Image: Lentos Art Museum, Linz
Lentos Art Museum in Linz will present six selected works by recipients of the 2026 Prix Ars Electronica and the European Commission’s S+T+ARTS Prize during the Ars Electronica Festival, scheduled for 9–13 September 2026. The short exhibition, titled ‘Prix Ars Electronica & S+T+ARTS Prize’, will examine changing ideas of what it means to be human through questions of perception, artificial intelligence, history, geopolitics and the climate crisis.
The presentation is part of the festival’s 2026 programme, which is organised around the theme ‘NEGOTIATING HUMANITY’. According to Lentos, the selected works—most of them recognised with a Golden Nica or a Grand Prize—treat “humanness” not as a fixed category but as something continually reshaped by technological, political and environmental conditions. One work identified by the museum is Shin Hanagata’s ‘CHIMERIA’, dated 2026.
The scale of this year’s prize programmes is reflected in their submissions. Lentos reports 4,329 entries from 106 countries for the 2026 Prix Ars Electronica and 2,719 entries from 110 countries for the 2026 S+T+ARTS Prize. The museum’s exhibition will condense those international selections into a focused presentation of six works, spanning embodied experience, the logic of capitalist technologies and the emergence of autonomous creative processes in artificial intelligence.
The Prix Ars Electronica has been presented by Ars Electronica as the world’s longest-running media-art competition. Established in 1987, it has formed part of the festival’s engagement with the relationship between art, technology and society. The 2026 Ars Electronica Festival will take place at multiple sites across central Linz, including the OK Quarter, the Danube Triangle and the Med Campus, alongside additional locations hosting individual events.
At Lentos, visitors will be able to explore the prize-winners’ exhibition independently or through daily guided programmes led by experts. The museum has scheduled English-language ‘Spotlight Tours: Negotiating Humanity’ throughout the festival. On 9 September, tours are listed for 12:30–14:00, 14:30–16:00 and 16:30–18:00; on 10 September, they are scheduled for 10:30–12:00, 12:30–14:00, 14:30–16:00 and 16:30–18:00; and on 11 September, a further tour is listed for 14:30–16:00. Tickets are required.
An ‘Artist Walks and Expert Tours’ programme is also scheduled for 11 September from 16:00 to 17:30, with Emīko Ogawa, Andrew Herzog and Hito Steyerl named as participants. The exhibition’s opening programme on 8 September includes a press tour from 09:00 to 10:00 and an opening event from 15:00 to 17:00 as part of the festival’s Pre-Opening Walk. Lentos Art Museum is located at Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1 in Linz.
