Alles.Immer.Offen at Ars Electronica Festival 2025
Hope, promise, uncertainty—or threat? Are we becoming reluctant to embrace openness? What are we afraid of, and why? What lies behind, between, or beside doorways? And what promises come with doors that open by themselves?
For many years, the Linz University of Art and Design has transformed its downtown campus into an exhibition space for the Ars Electronica Festival. From here, the program moves into the city, transforming it into a laboratory for media art and architecture.
In light of the climate crisis, wars, and the ever-increasing power of tech giants, the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 posed the big question “PANIC – yes/no.” As a possible answer, the campus exhibition at the Art University Linz addressed the agenda with Alles.Immer.Offen:
We all know automatic sliding doors from shopping malls. They promise accessibility, mark a seemingly open threshold – yet lead into a public sphere that ultimately remains a market. But what happens when they no longer regulate the flow of consumption, but instead stage openness as a social practice?
This is precisely where the interactive installation Alles.Immer.Offen (“Everything.Always.Open.”) came in. On Linz’s main square, Paul Eis, curator Prof. Manuela Naveau, and their team erected three oversized sliding doors that communicated with the audience through sounds, noises, and texts. Everyday movements thus transformed into a play with space and perception: Sometimes the doors opened abruptly, sometimes they hesitated – thus engaging in a subtle dialogue with the visitors. Furthermore, the construction deliberately remained light, modular, and transparent. Even the floor rose slightly as soon as someone entered the sensory area, intensifying the moment of passing through. Furthermore, all components are reusable: The doors and their drive units are returned to the manufacturer, while the rest goes to the workshops of the University of Art and Design.
Designed by MOOI, the identity for Alles.Immer.Offen is set in Bastardo Rounded.
