SCI_ART 2026 Ars Electronica Animation Festival Screening

The 2025 Ars Electronica Festival title PANIC: Yes/No found strong reflections also in several of the awarded works of the Prix Ars Electronica, which share underlying sentiments of doom and unease. This thematic resonance prompted the selection for the On Tour compilation PANIC – Prix Ars Electronica Selection. The one-hour selection begins with three works awarded by the jury of New Animation Art category at Prix Ars Electronica 2025—one Award of Distinction and two Honorary Mentions. Each tells a different story: the ritualistic unfolding of a mysterious dinner (Supper by Erick Oh); a day in the life of a motion-captured clone condemned to endless performance (The Cast of the Invisible by Lau Wai); and a requiem for a humanoid AI on the brink of being discarded as electronic waste (Aria by Yu Shien Yang and Jin Keon). The selection continues with Corpus and the Wandering by Jo Roy. From there, the works expand into broader landscapes of collapse: Auntlantis by Niceaunties imagines a world overwhelmed by plastic waste, where environmental caretakers—the “aunties”—navigate hybrid oceans filled with sea creatures and jelly malls shaped by pollution and consumerism; Light Up New York But for a Moment by Zhuyuan Liu envisions The Times Square overtaken by a mutating media-monster as architecture dissolves into spectacle; Greetings from the New World by Matthieu Mantovani hovers distantly over derelict city structures and landscapes of excess; and Core Dump by Alona Rodeh surveys, from a drone’s perspective, a monumental e-waste dump in the desert. The program culminates with Shockwave, which guides us on an infinite zoom-out through barren, AI-generated terrains in the cataclysmic aftermath of the atomic era. Whether swarming over mountains of plastic, obsolete technologies, or industrial detritus, these works collectively confront us with the specter of environmental collapse and societal decay, forming a cohesive panorama in which the viewer instinctively yields to a mounting sense of PANIC. Featuring: SUPPERErick Oh (US)6 min The Cast of the InvisibleLau Wai (HK)13 min ARIA 夢姬Yu Shien Yang & Jin Keon (TW/KR)7 min Corpus and the WanderingJo Roy (CA)7 min AuntlantisNiceaunties (SG)5 min Light Up New York For But A MomentZhuyuan Liu (CN)8 min Greetings for the New WorldMatthieu Mantovani (FR)5 min CORE DUMPAlona Rodeh (IL/DE)4 min ShockwaveMihai Grecu (RO)5 min