Ars Electronica 2020: The Wild State and the Future of Digital Festivals
Davide Bevilacqua, who serves as an assistant in the Interface Cultures department at Kunstuniversität Linz and curates The Wild State, reflects on the 41st Ars Electronica. This year, the festival adapted to the pandemic by shifting many activities online while still offering in-person experiences. The Wild State represents a collaborative effort spanning ten years, involving partners such as the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science in Gifu, Japan, and the University of California Santa Barbara, focusing on the evolution of networked academic identities. Bevilacqua emphasizes the pandemic's influence on reevaluating the connections between humans, nature, and technology, noting Linz's emergence as a media city. He also critiques the underappreciation of online events and is working on a hybrid publication regarding online events and sustainability, alongside curating the digital festival AMRO in May 2020.
Key facts
- Ars Electronica celebrated its 41st edition in 2020, with many events moved online due to the pandemic.
- The Wild State is a project resulting from a decade-long cooperation between Ars Electronica and Kunstuniversität Linz.
- International university partners included Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science (Gifu, Japan), University of California Santa Barbara, Aalto University (Helsinki), Politecnico di Milano, and NABA.
- Davide Bevilacqua is an assistant at the Interface Cultures department of Kunstuniversität Linz and a curator of The Wild State.
- The pandemic forced a rethinking of human-nature-technology relationships and exposed global production dynamics.
- Bevilacqua curated the purely digital festival AMRO (Art Meets Radical Openness) in May 2020.
- He is developing a hybrid online/print-at-home publication with servus.at on online events and technological sustainability.
- Bevilacqua is organizing a show on linguistic tautologies at bb15 – Space for contemporary art.
Entities
Artists
- Davide Bevilacqua
- Laurent Mignonneau
- Christa Sommerer
- Brigitte Hütter
- Valie Export
- Valerio Veneruso
Institutions
- Ars Electronica
- Kunstuniversität Linz
- Interface Cultures
- JKU (Johannes Kepler Universität)
- Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science
- University of California Santa Barbara
- Aalto University
- Politecnico di Milano
- NABA
- UCLA
- Hexagram
- Bauhaus Weimar
- Stadtwerkstatt
- servus.at
- bb15 – Space for contemporary art
- AMRO – Art Meets Radical Openness
- Artribune
Locations
- Linz
- Austria
- Gifu
- Japan
- Santa Barbara
- United States
- Helsinki
- Finland
- Milan
- Italy
- Los Angeles
- Weimar
- Germany
- Venice
- Berlin