CTM 2019 – Persistence

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CTM Festival's 20th anniversary edition took place from 25 January – 3 February 2018 in Berlin venues HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, Griessmuehle, Festsaal Kreuzberg, SchwuZ, Paloma Bar, MONOM at Funkhaus Berlin, nGbK, DAAD, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Heimathafen Neukölln, and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien.

Under the title Persistence, CTM 2019 examined the state of music and sound practice in the face of rapidly proliferating polarising stances and simplistic rhetoric. Can music and art provide us with methods to move towards new societal horizons? Can we maintain a productive, idealistic kind of perseverance—a persistence of the transitory?

Close to 400 artists and participants from 41 countries contributed to over 239 performances and projects that made up the CTM 2018 programme, which also included the premiere of numerous commissioned works. Live performances of Linn da Quebrada's influential Pajubá graced HAU1; the Nusasonic initiative, a collaboration with Yes No Klub (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), WSK Festival for the Recently Possible (Manila, Philippines), and Playfreely/Blackkaji (Singapore) along with the Goethe-Institut, enabled exchange with various sonic cultures from Southeast Asia. The SET x CTM collaboration enabled the Berlin premieres of a number of special commissions; a Skatehalle arrived in the Halle (am Berghain); and a collaboration with MONOM realised special performances in 4DSOUND.

Talks, workshops, panels, and film screenings, in addition to the annual festival magazine, made up the 8-day Transfer programme. The 7th edition of the collaborative MusicMaker’s Hacklab for music technology took place, as did the annual Research Networking Day, a Network Speed Dating session, a collaboration with Raster at nGbK, and the CTM exhibition, this time entitled Persisting Realities.

As always, CTM was held in parallel to and in collaboration with transmediale – festival for art and digital culture which took place at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. CTM and transmediale also hosted the citywide Vorspiel initiative together with over 40 local venues and organisations.

»Dance music is not in crisis, it’s more hopeful than ever.«
→ FACT Magazine, John Twells

»CTM, celebrating its 20th edition this year, is an integral part of Berlin’s cultural furniture, adventurous in its quest for ideas that no one else would consider, let alone have the gall to execute.«
→ Crack Magazine, Gabriel Szatan

»The extent of the programme means it's impossible to hit it all. But rather than sweating over schedules paralysed by potential FOMO, you traverse through the festival taking in as much as you can, energised by the knowledge that wherever you land will bring an experience that fills you with inspiration. And when we are inspired, we persist.«
→ Mixmag, Patrick Hinton