In 2026, Wikipedia will celebrate its 25th birthday.The encyclopedia, which went online in 2001, not only stands for the digital spirit of the 1990s, but with around 65 million articles and hundreds of thousands of anonymous and volunteer authors, it is now an indispensable archive of free knowledge on the internet.
But this free knowledge is increasingly under threat: AI companies such as Open AI train their large language models with Wikipedia’s open-source texts for their proprietary products, while right-wing actors deliberately attack Wikipedia – for example, through political campaigns against its non-profit status, attempts to withdraw funding sources, or by jeopardizing the anonymity of its authors. Wikipedia is thus a prominent example of how free knowledge on the internet as a whole is coming under pressure. Information disappears, is censored, or is exploited for power and capi-tal interests.
Against this backdrop, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, with the digital stage HAU4, is planning a cross-location collaboration with the festivals “Digital Spring” (Salzburg) and “Digithalia” (Graz) to highlight these developments and negotiate the future of free knowledge in the digital space, both artistically and discursively.

Central question
How can digital art deal with this social situation and raise awareness? How can it find ways to preserve endangered knowledge and continue to make it accessible?

Basic idea
In Berlin, Graz, and Salzburg, residencies with two lo-cal artists or collectives each will take place in spring2026. They will be supported by mentors. During this one-week residency, web-based artworks or prototypes will be created, which will be shown in joint,cross-institutional digital showings.

Call for applications
HAU is looking for two Berlin-based artists or collectives for this project. We welcome submissions that deal with endangered or marginalized knowledge in the form of digital and web-based art. There is no requirement to refer directly to Wikipedia.

The paid residency will take place in March 2026. The online presentation of all works will be shown from March 19 to 21 2026, at HAU4 and at partner venues.

Submission
Please send your application materials (implementation idea: max. three pages of project idea in English or German, CV) by October 20, 2025, at the latest, by email to anmeldung@hebbel-am-ufer.de. A selection of artists will be made by the beginning of November 2025.

They are supported by www.theaternetzwerk.digital

All Information as PDF: www.hebbel-am-ufer.de/en/service/jobs