The LBG OIS Center brought new perspectives to ARS Electronica with “HealthCare, Arts and Wellbeing”.
For five days, Linz once again became a meeting point for art, technology, and society – with the PostCity serving one final time as a stage for encounters, experiments, and visions.
From September 3 to 7, Linz once again became the international hub for media art. Although Ars Electronica made its final appearance in the Linz PostCity, the festival achieved a record-breaking attendance of over 122,000 visitors.
Medicine, Technology, and Art
On September 5, under the theme “Cross-Sectoral Collaboration: The Arts Meet HealthTech,” the Conference Hall focused on the intersection of art and medical technology – from artistic methods to promote medical literacy, through interdisciplinary project presentations, to discussions on the future of cross-sector collaboration and the role of art in mental health.
Impact Initiative
The new Impact Initiative by the OIS Center demonstrated how creative minds from medicine, technology, and art can jointly develop solutions to pressing societal challenges – not in a laboratory, but in an open, interdisciplinary experimental space.
“With the Impact Initiative ‘HealthCare, Arts and Wellbeing,’ the LBG OIS Center has introduced a new dimension to the traditionally broad spectrum of Ars Electronica. We are thrilled with the success of the premiere and are already looking forward to continuing the initiative in 2026 together with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes, JKU, and Ars Electronica,” said Georg Russegger, Head of the LBG OIS Center.
As part of this initiative, an interdisciplinary hackathon took place at the Faculty of Medicine at JKU Linz. Over 25 selected participants from medicine, art, technology, and science worked in teams on three pre-defined, socially relevant challenges.
Through an open and creative process, prototype solutions emerged that combined artificial intelligence, artistic practice, and medical expertise in novel ways. The results were first presented on the evening of September 3 at the JKU Square in PostCity and later showcased in the Ars Electronica exhibition and at the conference on September 5.
