S+T+ARTS4WATERII: Ports in Transformation at Ars Electronica Festival 2025
Organized by GLUON
We are excited to announce that Ars Electronica Festival 2025 will give the opportunity to the following S+T+ARTS4Water II artists in residence to present their work: Stijn Demeulenaere, Territorial Agency and Carlos Monleon.
From September 3 to 7, 2025, Linz will once again become a hotspot for the international media art scene. Exhibitions, performances, concerts and conferences will be held at festival locations throughout the city, most of them at POSTCITY, the festival’s central venue.
On the occasion of the festival, GLUON presents a curated selection of projects emerging from the STARTS4WATER II residencies, where artists, scientists, and local communities collaboratively explored the often invisible ecological and social challenges of Europe’s ports and port cities. Unfolding across different locations in the city of Linz, the program brings together sculptural installations, immersive sound experiences and lecture-performances responding to the urgent ecological and social challenges present in Europe’s marine environments and rivers.
Parliament of Streams: Turbine Chapel immerses visitors in the disprupted soundscape of rivers altered by hydropower. Through fish-inspired sculptures and recordings from the Danube, it reveals how ancient riverine voices are fractured, turning flowing monologues into stuttering monologues.
Sounding Lines reflects on the 200-year evolution of the North Sea by combining sounds of past and future changes. Demeulenare recorded the sound of offshore wind farms and the sound of some of the last remaining wild oyster reefs and infused them with remnants of the traditional knowledge of sea shanties. In Linz, he presents a participatory, immersive experience, inviting the audience to wade into the Danube and listen. Book your timeslot here
In the Anthropocene, new territories traverse, diffract and scatter pre-existing ones. Focusing on the river Scheldt in Belgium, Territorial Agency created a tool using AI and Earth Observartion, that traces overlapping processes shaping the Anthropocene territory of the river.
The S+T+ARTS4Water II Residency Programme is dedicated to Water Sustainability and innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology, and the arts. The programme specifically focuses on the environmental challenges of ports, port cities, coastal areas and waterways.
Through nine-month residencies, S+T+ARTS4Water II enhances collaborative artistic research, creation, and innovation in different port cities and their related ecosystems and industries across eight countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Ireland, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia. S+T+ARTS4Water II – is made possible through a consortium of cultural and scientific partners including VITO (coordinator), WAAG, GLUON, Camargo Foundation, OGR Torino, TBA21 Academy, Beta Festival/Dublin City University Adapt Centre, ArcaFuturis, PiNA and Drugo More.Together they supported 20 artists in total. Discover all projects here.
