The past few years, especially the events of the 2020 pandemic, have drastically shown that the digital transformation is irreversible and has become a part of many aspects of our lives. This is a global phenomenon, even if we see different conditions and highly asymmetrical effects. On the one hand, digital communication has become a global sine qua non. On the other hand, the production, distribution and disposal of digital appliances has become a textbook example of the globally unequal distribution of costs and benefits. Furthermore, through the promotion of artificial intelligence in research and industry, algorithmic optimisation and control mechanisms have inconspicuously become an important part of everyday life and the production sector. Moreover, we are facing a completely new scale of security problems and surveillance possibilities, but also new possibilities of bottom-up production of machines, software and media products. Especially our recent experiences with telework and distance-teaching have made it clear that the relation between digital and analogue, distance and proximity, or automatization and spontaneous communication/creation are the emerging core questions of a vigilant approach to digital technologies.
However, today, digital technologies form an important base for the advancement of existing design methods. They facilitate the design of complex, informed materials, forms and reactions and lead to innovative production methods which involve societal and cultural change, e.g. the renewal of traditional processes or new methods of local production. With the focus point ‘Postdigital Cultures’, the University of Art and Design Linz approaches these core issues through critical analysis, experimenting and sustainable design.
The university has gained decades of expertise in the field of digital and analogue media and developed diverse approaches, reaching from the artistic realisation of media and interface art to creative robotics, to painting as a medium of reflection of the digital. Work is project-based and takes place in teams, employing different media formats and materials. The connection to media history, cultural and political dynamics and transmedial strategies facilitates an independent exploration of visual, auditory and multi-sensory forms of expression and production and presentation methods.
At the interface of media critique and scenario analysis, the Co.Lab Office for Useful Fictions will us hybrid and publicly visible formats to explore the entire spectrum of digital cultures and their alternatives and possibilities. In addition to the four-semester scientific-artistic master programme Media Culture and Art Theories, the new master programme Art & Technology (working title) will address today’s and tomorrow’s digital cultural techniques in the wide, transdisciplinary field of aesthetic, cultural, urban, social and political processes of negotiation and design.
In terms of open science, the independent development of non-proprietary tools and infrastructures for artistic work, teaching and communication will play a vital role – possibly in collaboration with suitable partners.
Existing strengths, such as Interface Cultures, will be further developed. Additionally, a new professorship for Acoustic Ecology and corresponding courses will be created. The master programme Postdigital Instrument Making will be realised in cooperation with Anton Bruckner Private University. With all this, we respond to the wide, long-existing interest in the innovative field of (digital) sound art.
The field of media and visual literacy, involving the field of visual communication in all its variety and complexity, will be promoted through a professorship for Imaging Techniques. The field of media art, with a new appointment of the professorship for Media Design, will be further developed with regard to teacher education.
Numerous collaborations with university and non-university partners such as the VALIE EXPORT Center (the eponymous artist is a known pioneer of digital media art), Ars Electronica, Futurelab, LENTOS Art Museum, or Medienwerkstatt Wien will facilitate the realisation of artistic and scientific projects in the fields of image and sound, interactivity, graphic and communication design, analogue and digital photography, film/video, performative media and time-based art.
The digital transformation includes a lot of potential for creative disciplines (Architecture, Space and Design) as well. The interaction between digital/virtual and material/sensory as well as sustainable-innovative material research form the core elements of teaching and research in Fashion & Technology, Industrial Design and Architecture. The potential resulting from the combination of traditional technologies and materials with current and future-oriented developments will be enhanced and further developed. (Basic) research will benefit from the creation of special labs, which will also be available for collaborative projects in the future.
The lab for Creative Robotics will noticeably expand its focus of activities – the interdisciplinary, application-oriented development of innovative robotic processes at the interface of art, design, science, SME and industry.
Last but not least, we wish to emphasise that the general conditions and requirements of the digital transformation will pose a great challenge to the entire university and its operations – now and in the future. Apart from the personnel and infrastructure resources needed for the further development of the above-mentioned artistic, creative and scientific disciplines, we aim to impart digital competencies as an integral part of all study contents. Additional budgets are required especially for digital administrative processes and structures. Making artistic and scientific works accessible (open access), e.g. through open repositories, requires resources as well. If we want to use sustainable, resource-efficient technologies, substantial investments are necessary.