We are pleased to announce more of CTM 2025’s programming, which unfolds a kaleidoscope of voices amidst our chaotic and shifting realities, mirroring and adding to the confusing polyphony of our current moment. The sonic palette evoked in this next announcement underlines our ongoing commitment to festivals as spaces for togetherness, openness, and convergence for a variety of perspectives and communities, and different artistic practices and musical strands.
New additions to the programme range through mutations of Brazilian funk, raptor house, guaracha, the stroboscopic trance patterns of Japanese post-club, the TikTok native sounds of hyperflip, spectral drone folk, hyperpop of an alien intimacy, and much more. For this edition, we’ll be jumping into Alte Münze for the first time as we fully take over the three floors of its labyrinthine basement with concerts and high-octane sounds.
We’re also pleased to announce more collaborative programming with longtime Berlin partners. Together with sister festival transmediale we’ll be presenting a two-concert series at HKW where artists engage with and critique the tools and potentials of machine learning and AI in how we relate to our histories and current realities. With MONOM we will be presenting a series of listening sessions of commissioned works that have been created especially for their powerful spatial sound environment, where each artist’s unique vision is expanded with 4DSOUND technology. At Morphine Raum our A2A Transmission series brings artists from various unique practices to share skills and experiences with other fellow creatives. This expansive cast of club acts, concerts, performances, collaborations, process-oriented labs, workshops, and premieres will again grow in January with our final programme announcement.
Tickets to most events are now on sale, and festival passes remain on sale in limited quantities. The final round of our programme information will be released in January.
Given the Berlin government’s chaotic budget planning and severe cuts to the city’s overall funding including culture, the fact that a festival like CTM 2025 can take place at all at this very moment in time is anything but a given. We are resolutely focused on creating an inviting and enrichening event more than ever despite the bumpy last few months, while standing in solidarity with all our colleagues in Berlin's cultural landscape who are currently facing significant to existential fights against a policy that does not sufficiently recognise the essential importance and fragility of diverse cultural initiatives for inclusive democracy, social cohesion, and the prosperity of the city of Berlin.
New Acts
Our 2025 festival programme grows with:
- Adela Mede with Marta Forsberg & Nindya Nareswari (INT) – World Premiere
- aya x MFO (UK/DE)
- Catarina De Nicola (IT/CH)
- Deize Tigrona (BR)
- Donna Haringwey (PT)
- Elischa Heller (CH)
- Emme (US/DE) pres. »Heaven Help Me«
- femtanyl (CA)
- Gibrana Cervantes x Colombian Drone Mafia (MX/CO) – World Premiere
- Hassan Abou Alam (EG)
- Jamira Estrada (CH)
- Joginda (NL)
- Kasimyn (ID)
- LazerGazer (NL)
- Lénok with Grinderteeth & Synthtati (INT) – World Premiere
- LnHD (MM/KH)
- Loto Retina (FR) – Album Premiere
- Minna-No Kimochi (JP)
- Oldyungmayn b2b Van Boom (PS-EG/KW)
- Plus44Kaligula (UK)
- Rattlesnakke (AR)
- rEmPiT g0dDe$$ (MY)
- Saadet Türköz & Eldar Tagi (INT)
- Sealionwoman (UK)
- Takkak Takkak feat Brandon Tay (INT) – World Premiere
- Tati au Miel (CA)
- Theo Alexander with Qow ft. Otteswed & Klara Pudlakova (INT)
- Volition Immanent (BE)
- Xafya (CH)
transmediale x CTM 2025 Synthesis concerts with:
- Hulubalang feat Brandon Tay (ID/SG) – »Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal«
- Portrait XO (US/DE) – »The Cost of Connection«
- Rick Farin & Actual Objects (US) – »Chaos Play Live«
MONOM x CTM present »MONOM Archive« Listening Sessions with:
- Maria W Horn (SE) – »Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night«
- MONOM team (INT) – »The Elements: Aether, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind«
- Thomas Ankersmit (NL/DE)
- Venus Ex Machina (UK) – »Marshlands«
