HIM40028.jpg Impression Of Ars Electronica Festival 2025 / POSTCITYThumbnailsImpression of Ars Electronica EcosystemImpression Of Ars Electronica Festival 2025 / POSTCITYThumbnailsImpression of Ars Electronica EcosystemImpression Of Ars Electronica Festival 2025 / POSTCITYThumbnailsImpression of Ars Electronica EcosystemImpression Of Ars Electronica Festival 2025 / POSTCITYThumbnailsImpression of Ars Electronica Ecosystem
Faces for faceless microbes. Over 6 years—8,000 generations of bacteria, an ancestral arc on the scale of the human race—are cast into living masks of biofilm. Sustained by bioreactors, each face is a living fossil of deep evolutionary time: ancient-modern relics from a grand microbial empire.

Photo: Ars Electronica / Martin Hieslmair