RISE, the Research Centre of Excellence in Cyprus, with the support of the Austrian embassy on the island, is participating in the forthcoming international Ars Electronica 2020 festival.
The festival is running until Sunday in Linz, Austria, and is considered the biggest event in the world with the aim of bringing the worlds of art and science and technology together.
This year’s Ars Electronica festival has a specific theme of being ‘In Kepler’s Gardens’, which aims to explore the following ideas: How will virtual reality impact therapy? Where is the cloud and who controls it? How could biodesign improve or destroy our lives? What can stick insects teach AI about dance? How can art and science collaboration inspire climate activism? With 95% of the universe a mystery, what role do artists and scientists have in unravelling and understanding the unknown?
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the festival has been reformatted. “The real-world and virtual activities coordinated and run by the numerous partners of the festival around the world take place in their own space, while simultaneously being connected and coexisting in an online platform”, organisers say. “Artists, scientists and the onlooking audience will take a journey through digital space, from which the festival emerges,” the announcement adds.
In this framework, RISE invited local artists to create and cultivate on this digital space, inspired by a technique taken from horticulture called grafting. Grafting involves the joining of tissues from two different plants so that they share a mutual growth post-connection.
WADS, the result of this initiative, has been created by 21 local artists and is a common, digital ‘garden’ which explores the possibilities in digital online spaces as a basis for artistic and scientific co-creation. The exhibit can be visited in the online environment of Mozilla Hubs and is accessible through the Ars Electronica Digital Platform at: https://ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens/en/gardens/
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