- Walter Sallinen (FI) – »Matrix of Modernity«
A2A workshops will be led by:
- Abdullah Miniawy (EG/FR)
- Alan Courtis (AR)
- Agustín Genoud (AR)
- DJ Love (PH)
- Grinderteeth (SE/DE)
- Olivia Oyama (DE)
- Portrait XO & Noah Pred (INT)
- Saadet Türköz (TR/CH)
»Close The App, Make The Ting« lecture by Elijah (UK)
Speakers taking part in the 2025 Research Networking Day hosted by Anita Jóri (HU/DE), Jovana Maksić (RS/CH), Miriam Akkermann (DE), and Matthias Pasdzierny (DE):
- Cynthia Nkiruka Anyadi (Royal Holloway University London, UK)
- Dragoș Rusu (University of Bucharest, RO)
- Jiawen Uffline (University of the Arts Bremen/Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, DE)
- Lucy Havelock (Goldsmiths University London, UK)
- Matwe Kascak (Masaryk University Brno, CZ)
- Nilufer Musaeva (Hochschule für Künste Bremen, DE)
- Sri Rama Murthy (independent artist Hyderabad, IN)
- Olia Sosnovskaya (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, AT)
- Yann Martins (HGK Critical Media Lab Basel, CH)
Concerts, Commissioned Works and Club Programme
For when you need dance music that befuddles as much as it delights, aya’s weirded and fragmented rhythms caper around surreal textures with a molecule-rearranging earfeel. In a special collaboration, she’ll come together at CTM with acclaimed German light and scenography artist MFO. Rooted in themes of bodily transformation and the fluidity of memory, the performance traverses the intersection of consciousness, corporeality and experience, combined with dynamic visual artistry that interrogates both perception and identity.
SHAPE+-supported artist Lénok creates richly layered soundscapes that feel both haunting and freeing, using techniques that blend composition with creative deconstruction as a way to visualise alternative realities. Thanks to a short residency supported by SHAPE+, this world premiere performance will utilise lighting and set design by Grinderteeth and Synthtati.
Catarina De Nicola carves her practice from the detritus of post-consumerist culture, wielding a post-postmodern skepticism as both scalpel and bludgeon. Her work oscillates between annihilation and renewal, exploring the precariousness of modern life while hinting at the decadence of its eternal repetitions. A powerful visual artist as well, this performance will feature a dramaturgical conversion between feedback drones and harsh noise.
The aural landscapes of composer Plus44Kaligula collage fragments of ambient pads, glitch-ridden textures, and machine choirs into immersive environments that defy linearity, evoking a liminal space of alien intimacy where audiences are simultaneously disoriented and anchored. The voice—a central axis of her work—shifts fluidly from stark, raw confessions to near-operatic proclamations, threading together her penchant for surreal theatricality with the visceral weight of sincerity.
Two-man chaos engine Volition Immanent wrench forth gut-twisting live performances that burst from punk’s fury with industrial precision, Frankensteined in real-time as the duo butcher their own tracks and rebuild them on the fly. The analog wizardry of Parrish Smith and the mutant ferocity of Knekelhuis founder Mark van de Maat channel the spirit of confrontational pioneers like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire into something sharper, filthier, where every beat feels like it could shatter the air.
Emme’s artistry melds shrieked vocals with intricate, dystopian soundscapes, crafting a brutal yet beautiful fusion of emo, noise, and hardcore aesthetics with the elegance of modern dance and avant-garde performance art. Her debut project »Heaven Help Me« is a 30-minute solo opera that delves into the raw emotional terrain of surviving an abusive relationship.
Self-taught composer Theo Alexander delves into what he terms »insurmountable contradictions.« His music often juxtaposes opposing themes, such as the manmade and the natural, engaging them in an anxious yet playful dialogue. He’s joined by Qow, whose approach embraces poetic imperfections and moments of unexpected intimacy, resonant with vulnerability and depth, along with rapper Otteswed and double bass virtuoso Klara Pudlakova.
