When artificial intelligence hallucinates in the allotment garden settlement

Stephanie Bergwinkl and Simon Hehl have set up a small casino in the clubhouse of the Linz-Ost allotment garden. In the background, a large screen that transmits your casino to the University of Art and Design Linz. In this way, visitors in the harbor district can communicate with people in the university, the roulette ball determines how long. The two students use this to transfer the Chatroulette app to the analogue world. “People can get in touch here who would never have met otherwise,” says Hehl.

This interactive installation is one of 20 art projects that can be seen at FMR Linz from today. The festival wants to use artistic means to reflect the ongoing digitization of everyday life. “We consciously go into public space, because here the breaks between the digital and analog world are more visible,” says Thomas Philipp, one of seven festival designers. In its third edition, the Linz-Ost allotment garden association was therefore chosen as the location, located on the Europastraße in the southern port district between the thermal power station and industrial buildings.

In their project, Anton Linus Jehle and Dennis de Bel use an app to send participants on a Linz safari with scooters and thus critically question the world of rental scooters, for example by visiting the power plant (Is electricity really that green?) or scooter stands (Who actually sets up the scooters every night?). The Swiss media artists Monica Studer and Christoph van den Berg have set up their container in front of the entrance to the Kleingarten-Vereinshaus. There they tell wild stories about an algorithm that is said to have been lost in the Amazon and has now been rediscovered. Three boxes bear witness to this – in one, visitors can use VR glasses to watch the artificial intelligence hallucinating.

The FMR festival runs until Sunday, in addition to the exhibitions at several locations around the allotment association, there are also concerts and discussions. FMR Linz is organized by the cultural initiatives servus.at, qujOchÖ, Salzamt, Kunstuni and the Sturm-und-Drang-Galerie. The budget is 170,000 euros.

The festival: The Linz FMR is a festival for art in digital contexts and public spaces. It wants to artistically reflect the progressive digitization of everyday life. The biennial festival is taking place for the third time and will open today at 6 p.m. in the club house of the allotment garden association Linz-Ost, Prinz-Eugen-Straße 40. It runs until June 11th. Information is available at fmr-linz.at.