Meet us at the Digital Humanism Conference 2026

Author: Hannah Prendecky

June 24 – 26 / Vienna, in the Forum DigHum College
🌱 Creating a Responsible, Digital Future 🌱


Banner with text 'Orientation in turbulent times' and 'Free cinema tickets' on a light blue background with abstract shapes

More Information and Conference Registration https://dighum.wien

The #DigHum2026 conference connects everyone interested in options for a good digital future and life. In conversation across research and policy, with experts and enthusiasts, it will be discussing technology through the lens of human values and democratic principles.


Programme:

The Vienna Doctoral College on Digital Humanism invites during this conference to contribute in “Creating a Responsible, Digital Future” with:

☕ Coffee Talks: PhD candidates and their supervisors in exploratory interviews, taking place during the conference breaks:

🖼️ Project Poster Gallery: Explore the 15 associated WWTF projects of the DigHum faculty regarding their research methodology, transdisciplinarity, and societal, environmental impact

🗣️ Survey: “What does digital humanism mean to you personally?” reflection and dialogue of PhD candidates and conference participants, quantitative and qualitative research within the social conference ecosystem

🎨 Artefact*: “Turbulent Topographies Art-Game: A co-creative Ludic and artistic contribution to the DigHum landscape”, artistic project by the Universität für angewandte Kunst WienMargarete Jahrmann, WWTF Project “Digital Humanities”. 

The “Forum Doctoral College” is organised and hosted by Pia-Zoe HahneHannah-Seraphina Prendecky and Salome Wagner.


About the Artefact*

Turbulent Topographies Art-Game A co-creative Ludic and artistic contribution to the DigHum landscape 

By the ROBOPSY research Group, DieAngewandte 

Our creative game project aims at enabling the participants of the Forum Doctoral College as well as the visitors to the DigHum Conference 2026 to express their wishes about an ideal scientific community in a playful, artistic and creative way. It is intended to allow the cooperative creation and discussion of ideas that, under the day-to-day workings of academia, would be considered as unrealistic, utopian and far-fetched. This will not only help to reflect on the current state of academia but also bring participants together by making them engage with other’s desires and wishes in a Ludic way. 

The game will consist of two parts: 

1. Mapping the New New Atlantis: This will be a structured game of collective drawing, where the participants will create the map of a New New Atlantis (alluding to Francis Bacon’s utopian scientific community at the threshold of the scientific revolution). Participants can drop in and out of the game, which will be structured by prompt cards. 

2. Collective drone painting: Participants will be able to paint over the map by controlling drones with brushes. By transforming and overwriting the map with an artistic process that is only partially under control of the players (as the drones AI works with pattern recognition and their painting appendage are hard to control), we introduce an anarchic element of social playfulness into the more serious reflections on academia. By repurposing a cutting-edge technology that is mostly known for being used as a weapon, we enable a playful reflection about the uses of technology.