As part of the “Architectures” biennial organised by Esch Capitale Culturelle, the new Elektron platform is presenting its first event, Cyber Structures: Material Realities--Digital Experiences, an urban journey through five locations in the city.

“Elektron was born out of the desire to continue, after the European Capital of Culture, the exploration of digital art and the intersections that exist with digital technologies, science and social issues,” explains Françoise Poos, artistic and scientific director of the Elektron platform. “For our first event, which is being presented in conjunction with the ‘Architectures’ biennial, we have chosen to look at the invisible infrastructures of the digital world that govern our daily lives.”

To do this, the team has set up an artistic trail through the town of Esch-sur-Alzette. “As a nomadic institution, we don’t have a fixed location,” says Vincent Crapon, curator of the project. “So we work with partner venues that welcome us within their walls.” As a result, the exhibition route starts and/or finishes at the Konschthal and the Bridderhaus, and unfolds between these two points in the public space of the city centre, along the Rue de l’Alzette.

An exhibition at the Bridderhaus

At the Bridderhaus you will find “Datamorphosis,” an exhibition organised in collaboration with the Kunstuniversität Linz and the University of Luxembourg. Student works are on show in this venue, which is usually reserved for creative work since it houses artists’ studios. The works address a range of issues, including our relationship with social media and the algorithms that control their content, our relationship with violent images interpreted by artificial intelligence, and the creation of a clay sculpture shaped by a machine linked to an artificial intelligence that analyses visitors’ facial emotions. The Bridderhaus is also the venue for Serge Ecker’s “Passages,” which shows a tunnel that was once used for mining between Esch and Rumelange, but which is now disappearing from the landscape.

A journey through the public space

Other works are on display all along the Rue de l’Alzette, the main street in the city centre. In the Mercure shopping centre (12, Rue de l’Alzette), Corinne Vionnet is exhibiting “Photo Opportunities,” a series of images that are the result of superimposing different photos found on the internet and taken in front of the most emblematic sites on the planet: the Eiffel Tower, the entrance to the Forbidden City, the Hollywood letters, etc.

Lucas LaRochelle has used artificial intelligence trained on textual and visual data from the Queering the Map community platform to create images that speculatively question the queer and trans future. They are displayed on panels around the street.

At 120, Rue de l’Alzette, the premises shared with the Chamber of Commerce are home to a series of drawings by Jeroen van Loon. The Dutch artist has chosen to depict the submarine cables that carry intercontinental internet traffic. The drawings are by young children who have simply responded to the artist’s invitation to draw these maps in the form of connecting dots. A captivating reflection on the way in which this generation, for whom the internet is a familiar and obvious element, perceives and shapes the digital world.

At 83, Rue de l’Alzette, the “Korrelation” installation comes to life after dark. This interactive projection transforms the street surface into an abstract aquatic and scientific landscape that reacts to the movements of passersby, reminding them that the Alzette flows beneath their feet.

Two propositions at the Konschthal

Finally, the Konschthal is part of the circuit. The art centre is hosting “Framerate: Pulse of the Earth,” an installation that reveals the alterations to the landscape caused by human activity and the forces of nature. The evolution of these landscapes is materialised by a compilation of thousands of digital 3D models, and presents evolution on a scale that is impossible to capture with a traditional camera or stills camera, that of geological time, creating a bridge between science and art.

At the same time, the artists Ziyang Wu and Mark Ramos will be exhibiting “Future_Forecast,” an exhibition that highlights all the infrastructures that are expanding on a planetary scale in order to envisage the future of our connected societies from a non-Western point of view, as seen in the political, economic, social and ecological environment of the Philippines.

For more details and the full programme, visit .

This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.