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MEET @ Ars Electronica for S+T+ARTS
Happy birthday, Ars Electronica! The Austrian festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and MEET will also take part in the celebrations. A delegation headed by Maria Grazia Mattei has flown to Linz to explore the event dedicated to art, science, and society that will be held in the Oberösterreich until September 9th.
Since 1979, Ars Electronica has been presenting and analysing the developments and possible scenarios of the digital revolution with the purpose of trying to give us indications on how our lives will change. This year’s theme is Out of the Box. The Midlife Crisis of the Digital Revolution, a title that introduces the issue of the stalemate that is marking a sort of “midlife crisis” for a phenomenon that has stopped being the overturning of the established order to be transformed into cultural status quo.
One of the most interesting events listed in the huge programme of the festival is certainly the AI x Music Festival, organized in cooperation with the European Commission. Those who follow Meet the Media Guru know that we started talking of the relationship between music and Artificial Intelligence in 2018 with Daito Manabe, and we continued last July with Nao Tokui. That is also why we are looking forward to listening to new marvellous digital sound works and… who knows, maybe taking them in Italy, too!
During its immersion in the show schedule of Ars Electronica, our delegation will also take part in the S+T+ARTS DAY of September 6th, dedicated to the renowned programme developed by the European Commission to combine initiatives and actions aimed to summarise the best of Science, Technology, and Art.
Diversified along multiple lines of action, S+T+ARTS is a very complex ecosystem that, since last spring, also includes MEET. Together with partners coming from Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, and Germany (AE, BOZAR, Gluon, French Tech Culture, MADE Group, and Film University Babelsberg), our centre also plays the role of Regional Starts Centre.
What does this mean? That MEET has been appointed by the European Union to offer innovative learning opportunities dedicated to Millennials, thanks to an integration between advanced technology and creative processes, through unprecedented expressive languages.
The images below show the European map of the STARTS ecosystem, as it has been presented at Ars Electronica. The white circles show the Regional Centres, including MEET.
On September 6th at h 12:15, in the POSTCITY area, Mattei will talk about MEET’s project, S+T+ARTS, as Regional Centre, to the European family. A preview? Our centre is going to activate the Italian community of digital creative talents and entrepreneurs through calls for proposals and cross-fertilization labs that will promote opportunities for cooperation and, possibly, unlock budgets for digital art creators in Milan and throughout Italy.
Finally, MEET’s mission at Ars Electronica will not be concluded before expanding our knowledge of new European and international centres to bring to Milan for the second edition of our MEETing.
We wish all the best to our travelling colleagues!
The opening image has been downloaded from Ars Electronic’s website | Credit: A-MINT / Alex Braga
