BERLIN.- The 39th edition of transmediale festival, curated by Neema Githere and Juan Pablo García Sossa, engages with different ways of understanding systems, cosmologies, and technologies. The festival invites both a geographical and theoretical shift in the prevalent discourse on technology, media, and our understanding of the internet as a world wide web. Taking place from January 28–February 1, the festival is conceived as a multi-situated, recursive net—a living network of practitioners from and around the tropical belt coming together in Berlin.
Framed metaphorically through the architecture of a shell, the festival’s rhythm and thematic focus center on rethinking infrastructures, digital ways of life, and the language forms shaping how we inhabit, interact with, and move through these systems. The festival venues silent green and CANK will feature a series of installations and temporary architectures conceived as conversational platforms. Shifting beyond a speaker–audience format, these spaces allow visitors to become co-navigators, paying attention to the embodied conditions where alternative technological imaginaries can emerge. The programme is structured around Low and High Tide moments; High Tide programming engages larger audiences through performances, discursive events, and concerts, while Low Tide features more intimate, ongoing experiences such as film screenings, durational sonic events, workshops, and ritualistic interventions.
As a central part of transmediale 2026’s relational, process-based approach, Research Netting Groups were convened in locations across the tropical belt, supporting ongoing artistic proposals within their endemic contexts. The Netting Groups set the tone, rhythm, and orientation of the Berlin gathering as a “festival of gestures”, while also extending beyond the event into long-term collaborations.
With contributions from Kidus Hailesilassie, Aarati Akkapeddi, Kathleen Bomani, Johnson & Jeison, Fan Chon Hoo, Simon Speiser, Isola Tong, Catherine Anabella Lie, Lara Tabet, Petja Ivanova, Federico Pérez Villoro, Kasra Jalilipour, Interspecifics, wordsofAzia, Miss Tacacá, Saba Arat with Karlo Sono & Tarxun, Shaheer Tarar, Hiba Ali, Afrotronix, Elvira Espejo Ayca, Chia Amisola, Laura Huertas Millán, Animistic Beliefs, Nursalim Yadi Anugerah, Vica Pacheco, Montika Kham-on, Gladys Kalichini, İdil Galip, Huang Po-Chih & Nat Skoczylas, Manthia Diawara, Tianzhuo Chen, Yadira Sanchez & Dulce Berenice Flores Olea, Lee Tzu-Tung, RhaRha Nembhard, KMRU, Wairimũ Nduba, Nathalie Muchamad, Juan Covelli, Petna Ndaliko Katondolo, Patience Katushabe, Tsige Tafesse, mobilegirl, Olivia M. Ross, El Alto Aesthetics, and more to be announced.
Programme cooperations for transmediale 2026 are developed in collaboration with CTM festival (Germany), Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany), Winchester School of Art (UK), University of Potsdam and the University for Applied Science Potsdam (Germany), the Embassy of Canada in Berlin, HERVISIONS (UK), TBA21 (Spain), and Nero Editions (Italy). Additional Berlin Partner Programmes are presented with HAU and the Schering Stiftung.
