Past Editions

Stepping into the 21st edition, ADAF presents Simulacra, taking place April 3–7, 2025, in Athens Technopolis.

At a time when AI, ChatGPT, and digital realms blur our sense of reality, this edition interrogates the boundaries between the real and the reproduced. Named after Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra — stages of copying that eventually detach from any origin — the theme probes how simulations mutate our identity, culture, ecology, and perception . The festival showcases works that span immersive spatial illusions, artificial intelligence, green-tech interventions, virtual worlds, and digital filters—inviting reflection on authenticity, hyperreality, and the ecological implications of digital constructs .

ADAF 2025 extends across 12 categories—from Video Art, Animation, Installations, and Performance, to Music, AR/VR/XR, Workshops, Talks, Web Art, Digital Image, Games, and ADAF Kids. Presenting works that challenge our perceptions of reality, propose sustainable digital futures, and construct new experiential realities through technological artistry. It also features the first traveling Fulldome program in europe called Chromosphere with amazing content ( video and performances) in 360 format and the amazing Co-Vision program which mapps and digitizes the condition of the local natural heritage through participatory interactive digital art installations.

*/ See the program here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14jVfqPH6ySsJK5APH4wEjydjEcf8RIaz/view?usp=sharing 

*/ Revisit the 21th Athens Digital Arts Festival with a virtual tour.

https://mpembed.com/show/?m=D7qw65YzABK&mpu=905 

*/ Watch the highlights of ADAF 2025 here.

Theme: Simulacra

In the age of Chat GPT and artificial intelligence, Greece’s international digital arts festival, Athens Digital Arts Festival, chooses Simulacra as the most current topic concerning technology. How do we perceive, critique, engage with, and present the hyperreality of technology today in contemporary digital art?

Simulacra refers to copies and representations that no longer have an original, leading to a world where reality and simulation intertwine. According to philosopher Jean Baudrillard, the condition of Simulacra has four stages:

Stage 1: A faithful copy of the original.

Stage 2: A distortion of reality.

Stage 3: A pretense of reality, claiming to describe reality without an original.

Stage 4: Pure simulation, where the copy has no relation to any reality.

This theme confronts us with a paradox: while we seek authenticity and connection, we simultaneously create a complex web of simulations that reshape our understanding of the world. How do these digital replicas affect our sense of identity, culture, and nature? What truths and illusions arise from this endless cycle of replication? Are we in the era where simulations reign supreme, where images precede reality? Are we reaching the point where everything becomes so saturated that it becomes infinitely mutable?

From spatial immersive illusions and artificial intelligence to green technology, virtual worlds, and the pervasive filters of our digital lives that inundate our social media, the 21st ADAF | Simulacra invites you to explore and express how the lines between reality and representation blur. Join us in creating a festival experience—a deep immersion into the magical edge of the fusion of science, technology, and creativity, exploring constructed realities and digital marvels at the cutting edge of technology in art.

For our 21st event, we invite artists to push the boundaries of digital creativity, exploring hyperreality, virtuality, and the uncanny. This theme encourages us to think about how digital constructs influence our social interactions, self-perception, and collective memory. We are looking for works that explore the space between the original and the replica, the physical and the digital, the authentic and the artificial. We would like to explore the confluence of synthetic environments and ecological consciousness, envisioning sustainable futures and ecological solutions, as well as the magnificence of digital spatial illusion in 360° environments.

ADAF Simulacra is not just about imitation but about creating new realities through digital art. It is a celebration of the power of art to reshape and reinvent our world.

Join us in exploring the digital simulacra, where art reflects not just the world as it is, but the world as it could be.

Main Venue: Athens Technopolis 11:00-23:30

Outdoor Program: Kerameikos sq & Syntagma sq: 19:00-00:00

Dates:  3–7 April