Impact Initiative

Transforming Medicine Through AI and Arts

Topic: Digitale Gesundheit
Focus: Art, Ai, Healthsystem
Method: Co-Creation, Hackathon

Duration: 2025
Status: laufend
Location: Austria
Funding: OIS Center Projekt

What is the project about?

The Impact Initiative: Transforming Medicine Through AI and Arts brings together people from science, medicine, technology, the arts and society to develop new approaches to current challenges in healthcare. At its core lies the belief that innovation is not driven by technological progress alone. It emerges where different forms of knowledge, experience and methods come together.

The Impact Initiative was initiated by the Open Innovation in Science Center of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG OIS Center) and is implemented in collaboration with the Linz Institute for Transformative Change at Johannes Kepler University Linz (LIFT_C) and Ars Electronica. The initiative is co-funded by the Fonds Zukunft Österreich (FZÖ).

What is the goal of the project?

The initiative aims to foster collaboration between science, the arts and technology to open up new perspectives on healthcare challenges and to develop innovative approaches at the intersection of artificial intelligence, medicine and society.

Who participates in the project?

The Impact Initiative brings together stakeholders who rarely collaborate in traditional innovation processes. Participants include researchers, AI and technology experts, artists and creative practitioners:

• Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Prevention (Research Partner)
• Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Science Outreach and Pandemic Preparedness (Research Partner)
• Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Network Medicine (Research Partner)
• LIFT_C at JKU Linz
• Ars Electronica
• Artists (Mary Maggic, Dora Siafla, Hollis Hui, Dominika Kolenda, Emanuel Gollob, Sonja Bäumel)
• Technicians (Michael Artner, Isra Viadest, Christian Stelmach)
• Students (various fields)
• and many more...

How are participants involved in the project?

The initiative began with co-creation processes based on the principles of Open Innovation in Science, bringing together researchers, artists, healthcare professionals and technology experts to jointly define challenges at the intersection of artificial intelligence and health. These challenges were further developed during a multi-day hackathon held in the lead-up to the Ars Electronica Festival 2025. Students from the fields of artificial intelligence, medicine and design collaborated with researchers and artists to materialise ideas, test assumptions in practice and develop initial prototypes. The results were discussed with partners such as EIT Health and EIT Culture & Creativity during Ars Electronica and presented at JKUniverse.

Building on these first experiments, new project collaborations emerged that continued beyond the hackathon. Through iterative development processes, new partnerships and targeted support for project development and funding, these collaborations evolved into the works that will be presented at Ars Electronica 2026. Two exhibition contributions, a workshop and a mediation platform invite audiences to question established notions of health. Rather than offering definitive answers, they encourage dialogue, reflection and new ways of thinking about the future of medicine.