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ArtFutura is a festival of digital culture and creativity that is celebrated annually in Spain. It came about from a confluence of interests among some of the pioneers of Cyberculture criticism of the 90s, among whom were, Rebecca Allen, William Gibson and Montxo Algora, who presently continues to direct the festival. Throughout its 20 years of existence, ArtFutura has been responsible for introducing the latest advances in digital art and design, computer animation, videogames and special effects into Spain and has invited a large number of thinkers from a diversity of disciplines to reflect on the social implications of the new technologies. Among the guests who have visited the festival there have been names such as Rebecca Allen, Bruce Sterling, Laurie Anderson, Derrick de Kerckhove, David Byrne, Howard Rheingold, Eduardo Kac, Kevin Kelly, Sherry Turkle, Toshio Iwai and Chris Cunningham.
Every edition of ArtFutura is dedicated to a central theme and includes a diversity of activities: conferences, workshops, exhibitions, live shows and an audiovisual program which includes the latest novelties in digital animation, a series of special retrospectives and the works presented for the different ArtFutura prizes. The festival has a main venue, which started as being Barcelona, later moved to Madrid and then on to Seville from where it regressed to city where it had started. A large part of the content of each edition is developed in Barcelona although connections by means of video conferences are established with other cities in which the audiovisual program is also presented. Among the cities in which ArtFutura is presented is Alicante, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Cadiz, Gijon, Granada, Madrid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Pamplona, Segovia, Valladolid, Vigo and Zaragoza.
The ArtFutura Prize Show (since 1990) and the 3D in Spain Prize (since 1993) have become the most prestigious awards for animation in Spain. Since 2001, the festival convokes a new annual prize dedicated to the Creation of Videogames.
GaleriaFutura This is the area of ArtFutura destined to exhibitions of digital art. One of its most important projects was the Souls and Machines show presented in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain and curated by Montxo Algora and José Luis de Vicente.
For each edition of the festival, ArtFutura edits a printed catalogue which includes a selection of articles on digital art and culture.