KIBLIX 2026 | Depopulation – From the Big Bang to the Great Reset

KIBLIX 2026: Depopulation – From the Big Bang to the Great Reset
International Festival of Arts, Technology, and Science
23 October –11 December 2026
KIBLA PORTAL

The KIBLIX 2026 International Festival of Arts, Technology, and Science invites you to its next chapter: the opening of an international group exhibition at KIBLA PORTAL on Friday, 23 October 2026, at 7 p.m. The evening will open with an audiovisual performance by Morski (Marino Jurcan), visiting us from Pula, Croatia.

On the 70th anniversary of artificial intelligence (AI), established as an academic discipline in 1956, we recognize that the field has gone through several cycles of optimism throughout its history, followed by periods of disappointment and reduced funding known as AI winters. The past flows into the present and onward into the future, and within this endless arc, KIBLIX 2026 is dedicated to poet Srečko Kosovel and the Slovenian artistic avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century – not only through a commemorative anniversary, but also through a curated selection of works – as well as to contemporary art, research, exploration, and education.

In times when the turbulence of world events congeals into a terrifying, ever more destructive force that crushes and destroys everything in its path – everything we have blindly called “civilization” – this euphemism increasingly seems like a way of entrenching ourselves in positions that will define the terrain of our wars for survival, from the physical to the informational. As we move ever closer to total (mutual) destruction, pandemics and wars are joined by the “most bloodthirsty monster,” called AI, whose creators predict roughly a 10 percent chance that it will cause the collapse of civilization within ten years, resulting in the death of the entire world population.

KIBLIX 2026 seeks to define the “state of the world” in times of extraordinary interdependence – not as a “search for balance” or a mode of pacification, but through aggressions and escalations that foreshadow an apocalyptic future. We therefore turn away, but not by covering our eyes, ears, and mouths, and above all, not by closing our minds. Instead, we turn to art – analog, digital, and hybrid – and to works that expand perspectives and clear our minds of the banal “society of the spectacle,” which shows that in our fascination with the dazzling and the thunderous, we have evolved little since prehistoric times and remain, first and foremost, animals – or are increasingly becoming so in the literal sense of the word. Is this regression or progress? Has our evolution come full circle, like the Ouroboros?

The festival focuses on educational projects developed at university faculties that are grounded not in entertainment but in research-based approaches to ICT and “new media,” where people remain responsible for creating content and ensuring the accuracy, validity, and precision of information. Rather than handing “arbitrary processes” over to machines, they do not become mere observers but remain central actors.

Participating artists and contributors include Dušan Fišer with Sara Korošec (Muzikačaka), who created the sound, and Uroš Weinberger, each presenting a distinct artistic statement through their respective medium in the context of new technologies, both digital and analog. We have partnered with the University of Ljubljana. Participating students from its Faculty of Computer and Information Science are Timotej Cvikl, Žiga Klun, Matjaž Kranjčec, and Lučka Plestenjak, under the mentorship of Dr. Narvika Bovcon. Participating students from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering are Alicija Bogacka, Matic Gabrovec, Naja Ražem, Jan Češnjevar, Jure Jelenc, Marko Stražar, and Boris Beja. Also exhibiting are Boštjan Kavčič (programming by Nejc Grmek) and Rok Lončar (programming by Aleksandar Đuričić). Organized in collaboration with the Metamedij Association in Pula, the Croatian contingent comprises Filip Smrekar, Ivan Đukez (with collaborator Marko Prša), and Morski (Marino Jurcan), who will launch KIBLIX 2026 with an audiovisual performance. The program also includes a virtual reality dance performance by the Danube Dance Alliance project and the film Shadows of Artificial Intelligence, produced by the Loke Studio Film Creators Association.

KIBLA PORTAL, Valvasorjeva 40, 2nd floor, Maribor.
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment (kibla@kibla.org)
Closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.