The ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL premiered on September 18, 1979. This pilot project was designed to take the Digital Revolution’s emergence as an occasion to face important questions about the future and to focus these inquiries on the nexus of ART, TECHNOLOGY and SOCIETY. With this philosophy—which remains Ars Electronica’s watchwords to this day—HANNES LEOPOLDSEDER, then director of the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’s Upper Austria Regional Studio, electronic musician HUBERT BOGNERMAYR, cyberneticist/physicist HERBERT W. FRANKE and music producer ULRICH RÜTZEL laid the cornerstone for the ongoing success of this extraordinary undertaking.

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