“Science Meets Fiction Festival” / Salzburg

Chatbot-Plausch mit Niveau: Der argeBOT liest die Bühnentexte der ARGEkultur und unterhält sich mit Besucherinnen.

23.09. – 04.10.2019; Salzburg.
High Tech & Low Life. The Science Meets Fiction Festival interrelates future concepts from art, culture and science with one another.

Better technology, worse life? With this year’s festival theme “High Tech & Low Life”, the Science Meets Fiction Festival Salzburg takes up the connections and decouplings between technological and social progress and invites us to question our expectations for the future.

In his research at the Institute for Innovation and Technology in Berlin, Arno Brandt is particularly concerned with the digitalisation of the economy. Whether already reality or still future vision: What do all the big and small technical innovations actually contribute to overcoming the challenges that society is actually faced with in the ecological and social realms? In his lecture, Brandt deals with the question of where better technology leads to a worse life and examines the unequal distribution of opportunities, risks and costs associated with technological development.

Virtual Conversation Culture

Communication nowadays takes place not only via digital media, but also in dialogue with them. The argeBOT is currently learning to speak: as artificial intelligence, it is fed with stage texts by artists of the ARGE Kultur and is thus learning to expand its vocabulary. It is suitable for a small chat as well as for a long and profound conversation about socio-politically relevant topics. Users can directly access the source of the conversation and thus enter the inner discourse space of ARGE Kultur.

In the Game Lounge, the relation between games and politics, the selection of the proper game rules and social simulations are discussed – including cyberpunk games and strategy games.

The interactive exhibition of the AK Salzburg “Smart Home – Sweet Home” proceeds to the place where we reside, work and live and where digitalisation cannot be stopped. The home of tomorrow between networking and privacy is investigated – from the monitoring area at the entrance to the language assistant in the living room.

Keeping track in the virtual world at the VR-Workshop in ARGEkultur

Social security through control?

The author and university lecturer, Timo Daum, concentrates on topics of the digital revolution, in particular on the digital economy. In his lecture “Artificial intelligence – the data-fed machine of digital capitalism”, Daum deals with the topic of AI as a future perspective. The evaluation and use of data are the driving forces of digital capitalism and lead us to its last innovation for the time being: artificial intelligence.

The film Minority Report outlines a late capitalist scenario in which only a few people have advanced technological possibilities and where individual freedom, equal opportunity and participation give way to increasing surveillance. A dystopian vision of the future that, in view of the progressing invasions of privacy, does not seem as far-fetched as one would like to think. DAS KINO shows the well-known science fiction classic and complements its programme with short lectures and further screenings.

To kick off the festival, Julia von Lucadou will read from her novel “The Skyscraper Jumper”, which shows what total transparency and voluntary self-monitoring can do to people, and futurologist Kerstin Cuhls will discuss social aspects of the future and the present.

In lectures, workshops, film screenings and an exhibition, the Science Meets Fiction Festival takes a closer look at the probable and desirable future developments. With this in mind, the festival invites us to question our current expectations and to find out what is feasible and what can be prevented in the future.

Science Meets Fiction Festival 2019
23.09. – 04.10.2019
sciencemeetsfiction.org

Program:

ARGEkultur

Virtual Reality | Workshop for adolescents
02./03.10.2019

Ich mach mir die Welt… | Game Lounge + Talk
04.10.2019

argeBOT | First public test phase
24.9-27.09 & 03./04.10.2019

DAS KINO: Screenings + Discussions

12 Monkeys
24.09.2019

Snowpiercer
26.09.2019

Minority Report
01.10.2019

Blade Runner – Director’s Cut
03.10.2019

Lectures and Discussions

Kerstin Cuhls und Julia von Lucadou | Reading + Talk
23.09.2019
Literaturhaus Salzburg

Arno Brandt
30.09.
Robert-Jungk-Bibliothek für Zukunftsfragen

Timo Daum und Tobias Hinterseer
02.10.2019
Arbeiterkammer Salzburg