From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995 was Peter Weibel. Since 1995 Gerfried Stocker is the artistic director of Ars Electronica. In addition to running the yearly festival, Ars Electronica maintains a media center and museum, the Ars Electronica Center, which opened in 1996 and offers tours and courses and hosts a technology lab. Starting in 1987, the organization also began hosting the Prix Ars Electronica, awarding prizes and generating publicity for outstanding cyberarts innovations. Co-director (together with Christine Schöpf) of the Festival is Austrian artist Gerfried Stocker.

With its specific orientation and the long-standing continuity it has displayed since 1979, Ars Electronica is an internationally unique platformTemplate:Fact for digital art and media culture consisting of the following four divisions:

• Ars Electronica – Festival for Art, Technology and Society
• Prix Ars Electronica – International Competition for CyberArts
• Ars Electronica Center – Museum of the Future
• Ars Electronica Futurelab – Laboratory for Future Innovations