Violinist and composer Gibrana Cervantes melds the grace of classical tradition with the raw intensity of metal. With an ear twisted towards experimentation, she’s transformed the violin into a vessel for uncharted sonic exploration, employing innovative sound processing techniques to harness raw noise as a vital compositional tool. In this world premiere, she’ll collaborate with Colombian Drone Mafia, who bends the primal forces of synthesis and the raw immediacy of field recordings into immersive drones that slither like specters, while furtive ambiences prowl with predatory patience.
Sealionwoman weaves an intricate and malignant tapestry drawn deeply from the mythic allure of European folklore and the horrors of the Earth, the spectral drama of Kitty Whitelaw’s androgynous, shape-shifting vocal performances, and Tye McGivern’s masterful manipulation of the double bass. Vividly organic sonics, mournful laments and eerie drones dance in swirls of fog—vast sonic terrains of ancient violence and chrysalis-fragile beauty.
To collapse inward without shattering—this is the sensation Elischa Heller conjures. The SHAPE+ supported artist sutures digitalismans into the sinews of performance art, auto-tuned vocals and fragile futurisms colliding with shrieking beats, layered noise, and expansive drones: equal parts synthetic and feral, a sleek internet-born vision that breathes, pulses, and smells faintly of incense.
On top of club nights at Berghain, OXI, and RSO.Berlin, CTM will visit Alte Münze for the first time, opening with high-energy audiovisual concerts that will be followed by a progression of club sounds resonating across three floors in the venue’s labyrinthine basement.
One of the most influential voices in the world of Funk Carioca—a genre that she helped elevate from the streets of Rio de Janeiro to global recognition—Deize Tigrona’s sharp lyricism and unapologetic delivery blends humor and social commentary with infectious energy. You’ll find her influence across myriad other artists’ work; her song “Injeção” was used as the basis for M.I.A.’s »Bucky Done Gun.«
The duo Takkak Takkak summon explosive polyrhythms and trance-inducing concoction of thundering bass, frenzied vocals, and raw energy, underpinned by a mischievous sense of humor. Their feral sonic storms gleefully dismantle traditions, leveraging everything from cobbled-together junk instruments to hacked electronic devices. Adept at exploring the interplay between digital materials and their tangible counterparts, visual artist Brandon Tay will join to help blur the line between the corporeal and incorporeal.
A transfeminine force of nature, femtanyl crashes together web-dredged post-industrial haemorrhages and glitchy hyperpop influences into a melange of chaotic emotion. Their work leans into unpredictability and raw energy, exploring themes of identity, mental health, and societal tension—wrapped in sound that feels like a haymaker in your babymaker and ritual catharsis all at once.
Japanese crew Minna-No Kimochi blast forth immersive environmental raves, deconstructing 90s trance and 10s EDM through a post-club lens into a sonic stew of corporeal intensity and spiritual elevation. With a now-legendary presence in Tokyo's experimental scene, they’re masters of crowd-jacking transformative and trance-endental club experiences.
Rattlesnakke slithers through sonics with beats that hit like thunderclaps and vocals dripping with unrelenting energy. Filled with the defiant energy of Argentina’s youth, she’s bringing a live set of bass-heavy guaracha vibes, urban swagger and glistening latincore rap-pop to CTM.
Moving fluidly between the ephemeral textures of experimental sound and the tactile immediacy of ritualistic performance, Tati au Miel’s compositions collapse rigid binaries, steeping them in industrial abrasion echoing spectrally of Black folklore—less music than spellcraft—and reshaping them into incantations bound together with street noise, modular synthesis, and vocal exorcisms.
Jamira Estrada merges her classical training in electroacoustic composition with a gut-grabbing dancefloor synthesis rooted in broken beats, dubstep, and techno. Raised in a family deeply embedded in the arts, her practice also integrates DJ workshops and initiatives to support femme, intersex, and non-binary artists.
The aural palette of Hassan Abou Alam is a fidgety interplay of analog warmth and digital precision, with roots in house and techno that have branched into a churning spectrum of bass, breaks, and noise that reveal a knack for pushing buttons while staying irresistibly danceable.
