Ars Electronica Garden Montreal

Why Sentience?

ISEA2020 examines the resurgence of sentience — feeling-sensing-making sense — in art and science. We ask: why sentience? Why and how does sentience matter? Why have artists and scholars become interested in sensing and feeling beyond, with, and around our strictly human bodies and selves? Why has this notion been forefronted by an array of disciplines in the 21st century? Our garden at Ars Electronica teases at how the transdisciplinary investigations from participating artists and scientists at ISEA2020 respond to these questions and pose new ones.