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2026 - Popular Singularity


Popular Singularity

Venue: Real Collegio Carlo Alberto, Moncalieri (TO)

Dates: 29 October – 1 November 2026

Share Festival, produced by The Sharing, is celebrating its 20th edition. This year’s theme is Popular Singularity

The singularity is evolving from a philosophical concept into a tangible possibility within the scientific realm. In 2026, thanks to the giant strides being made in the development of artificial intelligence, we can realistically envisage the possibility of systems evolving to such a degree of complexity that they can no longer be interpreted through the lens of human language and intelligence. Share invites its artists to reflect on this topic. If we are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of AI giants, should we try, from this vantage point, to look further afield? Or should we step down from their shoulders, let the giants walk on their own, and return to a more human perspective? Share recognises that digital art can provide us with answers from every corner of its spectrum: new media art, digital art, kinetic art, and net art developed in all its scientific, philosophical, engineering and technical forms.



Theme

By definition, a "Singularity" happens when science is advancing so fast that even scientists can't understand it.

However, *artists* can intuit it!

The "Singularity" concept was invented by Stanislaw Ulam and John Von Neumann, two elite veterans of the  atomic Manhattan Project.  A Singularity is always associated with scientists, programmers, rich moguls, and billionaire investors, even though none of them ever seem to know what it means and how  feels.  Instead, a *lived* singularity is left to the daily experience of all the rest of us.  

Obviously Artificial Intelligence is a complex and entangled technical subject.  The software is dense and stochastic, the server-farms are costly and gigantic, we know all that.   But if you're a young modern child, you're simply born in that fire.  You're not amazed about it, you were given no choice.   If you're ninety, it's even more of your same old world, where you arrived long before any of these so-called amazing marvels.

So, this year, we ask our artists for clear, lucid, sincere art about the Singularity.  A popular, heartfelt folk art about it, immediate and accessible,  without any tech-jargon, or any ugly, lazy AI-slop.  Our city's ivory tower is a National Cinema Museum, so we know "new media" and we also know "dead media."  

Art will last when hype dies!

What is the Turinese "Arte Povera" version of a "singularity"?  An elegant, aestheticized singularity.   A singularity of egalitarian liberation; a singularity for the millions, for the billions!

Bruce Sterling, Artisti director of Share Festival
Jasmina Tešanovic, Share Prize curator

Jury


This year’s theme places Share at the forefront of scholarly debate.
We’ve become accustomed to this, but it’s been a while since we last explored it. That is why, this year, we have selected a jury of individuals closely involved in contemporary debates on tech art, who reflect on the intersections between art and technology from an insider’s perspective and a strongly academic standpoint.

For full artist biographies, click here




Share Prize XVIII


Italy’s longest-running international award dedicated to technological and digital art will feature six finalists for the Popular Singularity︎︎︎ 


Special Projects


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