The Research Institute for Arts and Technology (RIAT) is an independent and international

research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

established in 2012 in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and operating internationally. The aim of the institute is to investigate how technology and art can relate and inform each other in areas that include:

open hardware Open-source hardware (OSH, OSHW) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement ...

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, epistemic culture,

cryptocurrencies A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership records ...

and the

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

. In 2017 RIAT was recognized by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

and

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

for innovation at the interface of science, technology and art with a STARTS Prize Honorary Mention.

History

The organisation began as Artistic Bokeh in 2012. It established itself as the Research Institute for Arts and Technology in 2015 after artists

Bernhard Cella Bernhard Cella (born 1969 in Salzburg) is an Austrian artist and curator. Academic career Cella studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Erich Wonder, the University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz with Herbert Lachmayer and the Hoc ...

and Matthias Tarasiewicz made a decision to depart the

University of Applied Arts Vienna The University of Applied Arts Vienna (, or informally just ''Die Angewandte'') is an arts university and institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It has had university status since 1970. History The predecessor of the ...

. Since 2012 Cella and Tarasiewicz had both been leading research projects supported by the

Austrian Science Fund The Austrian Science Fund () is the most important Austrian funding organization for basic research. The FWF supports research in science, engineering, and the humanities through a large variety of grant programmes, prizes and by funding infrastru ...

at the Center of Art and Knowledge Transfer within the

. Alongside the projects that were relocated from the

, the other Viennese art initiatives Coded Cultures, 5uper.net and Artistic Bokeh were also integrated into the institute. In July 2018, RIAT researcher Andrew Newman announced at the Gray Area Festival that the institute now refers to itself as the RIAT Institute for Future Cryptoeconomics although it is still legally named Research Institute for Arts and Technology. Since then the institute has predominantly focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency research, joining a consortium of Austrian research institutions to establish the Austrian Blockchain Center. In November 2018 the Austrian Blockchain Center received €20 million in funding from the

Austrian Research Promotion Agency The Austrian Research Promotion Agency ( or FFG) is an organization for the promotion of research and innovation in the field of applied and industrial research in Austria and is 100% owned by the Austria, Republic of Austria . The aim is to str ...

and is described as the world's largest blockchain competence center. RIAT leads the research area Data Science Methods for Blockchain Analytics & Predictions in partnership with the

Austrian Institute of Technology AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austria's largest Research and Technology Organization (RTO), employing about 1,400 people mostly based at the main facilities Vienna Giefinggasse, Seibersdorf, Wiener Neustadt, Ranshofen, and Graz. In June ...

Artist-in-Residence Program

RIAT runs an

artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

program with the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna that focuses on research practices at the intersection of arts and technology. The residency program started in 2005 through 5uper.net and continued in 2012 with Artistic Bokeh. In 2016 the residency program was expanded through a new partnership between the Research Institute for Arts and Technology and the Museumsquartier. In 2017, RIAT shifted the focus of the residency program to inviting artists, researchers and developers working in cryptoeconomics.

External links

Research Institute for Arts and Technology

Coded Cultures

Journal for Research Cultures

Salon für Kunstbuch

References

{{Authority control Research institutes in Austria Scientific organisations based in Austria Research institutes established in 2015