The Ars Electronica Festival serves as the backdrop for the real-world art scenario of the SHARESPACE project. This last year, multiple artist have been working hard to create multi-user, hybrid, interactive art performances that leverage embodied interaction between people and different types of Virtual Humans. These works will be presented in the Deep Space 8K during the festival happening from the 3rd to the 7th of September 2025. Find more information on the festival here: https://ars.electronica.art/festival/en/
One artwork been created by the researchers and developers at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, and one is developed by a selected artist team through the Open Call for Artists 2024. All artists involved in the project will engage in an artistic panel discussion to discuss their concepts, processes, and what SHARESPACE concepts inspired them for their conceptualization.
Festival Program
Converge 2
Ars Electronica Futurelab: Patrick Berger
This new multiplayer experience in Deep Space 8K centers on collaborative puzzle solving. Converge 2 builds on the first version presented last year, with fresh ways to interact, using new tech from the SHARESPACE project. Up to eight local players and one remote player in a motion-capture suit can join in. Through verbal and physical communication, the piece explores how people can connect and work together in both real and virtual worlds.
Converge 2 performance times in Deep Space 8K:
Wed 03.09, 14:00 – 14:30
Thu 04.09, 10:30 – 11:00
Foolish Flame
Peter Power and Leon Butler
This transdisciplinary installation, developed by Irish artists Peter Power and Leon Butler, explores climate change and inherited trauma, where visitors become avatars in a shifting digital landscape shaped by collective memory. Through real-time interaction and a responsive environment, the experience explores our impact on nature and each other. Overlooked by an ethereal “Foolish Flame”, the space pulses with an original score on Uilleann pipes, electronics, and voice, bridging myth, movement, and environmental reckoning.
Foolish Flame is the selected project of the Open Call for Artists 2024
Foolish Flame performance times in Deep Space 8K:
Thu 04.09, 17:30 – 18:30
Fri 05.09, 18:00 – 19:00
Lectures & Talks
Good Enough Ethics in XR Shared Spaces
The Experiment Results
Kathleen Richardson (GB), Kathleen Bryson (GB)
Fri 05.09, 10:30 – 11:30
Ars Electronica Lounge, POSTCITY
Artistic Exploration of XR Shared Hybrid Spaces
Patrick Berger (AT), Leon Butler (IE), Susanne Kiesenhofer (AT), Peter Power (IE), Anna Weiss (DE/AT), Cyntha Wieringa (NL)
Fri 05.09, 11:30 – 12:30
Ars Electronica Lounge, POSTCITY
