“Only Connect”, the imperative that governs the development of digital art, cultural convention, and the evolution of social media, has implications for education, urban planning, and human relations that are shared across the world. In exploring these issues, whether in celebratory, ideological or aesthetic mode, we recognise that artists and thinkers must push their practice beyond the conventions of habit into unknown territories of mind and matter.

As the novelist E. M. Forster famously asserted: Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its highest.

The prosaic and the passionate define the great divide between the brute excess of corporate culture, and the collective need for beauty and meaning. In art as in life, the breadth of our connectivity defines the depth of our humanity. We reach across cultures, across disciplines, across ancient myths and modern methodologies. Above all, we each seek to connect our true self with the authentic needs and desires of others, in a field of creative endeavor that knows no boundaries and reaches beyond the limits of horizon.

Roy Ascott, February 2016

The proposed theme Connect is a reference to connecting the dots: connecting disciplines, people, artists, designers, ideas and nations.

Cairotronica will serve as a catalyst through which connections can happen. The past will connect with the future, history will connect with the present, art will connect with technology and new media, tradition will connect with modernity, and Cairo will connect with the world.

Cairotronica will bring together groundbreaking artists, pioneering engineers, ingenious designers,academics, international digital communities, students, art lovers, and more from across Egypt, Africa, the Middle East, and the world. It will offer a meeting of the minds where participants will share, discuss, learn, talk, and work. In essence, they will truly connect.