The 2005 Ars Electronica Festival, "Hybrid - Living in Paradox," focuses on analyzing and describing the impact of digital and information technologies on virtually every aspect of social, political, economic, and cultural life. This ubiquitous interplay of disparate elements generates both new qualities and potentials as well as new problems. The simultaneity of digital and analog, virtual and real worlds is mirrored in interdisciplinary developments in science and the blurring of genre boundaries in art, in the convergence of political and media power structures, and in new ideas about role of the artist. The concept of hybridism as a prominent characteristic of the duality of life is also evident in current developments in medicine and biotechnology. Festival Ars Electronica, Linz, September 1-6, 2005