Creativity Meets Technology

Media and digital technologies are changing our world and everyday lives. Students of the Department of Media and Digital Technologies at USTP – University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten are learning how to design the technology of tomorrow and to apply it responsibly and creatively. Practical experience and international exchange are two cornerstones in this context.

From 22 to 26 June 2026, USTP once more became a hub for international creative minds and digital pioneers: At the Creative Media Summer School, students from both Austria and abroad spent an intensive week full of exchange, practice, and innovation. The event centred on the question of how creative ideas can be turned into concrete applications – an approach that relies on hands-on experience and collaborative working throughout.

Art, Practice, and Technology

The Summer School combines artistic practice, creative processes, technical implementation, and theoretical reflection. In interdisciplinary teams, the participants worked on real challenges from media and digital technologies and jointly developed new approaches to solutions. Internationally renowned experts from research and practice offered guidance, contributed diverse perspectives, and rendered current developments tangible for the students.

The workshops covering a wide range of topics were a central element of the programme. These included:

• Sound Creation / Improvisation / Music & Dance
• Platforms as Media Powerhouses
• Artificial Intelligence in the Branding and Design Process
• Advertising Photography
• Environmental Storytelling
• Media Server & Virtual Production
• Smart Contracts: Token Creation with ERC20
• Virtual Production

Future Tech Bootcamp at the European Campus Hainburg

The programme was completed by the #IMM2026 Future Tech Bootcamp that created new impulses as an independent but closely connected format. Back in May, the bootcamp already took place in Hainburg where the European Campus Hainburg is currently being developed under the auspices of USTP.

Here, students worked on real-world challenges from industry and public administration together with companies and partner institutions. The objective was to develop innovative ideas and the first prototypical solutions within only a few days – an impressive example of practised co-creation and applied innovation.

“The Creative Media Summer School 2026 demonstrated once more how valuable international collaboration, interdisciplinary exchange, and practice-oriented learning are. It creates room for experimenting, gaining new perspectives, and establishing sustainable networks – and it shows how closely creativity and technology are connected these days”, says  Fidler Franz , organiser of the Summer School and Head of USTP’s Faculty of Engineering and Business.

Promoting Cross-Border Collaborations in Art and Culture

In the course of the Creative Media Summer School, a delegation from Brno paid a visit to USTP within the framework of the Czech-Austrian EU project “Free Forms – Workshops, Residencies, and Encounters” under the lead of Franziska Proksa  of the Research Group Media Creation.

“My colleagues Vít Kalvoda and Emil Gross and I want to use Free Forms to promote creative processes across institutional and national borders. The geographical proximity between St. Pölten and Brno as well as the long-standing city partnership form the ideal basis for this. Free Forms allows for exciting encounters and opens up new perspectives for further cross-border projects in art, culture, and research”, says Proksa.

As part of the visit to St. Pölten and the Creative Summer School, the Czech music group Borderlandsjam held a workshop and played a concert at USTP.

Further reading

• Creative Media Summer
• A report on the #IMM2026 Future Tech Bootcamp
• European Campus Hainburg
• Free Forms