Pixel, Bytes + Film goes Deep Space

Since 2025 the programme around Pixel, Bytes + Film is organised by the International Screen Institute and curated by COO Eva Fischer who has been running this format since 2019 and is known for her expertise in film, media art and the soundframe and Civa Festival. The programme offers fresh perspectives on the intersection of moving image, current technologies and interaction.

In cooperation with Ars Electronica, the BMWKMS funding programme Pixel, Bytes + Film presents a curated selection of outstanding works that push the boundaries of experimental film and digital storytelling. Presented in the form of short previews, these glimpses into the featured projects offer a taste of striking visuals, bold narratives and artistic vision. Experience a unique showcase at Ars Electronica’s Deep Space 8K, where media art comes to life in unprecedented ways.

About Pixel, Bytes + Film

For more than 10 years, the Austrian funding programme at the interface of experimental film and gaming has been responding to the great interest of artists in further developing cinematic and audiovisual forms of expression beyond conventional formats and renegotiating them artistically. Funded by the Ministry of Arts and Culture and supported by ORFIII, projects in the field of moving images are created that artistically explore digital technologies of image production and distribution and explore their formal spectrum and narrative possibilities. 

Featured Artists:

Ksenia Yurkova

Ksenia Yurkova’s multidisciplinary practice reflects a deep interest in language, emotion, and social systems. Working with photography, performance, video, and text, she examines how identity is shaped by memory, affect, and political context. Her recent works blend personal narrative with a sharp critical gaze, tracing the tensions between inner experience and public structures.

Enar de Dios Rodríguez

Enar de Dios Rodríguez explores how economic, political, and ecological systems shape territorial control. Her research-based practice combines video, photography, and installation to examine the technologies behind spatial power. Influenced by feminist and decolonial thought, she uses found material to question dominant narratives and imagine alternatives to imposed futures.

Felix Lenz & Ganaël Dumreicher

In Brute Force, Felix Lenz and Ganaël Dumreicher explore how our knowledge-making practices affect the world. Drawing on quantum theory and geology, the film exposes the inherent omissions, distortions, and ecological impacts of data extraction. 

From the interference patterns of neutrons to data centers and salt lakes, Brute Force captures how the world’s complexity collides with the simplified rationalities of the digital age.

Eliana Otto

Eliana Otta focuses on the intimate, the everyday, and the collective. Using simple materials like colored pencils and markers, she creates drawings and installations that speak to grief, memory, and social care. Alongside her solo work, she engages in collaborative initiatives and self-publishing as forms of shared authorship and cultural resistance.

Marlies Pöschl

Marlies Pöschl works across film, installation, and curatorial practice to explore art as a space for collective knowledge. As co-founder of The Golden Pixel Cooperative, she develops feminist and collaborative approaches to the moving image in both exhibition and public contexts. Her films often emerge from participatory processes and social encounters, embracing open-ended narration.

Depart (Gregor Ladenhauf & Leonhard Lass)

Gregor Ladenhauf and Leonhard Lass work together as Depart, a duo exploring the poetic and metaphysical through code-based art. Their generative environments combine sound, language and image into immersive, algorithmic experiences. Drawing on design, electronic music and digital culture, the duo blurs lines between the real and the virtual in complex audiovisual compositions.

Uwe Brunner, Bettina Katja Lange & Joan Soler-Adillon

Uwe Brunner (AU), Bettina Katja Lange (GER), and Joan Soler-Adillon (CAT) work at the intersection of architecture, visual media, and interactive digital technologies, exploring the tension between technology, intimacy, and social interaction in the digital age. Brunner, architect and researcher at ./studio3 (University of Innsbruck), focuses on essayistic tendencies in XR environments. Lange, stage designer and media artist, creates performative installations blending digital and physical media with documentary elements. Soler-Adillon, associate professor at UOC in Barcelona, specializes in interactive storytelling, VR, and experimental documentaries.

Flavia Mazzanti

Flavia Mazzanti is a multimedia artist working at the intersection of post-photography, experimental video, and immersive technologies. Her work deals with artistic-philosophical concepts on post-anthropocentrism, entanglement, body and identity with an interest in providing alternative perspectives on ourselves and our environment. Her works have been exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, DIG Shibuya in Tokyo, and the Museum Kunst Haus Wien. She is also co-founder of Immerea and active in the immersive tech scene as a lecturer and organizer.

Eva Egermann & Cordula Thym

Artist Eva Egermann and director and film editor Cordula Thym collaborate at the intersection of art, activism, and critical media. Their work explores disability, care, and queer-feminist perspectives through film, and publishing. United by a shared interest in representation and social critique, they develop inclusive formats that challenge normative structures and make space for marginalised voices.

Rebecca Merlic

In Rebecca Merlic’s speculative digital environments, architecture meets activism. Drawing from cyberfeminist theory and personal experience, she builds interactive spaces that reflect on identity, community, and resistance. Her interdisciplinary practice spans virtual reality, media art, and game design, creating bold experiments that open up new ways of seeing and relating.

From bold experiments to deeply personal narratives, these artists show just how versatile and boundary-breaking digital storytelling can be. Don’t miss the chance to experience their vision live – see you in Linz!

Admission is free!
Registration is recommended: center@ars.electronica.art or +43.732.7272.0
More info & event link