Festival Data:

• Established: 1987
• Genre: Experimental - New Media (click to see)
• Attendance: 31500
• Media Attendance: 533
• Accredited Industry Attendance: 530
• Total Number of Films Submitted: 3374

• Competitive
• Has Panels

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

Since 1987, the Prix Ars Electronica has served as an interdisciplinary platform for everyone who uses the computer as a universal medium for implementing and designing their creative projects at the interface of art, technology and society. A separate category for hybrid art, a prize for media art research and the merger of Net Vision into Digital Communities are the most visible signs of the intensive work that has gone into the definition of the competition’s categories. The aim: to keep the Prix in sync with current developments in the dynamic field of cyberarts.

The competition is organized by the Ars Electronica Linz GmbH and ORF’s Upper Austria Regional Studio in collaboration with the OK Center for Contemporary Art and the Brucknerhaus Linz, and the prizes are awarded during the Ars Electronica Festival each year. The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important awards for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media.

The event calls for entries in seven categories, including a youth competition. And since internationally renowned artists from over 70 countries also participate in the Prix Ars Electronica, it has established itself as a barometer for trends in contemporary media art. With 45.328 entries since 1987 and prize money in 2010 totalling 117,500 Euros, the competition offers the largest cash purse for cyberarts worldwide. Each year, six Golden Nicas, twelve Awards of Distinction and approximately 70 Honorary Mentions as well as a grant for the category [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant are presented to participants.

The festival program consists of categories such as: Computer Animation / Film / VFX; Digital Musics; Interactive Art; Hybrid Art; Digital Communities; u19 - freestyle computing and many more that change annually.  New media, digital media, interactive arts and film forums abound throughout the festival run, where the exchange of ideas, theories and approaches flows between participants and professionals.

Prix Ars is more than just a festival.

Once a year, every year since 1979, all of Linz becomes a stage for media installations, video projections and sound sculptures. From the Brucknerhaus to the Lentos, from the O.K Center for Contemporary Art to the University of Art and Design Linz, and from the Ars Electronica Center to Donaupark, events, concerts and performances invite festivalgoers to encounter world-class media art.