“Pixelspaces” is the conference series that the Ars Electronica Futurelab has staged annually since 2001 in the context of the Ars Electronica Festival. The highpoints are a theme symposium and theme exhibition that focus on current trends and elaborate on them from the point of view of a laboratory-atelier.

Ever since its inception, the yearly theme of “Pixelspaces” has been situated within an ever-more-complex patchwork pattern at the nexus of computer gaming, architecture and virtual/augmented reality. The potential of these crossovers no longer manifests itself strictly within the experimental sector; research insights and project results display a degree of professionalism that has not escaped the attention of commercial enterprises and the institutions of higher learning that are training the creatives of tomorrow.

For this reason, Pixelspaces 2008 focused attention for the first time directly on the unique aspects of the approaches to work and ways of life of free-lance art & media producers, and the media labs and institutes with which they are temporarily associated.

As a setting for the conclave of a community of free-lance media artists, media labs and educational institutions including both established players and newcomers on all sides, Pixelspaces functions as a communications space and showroom of leading-edge approaches to R&D within the scope of an artistic, scientific and technological confrontation with socially relevant issues.