de les anéantir.

Enfin, c’est dans une maison du XVII^e siècle, à seulement quelques pas des arènes d’Arles, que la Fondation Thalie propose un accrochage de sa collection intitulé Géologie des âmes qui témoigne de notre impact sur la nature. L’artiste émergente Anaïs Tondeur qui vit et travaille à Paris y présente des tirages de sa série Tchernobyl Herbarium, initiée en 2011. Des rayogrammes obtenus par le rayonnement radioactif de plantes provenant de la zone de Tchernobyl au contact de surfaces sensibles. Car « la vie », même en des situations extrêmes « trouve toujours son chemin », selon Steven Spielberg dans Jurassic Park.

Article rédigé par Dominique Moulon pour TK-21.

Publié le 30 juillet 2025 par Elsa Ferreira

Publié le 2 juillet 2025 par Lyndsey Walsh

De multiples perspectives scientifiques, artistiques et culturelles sur le rôle du son dans les environnements océaniques ont été présentées lors de l'UNOC 2025.