Ars Electronica Festival 2021

We are delighted to announce that Ars Electronica Festival 2021, the festival for art, technology, and society, will take place from September 8th to 12th, 2021. For the second time since 1979, it will be a hybrid event that includes exhibitions, concerts, talks, conferences, workshops, and guided tours in Linz, Austria, and more than 80 other locations around the globe.

Together with artists, scientists, and activists from all over the world, the Ars Electronica Festival 2021 is calling for a fundamentally new approach to the challenges of the 21st century. Two main things are needed for us to tackle those challenges: the freedom to act and the ability to act. In the face of ever greater ecological and social disruption, it’s clear that the time for beating around the bush is over. It’s time to put our money where our mouth is; it’s time for a New Digital Deal.

Ars Electronica—a field test for the 21st century
This year’s festival aims not only to promote new things, but to let them play out as prototypes: The question of what we want to use new technologies for, and how, will be answered by a dual event that takes place both on-site and online. The question of what learning should look like in the 21st century will be the focus of a Festival University that will bring 100 young people from more than 40 countries to Linz. The question of how we can link economic value creation with ecological and social sustainability and anchor it locally is at the center of a new Regional STARTS Center in Linz and Upper Austria. The festival for art, technology and society is not only a forum, but also a field test for the New Digital Deal.

Ars Electronica in Linz, online, and at 86 Ars Electronica Gardens around the world
In Linz, this artistic-scientific exploration of our future comes together on the Festival Mile in the city center, which stretches from the OK in the Upper Austrian Cultural Quarter to the University of Art and Design Linz on the main square and the nearby Salzamt, to the Ars Electronica Center and the STADTWERKSTATT on the north bank of the Danube. The festival in Linz has an additional venue in Kepler’s Gardens on the campus of Johannes Kepler University.

Moreover, another 86 Ars Electronica Gardens around the world will join the call for a New Digital Deal in 2021. The proposals made there will be offered partly on site for the local public and partly online for the international community.

Part of the Ars Electronic Festival is also the Ars Electronica Garden Berlin. Here, outstanding student works from the HTW Berlin’s Communication Design program will be exhibited as part of the 2021 Ars Electronica Festival at the Reinbeckhallen.

Online is where it’s at: after nearly a year and a half of Home Delivery and a first hybrid festival in 2020, Ars Electronica is taking the next step and committing to the dual-event format. The Swapcard event platform provides access to a wealth of streamed lectures, workshops, concerts, and tours from Linz and the Ars Electronica Gardens around the world. Users can also put together their own festival calendars and visit many different chats to exchange information and network with other visitors from all over the world.

Ars Electronica Festival 2021

When?
September 8th to 12th, 2021

Where?
Online, in Linz, Austria, and more than 80 other locations around the globe

Find further information about the program in Linz and the online program or book a ticket for one of many events taking place from September 8th to 12th.