alt=transmediale logo|thumb|transmediale logo
transmediale, stylised in lowercase, is an annual festival and year-round cultural platform for art, digital culture and media theory in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1988 as VideoFilmFest, a video and media art programme connected to the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the event later expanded from video art into multimedia, internet culture, software art, theory, performance, exhibitions, workshops and research-based formats.
The festival usually takes place in late January or early February. Its programme includes exhibitions, conferences, screenings, performances, workshops and publications, often organised around an annual curatorial theme. Since 2004, transmediale has received long-term support from the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes).
The CTM Festival, originally founded as club transmediale, developed in close relation to transmediale but later became an independent festival for experimental music, sound art and audiovisual performance.
History
Origins as VideoFilmFest and VideoFest
transmediale was founded in 1988 as VideoFilmFest, a side programme of the Berlinale's International Forum of New Cinema. It was initiated by Hartmut Horst and video artist Micky Kwella as a platform for electronic media productions that were not commonly included in traditional film-festival contexts. During his tenure from 2001 to 2007, the festival expanded its exhibition, conference and award formats and increasingly positioned itself within international media-art discourse.
Curator and media researcher Kristoffer Gansing took over as artistic director in 2011, beginning with the 2012 edition. Under his direction, the festival placed increased emphasis on exhibitions, research formats and the discourse around post-digital culture. In 2012, the festival replaced its existing awards structure with the Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research.
Nóra Ó Murchú became artistic director in 2021. Her tenure included the 2021–22 edition for refusal, the 2023 edition a model, a map, a fiction and the 2024 edition you're doing amazing sweetie. In July 2024, transmediale announced that Ó Murchú had concluded her tenure as artistic director.
The 2025 festival, titled (near) near but—far, was co-curated by Elise Misao Hunchuck and Ben Evans James. The 2026 edition, By the Mango Belt & Tamarind Road: Compassing, Protocoling, Metaphoring, was conceived by Neema Githere and Juan Pablo García Sossa.
Programme and themes
transmediale combines exhibition, conference, screening, performance and workshop formats. Its programme addresses the cultural, political and social implications of media technologies, with attention to digital infrastructures, artistic research, network cultures and the relation between technological systems and everyday life.
The 2018 edition, face value, addressed questions of image culture, finance, online politics and social inequality, with particular attention to facial recognition technology and what can be taken "at face value" in digital culture.
The 2023 edition, a model, a map, a fiction, included the exhibition Out of Scale, which distributed parts of the programme through sites and networks across Berlin. In Kunstkritikk, Nicholas Norton described transmediale as a recurring meeting point for artists, academics and designers interested in the creative and speculative potential of digital culture, noting the festival's emphasis on lectures and panel discussions as well as aesthetic formats.
The 2024 edition, you're doing amazing sweetie, focused on content culture and the social and political consequences of platformed media. A review in Spike Art Magazine described the festival as a forum for publicly thinking through the role of media and technology in social change and discussed its attempt to create in-person spaces for media practices resisting atomisation.
Organisation
Until 2020, transmediale was organised and supported by Kulturprojekte Berlin. In 2020, the independent association transmediale e.V. took over the organisation and management of the festival.
Writing about Club Transmediale 2009 in Frieze, Frances Morgan described the event as a ten-day music and visual-arts festival combining discussions of new music and sonic art with night events, electronic music and audiovisual performance.
Reception and significance
transmediale has been discussed in international art and media-culture criticism as a forum for digital culture, media theory and artistic research. Kunstkritikk described it as a recurring meeting point for artists, academics and designers interested in the creative and speculative potential of digital culture, while noting the festival's emphasis on lectures, panel discussions and aesthetic formats.
The festival's publishing activity has also contributed to debates about the post-digital. Leonardo Reviews described Across & Beyond, a reader emerging from transmediale's programme and institutional context, as a contribution to discussions in media theory, post-digital practices and artistic research.