From September 6 to 10 2023, Ars Electronica once again invites artists, scientists, developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and activists from all over the world to Linz. The question focused on by Europe’s largest festival for art, technology and society is: “Who Owns the Truth?” The central location is—again—the legendary POSTCITY, in which the festival was already able to guest-host from 2015 to 2019.

In an age, moreover, in which a small number of people, in neo-feudalistic fashion, have usurped the management of collective knowledge, and in which we also have good reason to doubt whether the vision of technology represents the solution to our problems.

Behind this lies the central question as to how we can make the fantastic achievements of science and technology accessible for ALL people – and usable. It is not enough just to think about how we can prevent AI systems from harming someone (even though that is vitally important). A tool that is so much based on the globally collective “raw material” of knowledge, creativity etc., must be harnessed to the benefit of all, too.

In recent years, we have thought a great deal about “Digital Humanism”; it is time now to think about a form of “Digital Socialism”, meaning a “commonwealth”, a “social contract” with which we can overcome the profound, wide-ranging changes of the digital age, and even more, the globally collective consequences of climate change.

Admittedly, this is a nearly insurmountable challenge, yet it is just for such a vision that a festival like Ars Electronica should and can stand. A festival that is extraordinary in every respect, at which for more than 40 years under the heading “art, technology and society” thought has been given not only to how technology alters our society, but also to revealing how art and society can themselves shape technology.