LINZ FMR, the biennial festival for art in digital contexts and public spaces, will take place for the third time in June 2023. After the first edition in March 2019 alongside the Danube river and the second edition in June 2021 around the train station Mühlkreisbahnhof, this time FMR 23 will transform the southern harbour area into a freely accessible art space by numerous international and local artists. FMR 23 brings to Linz a large exhibition centered around venues such as the allotment garden association Linz-Ost, hello yellow Velodrom by Schachermayer, Linz-Lustenau climate oasis, Linzer Stadtalm, LINZ AG leisure and sports facility, Motoryachthafen and vacancy of former Woolworth Center and NORMA discounter in Industriezeile. On display will be works by numerous artists from the fields of media art, digital art and Internet art.
The program also includes talks and discussions on topics such as #ephemeralcircuits, #wildcomputing, #detoxingdigitality and #chromaticfermentation. The Opening Night on Tuesday, 6 June and the Concert Night on Friday, 9 June will feature live performances by Stefano D’Alessio (IT), Crystn Hunt Akron (AT), Floating Spectrum (TW), SØS Gunver Ryberg (DK), Francesco Luzzana & Sofia Casprini (IT), Antenes (US), Sturmherta (AT), Mermaid & Seafruit (PL / AT) and Antonia XM (AT). In addition, there will be daily performances by the participating artists on the festival grounds as well as tours with art mediators and curators. Responsible for the festival is the association “LINZ FMR – Art in digital contexts and public spaces”. It was founded by the two art and cultural initiatives qujOchÖ and servus.at, Atelierhaus Salzamt of the City of Linz, University of Arts Linz and Sturm und Drang Galerie. Their representatives have been involved in the conception, organization and curation of the festival since its first edition in March 2019.
FMR 23 is supported by the City of Linz as UNESCO City of Media Arts, the State of Upper Austria and the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, as well as numerous organizations and companies, including our main sponsors LINZ AG and Gutenberg-Werbering, our co-sponsors Datapress, Christian Schepe Fineartprinting, Plasser & Theurer, Schachermayer, ARCOTEL Nike Linz, Austria Classic Hotel Wolfinger, Das Landhof, arte Hotel Linz, TIER, city bike Linz, MOTORMOBIL Autohaus Dornach, Freistädter Bier, brotsüchtig and our further partners & supporters Linz Tourismus, Innovationshauptplatz Linz, younion Oberösterreich, Kleingartenverein Linz-Ost, hello yellow Velodrom by Schachermayer, Klimaoase Linz-Lustenau, Linzer Stadtalm, Radio FRO, DORF TV and DIE REFERENTIN.
Concept & Topics
LINZ FMR is a biennial festival and format for artistic processes and positions, that reflects the ephemeral nature of our digital and connected present. The ever-advancing digitalization of everyday life implies an intense overlapping and layering of familiar physical, but also finely interwoven digital spaces. LINZ FMR focuses on the shifts, distortions and rifts that arise in this process and presents current artistic positions in this context. The festival, whose title alludes to ephemerality and shortlivedness, presents works whose initial ideas can be found in virtual and/or digital space or have a strong reference to it, but are shown (sometimes in a transformed way) in the physical surroundings of the city of Linz. The focus is primarily on the interstices that arise during these transformations into public space – outside of museums, galleries or art spaces. FMR 23 is dedicated to four special topics, which will be addressed in the exhibition and the accompanying lectures and talks:
- Chromatic Fermentation: Of deep-fried JPEGs, freshly rendered AVs, semi-shiny 3D glosses and anti-aliased vector gardens. When a spinning tribal form moves through space, does it produce sound? The focus here is on surfaces and appearances, as well as the sensory impact of the digital, the current Internet aesthetics and their slow-brewed distillates.
- Wild Computing: From the architecture of control to the freedom of networks, computing permeates everything. The pervasiveness of computation connects environments and landscapes through cables and sensors – but wild algorithms are always one step away from breaking free. What happens when an AI has freedom of movement? How will GPUs adapt to the climate change?
- Detoxing Digitality: As the impact of the digital on our lives is very obvious, its toxicity is also well known. Not only do the cycles of production and disposal of technology affect the environment, the digital also enables large-scale extraction of valuable materials from both the soil and our own bodies – from minerals to personal information. But it also allows us to achieve forms of wellbeing, by our being connected to peers or knowledge online. A balance needs to be found. How can we imagine less destructive or even regenerative ways of dealing with the digital?
- Ephemeral Circuits: Ephemerality is incessant movement and change over various degrees of materiality, from physical space to its ethereal expansion through networks. It’s all about practices that explore the circuits between online and offline states, circulating within landscapes augmented with information data.
Location
The third edition of the festival is located in Linz’s southern harbor district. Between the former Quelle department store in the northwest, the Danube in the east, the tank depot in the south and the LINZ AG district heating power plant in the southeast, an area of more than 100 hectares stretches out that is characterized in a fascinating way by the interplay between industry and nature. Numerous companies such as Plasser & Theurer or Schachermayer are located here. At the same time, the area is crisscrossed by nature, recreation, leisure and hospitality zones, including hello yellow velodrome, Linz-Lustenau climate oasis, Linzer Stadtalm, Landhof, LINZ AG leisure and sports facility, motor yacht harbour or allotment garden settlement Linz-Ost, which serve as festival venues at FMR 23.