So, dear guests, dear colleagues, dear students, welcome to the pre-opening or to the opening of the Ars Electronica campus at the University of Arts Linz. I'm delighted that we are once again part of Ars Electronica with a wide range of activities this year. It's a pity that it rains today, but tomorrow we will have some sun and it will be warmer. So it's really only today and only this hour when we are at the opening it rains. I would like to extend a special welcome and a big thank to our cooperation partners and guests of honor. For the Ars Electronica, we thank and we welcome Gerfried Stocker. For the City of Linz, we thank and welcome Mayor Dietmar Brammer. And for the City of Linz, we also thank and welcome Eva Schobesberger. For the province of Upper Austria, a welcome to Director of Culture, Margot Nassal. A big applause, please. I would like to thank the organizers from our university. Above all, she's here. It's Manuela Nauvoo. Please, Manuela, big applause. She's the curator, the chief organizer, and the mastermind. Once again, big applause. It's a little bit tricky to have a big applause when you are in this distance, but it rains, so we manage it. She, Manuela Nauvoo, was assisted by the big talents of organizing, Gudrun Obendorfer and Silvia Leitner. Those were also supported in setting up the exhibition by Paul Eis, Samuel Haas and Daniel Prischel. There was also tremendous dedication from audio setup expert Jürgen Ropp, production management genius as known as HES, our HES, the project managers Sofia Talanti and Gustiel Fisterol and technical expert Vladislav Nazarov. Also, two colleagues more, social media officer Victoria Angial and text artist Alexander Wöran. Many thanks. And thank you, all the students and the staff, all colleagues of our university who have, in their holidays, made Ars Electronica possible once again in this year. Special thanks to the 18, not 14 as I said this morning, 18 departments that are involved with their projects. A big applause to our students and colleagues. And we have guests. The entire campus format, including Post City, comprises 37 universities internationally. And we are delighted with each and every one of them. It's wonderful that they are all here in Linz with us. Here in the buildings of our university are the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Hochschule Pforzheim, the School of Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Sevilla, the UNATC Bucharest, the China Academy of Art Hangzhou, the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the Bauhaus University Weimar, the Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Temesvara, Romania, the National Academy of Arts Sofia in Bulgaria, the Cyprus University of Technology, and the Sungungquam University of South Korea. Let's give a big applause to all of our guests. Panic, yes or no, the festival theme touches our soul. And panic, yes or no, is not an easy topic. Panic seems to be the order of the day, the order of the day when we look at the political, economic, social, ecology, and media digital world situation, the wars, and the ever-increasing power of tech giants. So panic, perhaps, yes. Panic is a fear response which is hardly controllable by the person which expires this panic reaction. However, it is very much controllable by others. So it is dangerous, perhaps by others who do not have our best interests at heart like the sports of all shades from west to east and vice versa so panic perhaps no but things are not binary we know we know at the university things are between so they are between yes or no. Panic yes no creates a space between these poles, creating an in-between, and this in-between is actually what we want to focus on. The in-between, the uncertainty, is a state, a fact that we want to deal with, must deal with, and hopefully can deal with. The means we have at the University of Arts and we have at Ars Electronica are the means of art, design, and artistic and scientific research. And it is precisely these means that have the power to bring new perspectives, alternative approaches and utopian worlds into play. And perhaps we can reinvent ourselves. Perhaps. Not sure. The title of the Kunst-Uni campus exhibition, Alles immer offen, everything always open, also fits into this in-between space between panic, yes or no. Inspired by song lyrics from the band Einstürzende Neubauten and Beyoncé, we explore the space between yes and no under this title, spaces that are diverse and that are open. Everything always open. We have three meter high sliding glass doors on the main square here in Linz, outside here. We opened this morning. When you go through, it shouts, it sings, it laughs. So we have reactions on this going through people. The sliding doors are a metaphor for capitalism. We enter temples of consumerism through sliding doors almost every day. On the other hand, openness can be seen as something positive in socio-political terms. political terms. Openness, participation, communication, and involvement are the basis of democracy and human rights. However, openness can also become, once again, a switch of direction. It can become also a curse. A curse, for example, in social media. The whole project, and I would like to express my thanks, the whole project was made possible by our great team, but also by the generous support of Peter Dannereder GmbH. Many thanks to him. At SPLACE, our special featured guest and partner university, the Academy of Arts in Sofia, is presenting the exhibition, Decisions Make Art. So go there and see their approaches and their discussions. Many other exhibitions and projects, performances and workshops from our art university, from guests and from all artists we have here, can be seen here. And unfortunately, I can't name them all, but you can see projects, as I said before, from 18 departments, from the Crafting Future Lab to the space and design strategies of our university. At Post City, we have a comprehensive exhibition by Interface Cultures entitled Post-Human Resources. The Department of Architecture has designed the pavilion against indifference and the work at Terrarium can be seen in the Post City bunker, the cellar. Our university is participating in the arts of change, change of arts funding program in cooperation with the climate and energy fund. And at the Lentos Art Museum on Saturday, you can see at 12 a.m. and hear the weekly siren signal sounds, a performance. So go there on Saturday, midday. And at Energie AG, Energie AG is the energy company of Upper Austria. At the opposite side of the railway