EXHIBITION: ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 2020

ARS ELECTRONICA 2020 took place not despite, but because of the covid-19 pandemic. From September 9th to 13th, the Festival for Art, Technology and Society asked: what to do now? For the first time, this was the theme not only in Linz, Austria (the home of the Ars Electronica Museum and Festival), but also at 120 locations around the globe. The 2020 pandemic urged for the format to be revisited and, turning online into a digital world they were familiar with, this year for the first time in more than 40 years of existence, an online arm was also grafted to the festival.

For Ars Electronica 2020, Artist Amy Karle is:
– Exhibiting 6 artworks at Ars Electronica Gallery Rotterdam
– Exhibiting 3 bodies of work in the Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery
– Participating in workshops, talks and the AIxMusic hackathon which will be presented live on Sunday September 13, 2020 on Ars Electronica New World channel.

Rotterdam Garden | UN:REAL  Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery  AIxMUSIC Hackathon

Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery

In response to the global pandemic and its impact, the leading new media arts festival will premiere a dual format for its 2020 edition, including an online showcase in addition to the physical event. Ars Electronica and .art Domains have partnered to launch Ars Electronica .ART Gallery. Artist Amy Karle is exhibiting 3 bodies of work in this new gallery: The Heart of Evolution? (biomechanical sculpture), 2019; The Body and Technology: A Conversational Metamorphosis (collection of enhanced prints), 2017; and Biofeedback Artwort (durational performance), 2011.

Biofeedback Artwork, 2011 »

Hardly any other phrase has been used so often in recent months as that the world will be a different place after this crisis – prophetically, often as a glimmer of hope, more often as a threat. Is this true, and if so, what will be the changes? This question is the focus of this year’s 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”. A journey through the networked biotopes and ecosystems in which people all over the world are working to develop and shape our future, and in these days that means above all working to save our future. A journey to and with many committed communities that have already begun not only to think about the current problems, but to work on concrete ideas, actions and solutions. Places, initiatives and institutions where artists and scientists work together, challenge society and try out new alliances and forms of cooperation.

“Kepler’s Gardens” is not only the name of the new festival venue in Linz, which will move from the Postcity to the Kepler Gardens on the well-equipped JKU campus and transform its beautiful and extensive parks into an extraordinary festival site. “Kepler’s Gardens” is also the metaphor for the organizational principle of the festival in a global lockdown: a festival that will not dive into the network and disappear there, but will emerge from the network and manifest itself in many places around the world, distributed and networked. Starting in Linz and working with partners from Ars Electronica’s extraordinarily large international network that has grown over 40 years, “real” events will take place in many places, with “real” artists and scientists for “real” audiences, all of which will be networked into a festival from September 9 to 13.

With this simultaneity and duality of local-physical and globally networked events, Ars Electronica will once again become an exciting experimental laboratory and prototype for a next-level networking that will focus primarily on new forms and possibilities of fusion and coexistence of analog and digital, real and virtual, physical and telematic proximity. Last but not least, “Kepler’s Gardens” is also a clear commitment to science and a fact-based and responsible way of dealing with each other, a statement for science and art, not only as a fuel for the economy, but as the basis for culture and civilization. This is and has always been one of the central tasks of art and culture, a task that can only be achieved in cooperation with science, technology and society.

Ars Electronica Festival 2020 is a journey to measure the ‘new’ world and a journey through “Kepler’s Gardens”, which are located in Linz, Austria at the JKU Campus and at 120 other locations worldwide. In the course of this journey, the important questions of our time will be discussed, questions raised by the global corona crisis, and what we can and must do now will be considered. All the issues touched upon are marked by a general UNCERTAINTY and the question of how the crisis will shape and change us as individuals and as a society, us as HUMANITY. Two tensions in particular are in focus: AUTONOMY and DEMOCRACY as well as TECHNOLOGY and ECOLOGY.

To offer the best possible conditions for ensuring the necessary “physical distance” between visitors, Ars Electronica is not only taking place in Linz, but in 120 “Kepler’s Gardens” around the globe. For the first time, the festival is testing itself as a digital travel agency that brings visitors from all over the world to “gardens between art, technology and society” that are as fascinating as they are inspiring. Destinations are in abundance; there are “Ars Electronica Gardens” in Barcelona (Institut Ramon Llull, Hangar, UOC – ISEA Barcelona, NewArtFoundation – BEEP Collection, OFFF Barcelona, Espronceda – Institute of Art & Culture), in Brussels (BOZAR), in Tokyo (Japan Media Arts Festival), in Boston (MIT Media Lab), in Buenos Aires (National University of Tres de Febrero, Muntref Centro de Arte y Ciencia), in Seoul (K’ARTS Korea National University of Arts), in Basel (HeK Haus der elektronischen Künste), in Athens (Onassis Stegi), in Silicon Valley (Open Austria), in Johannesburg (Fakugesi Festival), in Los Angeles (UCLA), in Auckland (University of Auckland), in Vilnius (Vilnius Academy of Arts) and in Amsterdam (Waag). At all these locations, artists, scientists, developers, entrepreneurs and activists will be addressing the question of how the “new” world is to – or with? – Corona should look like.

See Amy Karle’s Artwork at Ars Electronica Garden Rotterdam | Rotterdam Science Gallery: Igniting Creativity and Discovery where Science and Art Collide  https://ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens/en/igniting-creativity/

In thematically oriented areas and a total of three stages, the programme will include exhibitions, lectures and presentations, performances and concerts. The “AIxMUSIC FESTIVAL” can also be experienced in “Kepler’s Garden” on the JKU campus. It is entirely dedicated to the networking of those innumerable centers that work on the applications and effects of AI research for the cultural sector and thus play an important role in communication and dialogue between research and society. Without a doubt, one of the festival’s highlights will be the “BIG CONCERT NIGHT.

Ars Electronica 2020 – on the Net is also a central venue at this year’s Ars Electronica. This means not merely depicting or transmitting real events, but designing virtual events and programs as well as creating opportunities for exchange and interaction that conform to the laws of the Internet and the habits and preferences of the communities gathered here. The FESTIVAL WEBSITE serves as a central directory of all local and virtual events, from which the gates and windows to “Kepler’s Gardens” around the globe open. Structured according to themes, places, times, languages and formats, the entire Ars Electronica program is displayed here, and daily streams-not only from Linz, but from many other “Kepler’s Gardens”-will be shown and commented on. Together with its partners, Ars Electronica will also open up a multitude of these virtual, three-dimensional spaces that anyone and everyone can explore together with like-minded people.   (text provided by Ars Electronica)

Explore the intersection of art, technology and society at ARS ELECTRONICA 2020 festival for the future. Join the global journey mapping the “New” world including Artist Amy Karle’s exciting contribution with 6 artworks at Ars Electronica Gallery Rotterdam, 3 bodies of work in the Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery, and her participation in workshops, talks, and the AIxMusic hackathon. This year, experience the festival like never before, online and in locations across the globe.