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An international collaboration with world-leading digital innovators is putting QUT students on the cutting edge of electronic art and design.

Members of Ars Electronica Futurelab have joined forces with QUT's final-year game design and interactive and visual design students for the inaugural QUT Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy.

The organisation, based in Linz, Austria, runs the world's premiere media arts festival.

Focusing on the interaction of art, technology and society, its breathtaking annual events have drawn international crowds for more than 30 years.

Dr Jared Donovan, an interactive design expert with QUT's Creative Industries Faculty, said three Futurelab staff would spend tomorrow in an intensive master class, helping students design and build electronic interactive media pieces.

They will return in June to help the students refine their projects, the best of which will form part of a special academy exhibition at the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival in September.

"The students have been tasked with designing and programming digital displays that bring to life the layers of Brisbane City that its residents normally take for granted," Dr Donovan said.

"That could be physical structures underpinning the city, representations of wi-fi connections or data flows, or even natural ecologies people just aren't aware of.

"The students use specialised software to design LED projections of their works for the Ars Electronica Centre's building facade in Linz.

"The project poses a real challenge for our students but I see enormous talent and creativity in them - I've no doubt they will produce some outstanding electronic representations of a city's hidden layers."

This is the first time QUT has offered the Ars Electronica Futurelab Academy and QUT is the only Australian university collaborating with the organisation in this way.

Futurelab Director Horst Hörtner and colleagues Peter Holzkorn and Michael Platz are facilitating the Embodied Interactions master class.

Futurelab is Ars Electronica's R&D production house and has been responsible for many stunning media art projects.

Late last month the team helped launch the marketing campaign for the latest Star Trek movie, programming 30 quadrotors to display the Star Trek Federation symbol in the skies over London.

QUT's Head of Interactive and Visual Design, Dr Gavin Sade, said Futurelab would spend the rest of this week exploring the breadth of QUT's own innovative projects.

"We have some very talented creative industries and IT staff," Dr Sade said.

"For instance, not only did Senior Research Fellow Dr Keith Armstrong exhibit his work Intimate Transactions at the Ars Electronica Festival, but the work received an Honorary Mention in the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica, which is the Academy Awards of the international media arts industry.

"That work is now part of the permanent collection of Germany's ZKM, the world's most important media art history museum.

"We're looking forward to building a strong, ongoing collaboration between our organisations and sharing our respective R&D strengths."

Today the Futurelab members toured QUT's world-leading digital interactive learning and display spaces, The Cube.

Futurelab Director Horst Hörtner said he was excited to collaborate with The Cube team on a number of educational and public programming projects.

"There's almost no end to the research outcomes you could display visually using The Cube," Mr Hörtner said.

"I see this technology as the layers of an onion.

"At the core is the physical presentation environment.

"But, from there, the facility reaches out to the outer layers of the campus and the city, using the social networks the students themselves are involved in.

"You could reach out even further, holding curated shows of art and research outcomes from all over the world, you could stream all manner of online, real-time data to help visualise research.

"We don't see what we do as artists working together with scientists - it's about each person being both artist and scientist within the one mind."

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Media contact: Kate Haggman, QUT Media, 07 3138 0358 or kate.haggman@qut.edu.au.