The flensed intensity of industrial with the sweaty energy and philosophy of hardcore punk delivers catharsis—Donna Haringwey’s vicious bangers transmogrify despair into anger and hope, vitriolic synthesis with the sweaty energy and message of hardcore deliver an accessible yet powerful social commentary.
Formerly one half of the duo Black Cadmium, Joginda explores an esoteric range of styles, from dub and breakbeat to African tribal tech and IDM. A captivating force behind the decks, his body-jacking, oft-vicious and always-immersive sets never fail to cuck expectation.
Showcasing different sides of their musical personalities, Radio Lab winners Lynn Nandar Htoo and Victoria Yam will appear for separate solo sets at the festival. Fusing Myanmar’s rich musical traditions with cutting-edge electronics, Htoo aka LnHD crafts hard-hitting dancefloor narratives woven from her Burmese heritage. Yam’s alias rEmPiT g0dDe$$ crafts a singular sonic universe, integrating the distinct sounds of analog instruments like Malaysia’s Serunai and Rebab and the Philippines’ Kulintang with glistening cybered-out synthesis.
Born of unease yet brimming with tender honesty, Xafya’s music discards the sheen of deconstructed club aesthetics for something deeper and more resonant: a tapestry of apocalypse electronics unraveled into a contemplative embrace, where dissonant textures mirror the rawness of introspection. Every fragment pulses with emotional candor, reweaving a mythos of transformation, faith, and radical communion between the terrestrial and the infinite.
Oldyungmayn ignites dance floors with the unruly energy of 90s rave, underpinned by cutting-edge sound design and the vibrant pulse of Middle Eastern club music. Merging hyper-industrial abrasion with a sense of longing, kinship, and transformation, his frequent collaborator Van Boom operates from the periphery, crafting a cathartic alchemy of fragmentation and crescendo—venomous yet tender.
Loto Retina frolics between the interplay of the ancient and the futuristic, improvisation and live interaction crafting a dialogue between organic expulsions and high-tech Meatspace, where reggaeton, baile funk, and experimental electronics emulsify. They’ll be presenting the live premiere of their new album; expect a hot’n’dirty party vibe dripping with raw sophistication.
Kasimyn traverses a kaleidoscopic range of sonic mayhem, from gabber and grindcore to Indonesian jathilan trance rituals in thrillingly unpredictable ways as he approaches distortion as a means to “destroy something for the future.” Expect high-BPM chaos with a hefty dollop of dangdut koplo and funkot.
The alias of DJ and visual artist Hala Namer, LazerGazer’s evocative basslines, hypnotic rhythms, and raw emotional energy draws on her Syrian heritage and a deep connection to contemporary club culture, deftly weaving bass, percussion, breaks, electro and more into mythic, dancefloor-igniting energy.
Resynthesising the Traditional
A number of performances this year connect to the festival’s new multi-year project »Resynthesising the Traditional.« Evoking resynthesis—a processing method in computer music that analyzes sounds to extract their fundamental components—as a guiding metaphor, the thematic strand features performances, talks and an artistic lab that in various ways confront conservative views of culture as something frozen, solidified, and generally untouchable, thus resistant to any transformative practices.
A celebrated improviser and vocal artist, Saadet Türköz’s music is deeply rooted in the folk songs of her grandparents, intertwined with sounds from India, Central Asia, and the Arab world and blended seamlessly with blues, free jazz, and the European and American avant-garde. She’s joined by sound artist Eldar Tagi, whose intricate sonic landscapes bridge experimental techniques and personal narratives shaped by his mixed Central Asian heritage.
The SHAPE+ supported artist Adela Mede met Marta Forsberg through a shared interest in collective singing, either with acoustic voice or computer generated choirs. For CTM they come together with light artist Nindya Nareswari to explore these topics through a special new performance of Mede’s original compositions. Mede’s blend of traditional folk influences and contemporary electronic textures weave English, Slovak, and Hungarian into her music. Each language carries fragments of memory and emotion that shift with the sound of her voice, creating a deeply personal yet universal experience. Her songs will be enhanced by Forsberg's experience in sonic minimalism and immersive environments, and Nareswari’s work with the ephemeral and emotive qualities of light and perception.
