The ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL premiered on September 18, 1979. This pilot project was designed to take the Digital Revolution’s emergence as an occasion to face important questions about the future and to focus these inquiries on the nexus of ART, TECHNOLOGY and SOCIETY. Since 1986, the festival has been held annually and dedicated to a specific theme. In 1979, the festival lineup was a short list: 20 artists and scientists. Three decades later, several hundred network nomads, theoreticians, artists and technologists from all over the world convene in Linz each year, and about 550 journalists and bloggers report from the Ars Electronica venue.