The Ars Electronica Festival 2022 has concluded its first post-pandemic edition, which has had the prominent presence of Catalan digital artists and has reached 71,000 visitors. Artists, researchers and the public have contributed to creating visions for a global transformation through exhibitions, performances, talks or workshops.
Under the title Collaborative ecosystems for a sustainable world , HacTe, the Institut Ramon Llull and the NewArtFoundation have organized an exhibition that has allowed a taste of the most pioneering Catalan digital art to be brought to Linz (Austria). The exhibition has included six projects in line with this year’s theme of the festival, Welcome to Planet B: Tasmanian Tiger by Antoni Muntadas, Species I, II and III by Mónica Rikić, Do bodies dream with electromagnets? by Esther Rodríguez-Barbero, Chemical Ecosystem by Yolanda Uriz Elizalde, FORMS – Screen Ensemble by Santiago Vilanova – Playmodes, and Tools for a Warming Planet of Sara Dean, Beth Ferguson and Marina Monsonís. Specifically, Antoni Muntadas’ piece has been produced and presented specifically and has had the collaboration of the NewArt Foundation, Hac Te, Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia.
This edition has had the presence of the Ars Electronica Gardens held in 2020 and 2021 in different parts of the world, which served to relocate the festival during the two years of pandemic. In the case of Barcelona, in recent years the Catalan capital has become one of the main venues for the event outside Austria thanks to the support of HacTe, the Institut Ramon Llull, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Hangar, Centre for Artistic Production and Research, and the . BEEP Collection.
Along with the exhibition, the festival also hosted a round table on collaborative practices and how, from them and sharing knowledge, proposals for a sustainable world can be generated. The talk was moderated by Pau Alsina, co-director of HacTe and professor and researcher at the UOC’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and was attended by the artist and UOC professor Mónica Rikić, winner of the 2021 National Culture Prize, the architect and designer Sara Dean, the designer and educator specialising in ecology Beth Ferguson and the artist and director of the MACBA kitchen laboratory Marina Monsonís.
From the organization of Ars Electronica they have described this edition as “a massive collaborative project“, highlighting the participation in the program of a total of 953 people from 76 different countries and the cooperation of 337 partners who have made possible 425 events. Likewise, the organizers have already advanced the dates of the next edition, which will take place from September 6 to 11, 2023.