station, another work is on display in collaboration with Landeskultur GmbH and Energie AG. For the second time this year, a separate University of Arts Campus Award will be presented, in which all exhibiting students and all projects are involved and can participate. And after now, after the official part, after the speeches, the opening will continue with the Sound Campus again. For past three years, the Sound Campus has been organized by our Department of Time-Based Media and the curatorial team led by Andrea Fladut and Gabriela Guardillo. Thank you very much to this team. It is a great team with the motto Alice in my office everything always open and the sound campus I would like to wish you all a wonderful evening and an inspiring as electronica 2025 thank you very much Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends of arts, facing multiple global crisis. Sorry, but what about the pictures? Ah, you're joining me. Come, come here. Sorry, but what about the pictures? Ah, you're joining me. Come here. Facing multiple global crises, different wars and conflicts, difficult challenges we're facing, this year's Ars Electronica Festival asks the question whether or not we should react with panic. And the University of Arts Linz answers this question not the easy way but very boldly I think with openness. The motto Alles, immer, offen, everything, always open reminds us to stay open-minded, to stay open-minded towards others and other ideas, thoughts, experiments and to stay open to other people. And as a city we are very proud and self-confident of our way to stay open, to stay open for global exchange, for cultural exchange, for economic exchange, but also for exchange in education, to welcome people coming to Linz, whether or not they are refugees, artists or students. So we like to welcome these people and on behalf of the city of Linz, I welcome you all to the Asselektielle Elektroniker Festival and to the city of Linz. Have a nice day. city of Linz. Have a nice day. Please take everything literal that I'm saying right now a warm welcome to this evening because as it's pouring right now, I hope you are warm and please take it that you're warmly welcome in Linz and in Upper Austria for again the Ars Electronica 2025. It's always a great pleasure to be here and to warmly welcome everybody that comes from further abroad but also from Linz and from Upper Austria. The team that's involved and I think every year involved is doing always a fantastic job and it's the Art University, it's the Ars Electronica, it's the festival team and it's always a great pleasure to see projects being realized. This year's festival team, Panic Yes or No, will give us questions, will provoke our thoughts, will provoke our topics that touch us personally. And the exhibition that's on the campus, Aless Ima Ofm, I hope, does not reflect today's weather because the sky is opening right now. So I hope for the next days the sky is closing again. But the projects that are realized at the Art University, as the mayor said, the city of Linz, the state of Upper Austria, is open to all the visitors here tonight and for the festival. And I'm hugely grateful for all the corporations and all the collaborations that are happening during this festival. And I want to congratulate this year's festival and all the institutions that have been named for this exhibition and the whole festival team that are happening and that are showing how hospital the city of Linz and Upper Austria is. And let's see what is happening here. I think you're not wanting to wait for any longer. Thanks very much and have a good time. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. And thanks mostly to Manuela and all the wonderful program you put together. Thank you. Please enjoy. wonderful program you put together. Thank you. Please enjoy. Yeah, just quickly. We were very scared about the opening when we heard how the weather is actually, so what is coming up. Actually, I want to thank you that you are here, which is for us very, very important and especially also for the Sound Campus. So please stay. There will be performances until 10 o'clock. And for us, it would be actually the most perfect situation if a lot of people are still staying and fighting against this weather. So thank you for being here. Thank you for the Sound Campus team. Brigitte Hüth already mentioned, so Gabriela, Gordilio, Andrea Fladut, but also Reinhard Reisensahn and Hedi, who are doing so great work, actually here for the Sound Campus. Sound Campus is today, tomorrow, and on Thursday. So we have now three days of, three evenings of having a nice performance, but also party feeling. We have here Bernhard Röhm with a catering who is here all the time. So it would be nice if this is also during the day a place where you can meet people, where you exchange. We have so many partner universities here. Unfortunately, I don't see Venelov Shurilov from Bulgaria in the moment, but of course, he is also a very important partner for us. Would be nice to network and to meet. And just to let you know, there is a lot of activities beside the sound campus. Please check out if it's the Crafting Futures Lab. They have now every day some talks directly in the exhibition. So you can go in the exhibition and you can participate there and they have workshops and presentations please go to the third floor also on Hauptplatz 8 we have so many partner universities but on the whole third floor we have Joachim Smetschke and Time Based Interactive Media with a whole floor of installations and they have an exhibition there also on the third floor but also they have in their deep space presentations every day at four o'clock please also go there it's really worth actually discovering the whole Hauptplatz 8 let's say yeah and on Friday we are also here in the Glashörsaal don't be scared that the elevator is not working I know it's in the fifth floor, but please take the other elevator. We have a problem at the Arch University. And take the other elevator to the fifth floor and you find us there in the Glas Hörsaal. We have the Leonardo Laser Talk together with the Leonardo community, which we are actually very proud about. And in the afternoon, we have the critical data research group with a lot of very interesting presentations. So if you want to know more, just ask us, ask also my team. And yeah, thank you for being here. And thank you actually for my team who was supporting me in such a wonderful way. Thank you. and thank you actually for my team who was supporting me in such a wonderful way thank you