18.03.2026 – 20.03.2026
Almost everyone knows Wikipedia. Who hasn’t used it to do research? This year, Wikipedia celebrates its 25th birthday. The encyclopaedia not only represents the digital and democratic spirit of the 1990s, it also reflects the major and often problematic developments in the digital world over the past quarter of a century. Nevertheless, with around 65 million articles and hundreds of thousands of active, anonymous and volunteer authors, Wikipedia is now an indispensable archive of free knowledge on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, however, this free knowledge is under acute threat. AI companies are training their large language models with Wikipedia’s open-source texts, thereby siphoning off knowledge for their proprietary products. At the same time, the culture war from the right is gathering momentum: questioning its non-profit status, withdrawing funding, revealing the identities of authors. Wikipedia is just one prominent example of the current state of free knowledge on the internet. Whether it’s digital archives, social media or government websites, information is disappearing and being censored – often disguised as criticism of supposed “wokeness” and under the guise of free speech. Whether the internet really does never forget, as was once said, has ultimately become a question of power, capital interests and political influence. How can digital art address this situation and raise awareness of it? And how can digital art find ways to preserve endangered knowledge and keep it accessible? An open call was issued to develop digital art projects on this topic. Six artists and collectives were selected. From Salzburg, artist Nina Vasilchenko and a collaborative project by the collectives gold extra and Kronberger&Kronberger are participating; from Graz, works by the artist groups SOAP and Das Planetenparty Prinzip; and from Berlin, artistic positions by eeefff and Chinedum Muotto. DIGITAL SPRING is accompanied by a discursive simulation game – CONTROL VS. COMMONS – with experts from science, technology and civil society – in cooperation with the organisation ProEuropeanValuesAT. And with the DIGITAL SPRING podcast in cooperation with Radiofabrik.
DIGITAL SPRING – WORLD WIDE WIKI – Media Art Festival Salzburg 2026
18.03.2026 – 20.03.2026
various locations
5020 Salzburg
https://www.argekultur.at
