The opening weekend of Vienna Digital Cultures 2026 unfolds over three days of exhibition, performances, and discussions dedicated to the shifting conditions of solitude and togetherness in a digitally mediated world. Beginning with the opening on Thursday, artists, theorists, and practitioners gather across the weekend to engage with urgent questions at the intersection of technology and society. Under the theme Alone or Together?, the festival examines how digital infrastructures reshape intimacy, visibility, and belonging. The opening weekend sets the stage for a broader exploration of how connection, presence, and identity are being transformed today.

Entrance for the entire opening weekend is free. More information about each event in the 2026 program can be found in the calendar.

The festival will kick off on Thursday at two venues. A light-and-sound installation by Peter Kutin will fill the Tank Hall (Panzerhalle) of the Museum of Military History with unsettling lights and sounds, stripping machines, which were built to separate the living from the dead, of their function and asking what remains in the silence.

In the evening, The DOKU Trilogy will open at FOTO ARSENAL WIEN. The trilogy features video works by acclaimed Chinese artist Lu Yang that combine video game aesthetics, motion-capture technology, and the Yogācāra philosophy of Buddhism. It explores what happens to identity in an age in which consciousness can be represented, replicated, and endlessly reborn. In parallel, Fabian Knecht’s installation Lachen ist verdächtig brings a material trace of contemporary civilian resistance into the program, extending its inquiry into perception, conflict, and the conditions of visibility. The night will continue with a live set by HYPER HYPER and a closing set by KAROLINA.

In the afternoon, a workshop brings the digital artistic positions of the VDC-Festival into the analogue space of the Activities. Together, the online works will be experienced, explored, and reflected upon through direct exchange — featuring projects by Joaquina Salgado, Kolbeinn Hugi, as well as Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei.
In the evening, a live performance of Peter Kutin’s light-and-sound work will be presented in the Tank Hall (Panzerhalle), before the program moves to the Hall of Fame (Ruhmeshalle) for a keynote by acclaimed Austrian artist Oliver Laric, welcoming remarks by Felix Hoffmann, artistic director of FOTO ARSENAL WIEN and codirector of VDC, curator Nadim Samman, and Georg Hoffmann, director of the Museum of Military History.

The main day of talks will take place in the bistro of FOTO ARSENAL WIEN, featuring five consecutive speakers on topics such as online art commissions, technological abolitionism, digital inclusion, and AI culture. The morning will begin with a guided tour of Lu Yang’s exhibition, and the afternoon will feature a comprehensive program of workshops and educational offerings. In the evening, the festival will move to Badeschiff for a club night in cooperation with Wiener Festwochen, featuring sets by Rey Colino, Inland (Ed Davenport), Apex Anima x FRZNTE, and THAO, lasting into the wee hours of the morning.

On the final day, workshops on digital and analog practices, as well as the fundamentals of AI, will take place. In addition, three newly commissioned online artworks will be presented, extending the festival’s reach beyond its physical venues. The lecture program, organized by the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures (University of Applied Arts Vienna), will feature two panels on collective digital consciousness and “brain rot”. Additionally, there will be a conversation on the prize-winning book “If a Flower Bloomed in a Dark Room, Would You Trust it?“  (2025) by artists Jakob Ganslmeier & Ana Zibelnik, which addresses links between online fitness bubbles, spirituality, and right-wing radicalization. The program concludes with the panel talk “From Cybernetics to Countercountercounterculture (After Party Politics)” featuring Anna-Verena Nosthoff and Paul Feigelfeld, exploring the historical entanglements of technology, authoritarianism, and countercultural resistance.