Sensorium is a festival with conference, workshops & showcase bridging the fields of computational art, design and performance.

It is the genre-defining platform to experience possible futures of the creative industry on the crossover of art, design and technology. Immerse yourself in the world of dynamic and interactive installations, AI, graphics, data visualisations, generative architecture, design and virtual reality. Internationally established artists and designers who use computation as a creative practice will get together in Bratislava to discuss their projects, processes and ideas. Sensorium is a first-of-its-kind educational event in Slovakia on the crossover of art, design and technology.

Since it’s beginning, Sensorium has been collaborating with Resonate festival, whose co-founder Eduard Prats Molner is regularly co-curating Sensorium's programme. The festival also collaborates with international organisations such as TodaysArt in the Netherlands. Since this year, London-based creative producer and curator Carmen Salas is a consulting advisor.

We believe the program will amaze you. Sensorium invites ground-breaking works of art employing cutting-edge technology, but mainly the opportunity to meet and connect with innovative artists and designers. The aim of the event is to give creators a space to present their work and through that to stir a forward-thinking debate of ideas, opinions and visions connecting technology and art.

Homo Arbiter Formae

Throughout this year’s conference, we will examine contemporary innovation in creative practice in the wider context of the changing role of ‘the creator’. Building on Jack Burnham’s 1968 essay 'System Aesthetics', we will investigate the shift from “Homo Faber” (Man the Maker) to “Homo Arbiter Formae” (Man the Maker of Aesthetic Decisions).

This is a shift away from the materiality of the conventional art object and the direct control of the creator making that object. A shift towards conceptuality and a more distanced stance towards the object itself, allowing for focus on the systems and processes that bring forth the work.

What is lost in this shift? What is gained?
We look forward to explore this theme together with you!

Exploring Sensorium's system aesthetics

We invite you to explore the system behind the animations you see running on the home page background and make your own aesthetic decisions using the black sliders on the page.

These animations are created by bit101 (Keith Peters) and we are grateful that he's given us the oportunity to build on his open-source work. Check out his BIT-101 Lab, which has an amazing collection of daily sketches built using HTML5 Canvas.