ATS at Ars Electronica

Since 2018, ATS has continuously participated in the international festival Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria — the most prestigious event in the fields of art & technology, new media, and digital art.

Bringing together Graduate Students and Faculty, the ATS Ars Electronica initiative is an annual showcase of the most experimental work produced by this pioneering department.

Art and Technology Studies (ATS) is a fine art department focused on the use of technology as an art medium. The department’s roots are the Kinetics area established in 1969 by Steve Waldeck and the Generative Systems area created in 1970 by Sonia Sheridan. The fusion of these two areas unified the department and established the foundation of its experimental ethos.

Unlike other disciplines that use technology at the service of traditional forms, faculty and students in Art and Technology Studies employ technology itself as their medium. Works produced in ATS are often time-based, interactive, immersive, multi-sensory or hybrids of retro and cutting-edge technologies.

In its current configuration, ATS teaches numerous courses in, but not limited to, the following concentrations: Creative Code & Machine Learning, AR, VR & Games, Kinetics & Electronics, Light, Audio, and Bio Art. ATS also teaches exploratory areas such as Poetic Systems, Olfactory Art, and History & Theory.