CODE @ ARS ELECTRONICA 2024
HOPE – who will turn the tide
From 4 to 8 September, Ars Electronica 2024 took place in Linz, Austria. Ars Electronica is Europe’s largest festival for arts, technology and society. This year’s theme was: HOPE – who will turn the tide? Like never before, the Linz Festival for Art, Technology and Society will focus on artists, researchers, developers, activists, and entrepreneurs from all over the world. The main location will once again be POSTCITY, which is due to be demolished and will become a hotspot for the international media art scene for the seventh time. At the festival, IMPAKT presented the results of CODE 2024
During the festival, participants from the fields of science, business and the creative and arts sector gather to share their perspectives, and you get to discover the latest developments in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotech and more. At the CODE booth, visitors could explore a selection of works that were developed during CODE 2024:
meta:morphosis
Inspired by the Right to be Forgotten legisla- tion, meta:morphosis features a workshop and an interactive installation where participants can explore their digital pasts and learn to reshape online narratives. Audience members will add their own experiences with data by writing on dissolvable soap paper and then putting it into a fountain (like a coin to make a wish). This act allows that piece of information to “be forgotten” or cleansed by way of a ritual.
Espresso Exposé
Espresso Exposé is an interactive artwork that shines a light on how AI is increasingly reconfig- uring our daily lives. Through interactions with a “coffee recommender” agent, with some unex- pected twists, the audience is confronted with the contrast between direct front-end results and opaque back-end processes of machine learning operations. This in turn prompts them to think more deeply about their choice of delegating decision-making to AI.
Dual Narratives
Dual Narratives explores the dichotomy between personal identity and public perception through an immersive and interactive media experience. The installation directly engages participants, prompting reflection on the nature of digital iden- tity and the impact of social media storytelling.
ToyBoi
ToyBoi reflects on the patriarchal infrastructure of Deep Nude technology. Specifically, it refers to AI tools that are often used to generate non-con- sensual nude images of women. While these tools effectively strip women, they often fail to undress men realistically, resulting in images of men with deformed genitalia. We present these failed images on items like lighters and calen- dars, which traditionally have portrayed naked women, to generate dialog on the male gaze and gender-based violence.