Yesterday I was an invited participant in a workshop in Berlin on the future of international festivals on media art and digital culture. It was hosted by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes) to reflect on the present position and the future of Berlin’s Transmediale Festival for Art and Digital Culture.
“We have invited approximately fifteen leading figures and experts in the national and international media art scenes. We would like to discuss with you the goals which the Festival for Art and Digital Culture Berlin should pursue in the future, which formats it can introduce and whom it should target.” – Hortensia Völckers, Artistic Director, German Federal Cultural Foundation
Drew Hemment on stage
I made the point that this is an exciting moment for festivals on digital art and culture. We should be continuously crossing boundaries, and work from the ground up, not top down. We can embrace emerging areas such as social media, while also making a space for profound art and reflection on the social and political aspects of technology.
Transmediale is one of the world’s leading digital art and culture festivals, and an international equivalent to FutureEverything. The Director of Transmediale is Stephen Kovats, and next year he will joined by curator Honor Harger, so 2010 is a year to watch. Transmediale coincides with a major festival of contemporary electronic, digital and experimental music CTM (Club Transmediale), which along with FutureEverything is a founder member of the ECAS (ICAS) network of international music festivals of ‘advanced sound’.
FutureEverything is a regular participant in Transmediale, and in 2009 we launched Futuresonic’s annual theme Environment 2.0 at a special invited event at Transmediale09, featuring Andrea Polli, Usman Haque, Jochen Richters and Drew Hemment.
Drew Hemment (Artistic Director, FutureEverything & Associate Director, ImaginationLancaster)
Tags: #futr09, #futr10, Berlin, CTM, festivals, FutureEverything, Transmediale