The Algorithm and the Park

Ars Electronica Garden Athens

Dates

Prices

9 €

Location

Online

Time & Date

Day
Time
Venue
Day
Saturday - Sunday
Time
17:00-21:00 (EEST/Athens)
Venue
Online

Information

Online Festival Pass

The Online Festival Pass for Ars Electronica Festival 2021 gives you free access to all online programs, conferences, workshops and events

Onassis Stegi participates in the digital Ars Electronica Festival for Art, Technology, and Society, for a second year, with the program “The Algorithm and the Park,” presenting highlights from the “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens” festival, which took place from June 24 to July 25, 2021.

The “You and AI” festival centered on a physical exhibition at Pedion tou Areos park in Athens, which will be presented at Ars Electronica Garden Athens through a short documentary. The exhibition staged 25 international works, within an artificially natural public space, and was complemented by online conferences on AI, ethics, and art.

Public spaces define a city’s psyche. They constitute the embodiment of collective experiences; they are reflections of a city’s polity and politics; they echo its socio-economic relationships; they contain our common dreams, feelings, and ambitions; they are the material the polis is made of. In an algorithmic era, the physical public space is increasingly intertwined with – when it is not devoured by – the algorithmic public space. It aims at bringing all these issues, lurking in the background of our urban lives, to the frontstage of civic life.

By bringing the "Algorithm in the Park", we pose the question of what the boundaries of post-human subjectivity are: who are we and how do we position ourselves in an infinitely re-morphed-by-AI world? Is there a new deal, a new social contract that is being tacitly formed between humans and non-humans? Staged at Campus Martius (Pedion tou Areos), a metaphor for the constant conflict between different forms of identity, subjectivity, and collective experience, the “You and AI” exhibition poses and invites you to contemplate on fundamental existential questions for the post-human experience.

Photo: Giorgos Papacharalampous

Before the bullet hits the body | Bill Balaskas & Stop LAPD

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Program | Day 1

"You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens" | Exhibition Documentary | 17:00 - 17:30

A short documentary about the exhibition “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens”, which took place at Pedion tou Areos park in Athens, in the context of a three-week festival by Onassis Stegi, between June 24-July 25, 2021. The exhibition presented 25 works that included video and sound installations, as well as prints and physical objects, exploring how and by whom algorithmic systems are constructed and defined, and how they can impact and reshape society and our perception of the world.

The exhibition was curated by Irini Mirena Papadimitriou (FutureEverything)

“On Art & AI” Conference | Day 1: Creating with AI | 17:30 - 20:00

On Art & AI” is a two-day conference exploring how artists engage critically, conceptually and artistically with discourses around artificial intelligence (AI), creativity, intelligence, labor and ethics.

The conference took place in the context of “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens” festival program by Onassis Stegi, unfolding through two strands: “Creating with AI” and “Reflecting on AI”.

Curated by Irini Mirena Papadimitriou (FutureEverything)

The Ethics of Disruption in Art and AI | Roundtable Discussion | 20:00 - 21:00

This excerpt from the AI Summer School “The Ethics of Disruption: From AI to Bioethics in Art and Research”, which took place in the context of “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens” festival program by Onassis Stegi, explores the constituent parts of an ethics framework for approaching, understanding, and regulating disruptive technologies focusing on responsible research and innovation.

Co-Organized by
Onassis Foundation/ Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens (BRFAA)/ Center of Research and Bioethics Uppsala University/ EPLO-IPR-i/ OpenAIRE, BBMRI-ERIC

Co-Directed by
Dr. Olga Tzortzatou, Attorney at Law and Member of the Bioethics Committee, BRFAA

Dr. Prodromos Tsiavos, Head of Digital and Innovation, Onassis Foundation
Program | Day 2

"You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens" | Exhibition Documentary | 17:00 - 17:30

A short documentary about the exhibition “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens”, which took place at Pedion tou Areos park in Athens, in the context of a three-week festival by Onassis Stegi, between June 24-July 25, 2021. The exhibition presented 25 works that included video and sound installations, as well as prints and physical objects, exploring how and by whom algorithmic systems are constructed and defined, and how they can impact and reshape society and our perception of the world.

