Ars Electronica 2023

The central theme of Ars Electronica 2023 is this time formulated as the question « Who Owns the Truth? » and thus aims directly at the key disputed topics of our time: truth and ownership, interpretive authority and sovereignty. Can truth be owned? Is there a right to truth, and if it does belong to someone, what control and responsibility are associated with it? But it is also about the concept of ownership as it relates to nature, going beyond the centuries-old philosophical and legal debate; it is about the factual reality of the exploitation and destruction of nature as an unremitting burden that is passed on to future generations.

Highlights of the programme in the EU context include the S+T+ARTS Day on 7 September 2023, the launch of the Next Renaissance Initiative, a flagship programme of EIT Culture [&] Creativity and the Creative Europe funded project conference More than Planet on 8 September 2023, which will explore ownership structures of our planet and the complexities around our collective perception and understanding of the planet. The Creative Europe project More-than-Planet (2022 – 2025) emphasises the urgent need to rethink the way people understand and represent the environment and the planet as a conceptual whole. The project is a collaboration between partners Waag (NL), Ars Electronica (AT), Northern Photographic Centre (FI), ART2M/Makery (FR), Leonardo/Olats (FR) and Zavod Projekt Atol (SI). In collaboration with artists, critical thinkers and various experts from cultural, environmental and space institutions, the project addresses this crisis of the planetary imaginary.

Following the conference, a Creative Europe Get-Together offers an opportunity for exchange with Ars Electronica’s European partners from around 20 funded EU projects and the European Creative Europe Desks. This meeting offers participants from cultural institutions the opportunity to network in a relaxed atmosphere.

The European Creative Europe Desks from Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Slovakia are partners of the conference.

More information: https://ars.electronica.art/news/en/

Festival catalogue: https://ars.electronica.art/who-owns-the-truth/en/download/