In physics, the ground state implies a latent potential. It represents the instant before excitation, when a system at its lowest energy possesses the capacity to activate a network. groundstates uses the lattice as both metaphor and method to build alternative technological futures at the edges of dominant infrastructures. A lattice is a structure that provides the scaffolding upon which complexity builds. Lattices exist across nature and science, from crystal formations to neural networks and cryptographic systems. A lattice is porous, holding by what it connects and by what it leaves open, carrying weight through relation. This structure mirrors the conditions we inhabit digitally: the networked world seems saturated, yet interstices continue to exist. These gaps are poorly indexed, non-optimised, non-gamified, and often overlooked. Yet these apparently blank spaces sustain the experimental and political imagination of digital culture. Like the ground state, they are not empty. They hold what has not yet been activated.

This edition takes inspiration from these spaces and builds a counter-infrastructure. groundstates gathers communities building in the margins: systems that do not extract, protocols that refuse optimisation, infrastructures sustained without the promise of return. Technology is understood as a lived condition, continuously reshaped through use and misuse, where the conditions of living together are organised and contested. The festival presents a discursive and performance programme exploring a range of approaches proposing alternative technological futures. Bringing embodied reflection to questions that resist analysis and critique alone, groundstates keeps the human scale of technology to bring forward new forms of collective stewardship.

Building towards the festival, the Lattice Labs introduce a process-based approach to collective learning and knowledge dissemination. The Labs are a series of experimental working groups dedicated to rethinking and testing alternatives to technological monocultures of extraction and surveillance. Running in the months before the festival, they bring artists and researchers together for sustained cycles of critical discussion and collaborative making, functioning as infrastructures for collective inquiry. Each Lab is formed by five participants selected via an open call and guided by an experienced artist or technologist.