The exhibition was curated by Irini Mirena Papadimitriou (FutureEverything)

“On Art & AI” Conference | Day 2: Reflecting on AI | 17:30 - 21:00

“On Art & AI” is a two-day conference exploring how artists engage critically, conceptually and artistically with discourses around artificial intelligence (AI), creativity, intelligence, labor and ethics.

The conference took place in the context of “You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens” festival program by Onassis Stegi, unfolding through two strands: “Creating with AI” and “Reflecting on AI”.

Curated by Irini Mirena Papadimitriou (FutureEverything)

Read More

This year’s Ars Electronica festival, titled “Α New Digital Deal,” explores our world’s increasingly intense digitization, along with the hopes and fears it generates, as we move through the second year of the pandemic. Departing from the city of Linz in Austria, 86 institutions from different countries will present their program both in physical spaces and online.

Except for its own “garden,” the Onassis Stegi is also featured in the program of the European Networks EMAP and Studiotopia in which it participates – networks that promote artworks that were developed by dozens of resident artists in Athens and around the world in the last few years.

STUDIOTOPIA Journeys

Marine Caves Benthic Terrazzo

Hypercomf (GR), Markos Digenis (GR)

The project “Marine Caves Benthic Terrazzo,” presented by the artist team Hypercomf, in collaboration with marine biologist Markos Digenis, investigates issues that relate to the preservation of the marine ecosystem, documenting the first holistic, in-situ research of the ecosystems of marine caves in Chania, in the island of Crete, as well as the artistic exploration of the link between human homes and marine caves.

EMAP

Ars Electronica Garden EMAPWerkleitz Gesellschaft e.V. (DE), Ars Electronica, Linz (AT), Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool (UK), IMPAKT, Utrecht (NL), Antre Peaux, Bourges (FR), LABoral, Gijón (ES), Kontejner, Zagreb (HR), WRO Art Center, Wrocław (PL), RIXC, Riga, (LV), Onassis Stegi, Athens (GR), m-cult, Helsinki (FI)

In the last four years, artists and collectivities representing 11 institutions from the European Media Art Platform network investigate the most urgent challenges of our times. The digital exhibition celebrating the festival’s finissage will include 44 artworks that were developed with the support of the Creative Europe program.

Τhe Onassis Stegi participates with four artistic projects that were hosted in its premises in Athens. Kentaro Kumanomido & Teaque Owen's “Faster than Light” premiered at the Onassis Stegi in June 2018, featuring a queer spaceship on a performative journey along the margins of consciousness. Andrej Boleslavský's “Weightless” (2019), through a Virtual Reality environment, transfers us to an imaginary place, creating a cinematic experience of contemporary dance. Martin Nadal's “FANGo” (2020) is a defense weapon against surveillance capitalism. Disguised as a mobile phone charger, a microcontroller takes control of the smartphone in which it is plugged in. Lastly, Nico Angiuli's “Amazon Dance”, which has its premiere in Ars Electronica, is a video performance as part of a research project that investigates algorithms that are used in warehouses such as Amazon’s, in order to calculate the minimum time and the most efficient way to organize and distribute products.

Credits

  • Program Curation

    Christos Carras, Prodromos Tsiavos

  • Production Coordination

    Heracles Papatheodorou, Katerina Varda

  • EU Programs Coordination

    Dora Vougiouka

  • EU Programs & Production Support

    Vera Petmeza

“You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens” festival credits

  • Curated by

    Irini Mirena Papadimitriou, FutureEverything

  • Curatorial Direction

    Afroditi Panagiotakou

  • Executive Director & Scientific Advisor

    Prodromos Tsiavos

  • Exhibition Design & Exhibition Production Lead

    Studioentropia Architects (Yota Passia, Panagiotis Roupas)

  • Artistic Direction

    Polydoros Karyofyllis (Poka-Yio)

  • Executive Producer

    Christos Carras

  • Technical Director

    Lefteris Karabilas

  • Production Coordination

    Heracles Papatheodorou, Katerina Varda

  • Line Production

    Despina Sifniadou, Yorgos Stergiou, Spyridoula Gerazi

  • Commissioned and produced by

    Onassis Stegi