Ars Electronica will open its 2026 festival in Linz on 9 September with ‘Ars Electronica Opening: Declaring Humanity’, a free programme staged in front of and inside St Mary’s Cathedral. Beginning at 7pm, the event will bring together music, performance and participatory work focused on “the great questions of our existence,” according to the festival’s programme announcement.
The opening is part of the five-day Ars Electronica Festival, which runs from 9 to 13 September under the theme ‘Negotiating Humanity’. The festival will use three hubs in Linz for exhibitions, conferences, workshops, performances and other events. The opening programme at the cathedral is presented as a survey of almost five centuries of artistic exploration, extending from the music of Thomas Tallis to contemporary club culture.
Hadra Rave and NENDA are scheduled to begin the event, alongside a participatory project connected with the Declaration of Human Rights. The programme will then include performances by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Company of Music, cathedral organist Gerhard Raab and TANZ LINZ. Japanese artists evala and Ayako Tanaka are also listed among the performers.
The festival’s framing places historical and contemporary forms of artistic production in direct proximity. The programme moves from sacred and classical musical traditions associated with the cathedral to electronic and performance practices, while retaining a focus on questions concerning human existence. The supplied announcement does not identify individual works in the opening programme beyond its reference to Thomas Tallis and club culture.
The opening follows a pre-festival programme on 8 September. The Pre-Opening Walk begins at 3pm in Linz city centre and visits the Lentos Art Museum, the University of Art and Design, Francisco Carolinum and Salzamt before concluding with a 30th-anniversary celebration at the Ars Electronica Center. Admission to the walk’s listed locations is free. The Ars Electronica Center, which describes its history as three decades of bringing art and technology to audiences and shaping dialogue about the future, will mark the anniversary with exhibitions, performances, concerts and robots.
Other major events in the festival programme include ‘Big Concert Night 2026’ at Posthof on 11 September, where performances will unfold across three stages. The listed works include ‘Orbit – A War Series’ by composer Brigitta Muntendorf, ‘Polaris’ by Maki Namekawa and Cori O’Lan, with music by Philip Glass, and ‘PULS’ by Daniel Haas. The opening itself, however, takes place at St Mary’s Cathedral on Wednesday, 9 September, with free admission.
