Gwangyang City Hosts Media Art Exchange Exhibition with Linz, Austria

Gwangyang City - Linz, Austria, Filling Two Cities 8,637 km Apart with Light

Gwangyang City in Jeollanam-do announced on the 3rd that it will hold a media art exchange exhibition titled "From Light 8637," co-hosted with the Ars Electronica Center located in Linz, Austria.

According to the city, the Gwangyang-Linz media art exchange exhibition is scheduled to take place from October 2 to 10 across Gwangyang City, including Gwangyang City Hall, and the city will be immersed in media art this October. The number "8637" in the title represents the distance between Gwangyang and Linz.

Last September, Mayor Jeong In-hwa visited Linz, where the Ars Festival is held, upon the invitation of Linz Mayor Klaus Luger. At that event, the two cities signed the "Republic of Korea Gwangyang City - Austria Linz City Media Art Exchange Cooperation," and as the first fruit of this agreement, the media art exchange exhibition will be held this October.

The city expressed its vision to grow as a representative media art city of Korea through this exchange exhibition with the Ars Electronica Center, known as the global hub of media art. The strategy is to advance into future material industries such as secondary battery materials alongside the steel industry, while transforming into a cultural tourism city that harmonizes industry and cultural tourism.

Linz, located in northern Austria, is a city with a population of 200,000. Every September, people from around the world who want to enjoy media art visit the Ars Electronica Festival, attracting up to 100,000 visitors.

After the oil shock in the 1970s led to a downturn in the steel industry, the city planned a program to explore the possibilities of a new future city as a breakthrough, which became the current "Ars Electronica Festival."

Started in 1979, this festival is the world's first and currently the largest new media art festival, held under the motto "A Festival for Art, Technology, and Society."

The Ars Electronica Foundation (Ars Electronica Linz GmbH), which organizes the festival, plays a role in not only the fusion of science and art but also connecting the region's traditional characteristics with modern changed sensibilities through various projects such as festival operations, Futurelab, exhibitions, symposiums, and animation festivals, presenting visions and themes for the new era.

As a result, Linz was designated as the "European Capital of Culture" by the European Union (EU) in 2009 and as a "UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts" in 2014.

Meanwhile, Gwangyang and Linz share many similarities as base cities for steel companies in terms of population and area. Starting with exchanges between Gwangyang's representative company POSCO and Linz's representative company Voest Alpine, the activities of these two companies served as a bridge to establish an international sister city relationship in 1991. Since then, they have exchanged various resources including culture, arts, international events, technology, and human resources.