Previously announced artists engaging with this thematic strand include Ganavya who draws from a deep well of spiritual blueprints passed down through generations, letting the lines between past, present, and future blur into something beautifully unrecognisable. The commissioned work »Гільдеґарда« (Hildegarda) by Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko places Ukrainian traditional culture in a broader European context, actualising Hildegard von Bingen's compositions to express their war-related experiences and a different, and challenging understanding of spirituality that arises from these.
transmediale x CTM concerts
Sister festivals transmediale and CTM come together this year for two shared performance programmes at the Miriam Makeba Auditorium of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Incorporating the latest developments in generative AI, A/V storytelling, and data sonification to explore a conflictual past, present and future, the works offer personal, critical, and speculative reflections on how AI is facilitating new understanding and intimacies with our histories, with the world around us, and with one another?
»The Cost of Connection« is a live audiovisual performance by Portrait XO that explores global challenges using AI and data sonification. Drawing on critical datasets from the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she transforms data into sound and visuals to engage audiences with the complex issues facing our world. Her work began with sonifying a century of global temperature anomalies to highlight patterns and spikes in the data, drawing parallels with the rapid growth of AI. Building on this, her latest research investigates the relationships between datasets, seeking to uncover where healthier interdependence can be achieved. Through a combination of sound, visuals, and real-world data, the performance translates historical trends and future projections encouraging public discourse to consider our role in shaping a sustainable future.
Rooted in the use of game engines and digital design tools, Rick Farin’s practice delves into speculative fictions that exaggerate the present to craft provocative visions of the future. Together with his partner Claire, he co-founded Actual Objects, a creative studio blending live action, CG, AI, and VFX to construct radical narratives for artists and musicians, including but not limited to, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis, Yves Tumor, Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, and Bad Bunny. In their AV-performance »Chaos Play Live,« original music by Farin is »performed« by a seemingly endless cast of digital characters, both CGI & AI generated, that take audiences into nether zones where human expression and machine artefact meld insolubly into each other to herald a new chaotic era in which fabrication and reality will be inseparable.
Hulubalang’s work »Bunyi Bunyi Tumbal« mourns the marginalised figures of history, echoing the shattered innocence of disrupted rituals and the pain of unacknowledged sacrifices. The solo venture of Kasimyn—producer, DJ, label owner, and one-half of Gabber Modus Operandi—the project whose title roughly translates to »Synthetic Feeling for Anonymous Sacrifice« is a reflection on the emotions born out of a deep dive into Indonesian war archives. These archives include a trove of photographs documenting the era of Dutch rule, captured through the lens of the colonizers themselves. Hulubalang’s brutal noise scapes, ghostly samples, ferocious polyrhythms, and mutating club music tropes center on the peripheral figures populating these historical records—secondary characters devoid of individual significance, who bear no names, receive no recognition, violently forced to serve as props in the broader narrative of history. The piece is a personal act of catharsis and stands as a sorrowful tribute to the non-belligerent victims of war and oppression and their »sacrifice.« This performance features visuals by Singaporean artist Brandon Tay, who applied machine learning techniques to expand on visual artefacts found in various archives, blurring the line between the corporeal and incorporeal. The programme will be rounded out by a last act to be announced soon.
MONOM x CTM present »MONOM Archive«
With works by: Maria W Horn, Thomas Ankersmit, Venus Ex Machina, Walter Sallinen
Within the framework of CTM 2025 festival, MONOM will present selected works from their spatial sound archive, featuring world and Berlin premieres that highlight the breadth and depth of collaborative spatial artworks produced within its 4DSOUND system. Under the umbrella title »MONOM Archive« two separate live listening sessions on CTM Festival's first and second weekend respectively will feature a selection of works created during artist residencies at MONOM, plus works created by MONOM's team, showcasing the studio's own concepts and lines of study.
The first listening session on Sunday 26th will feature works by Thomas Ankersmit and Maria W Horn, along with works created by the MONOM team. The presentations follow directly after an Open Studio session from the Wilding AI Lab, where a dozen fellows selected via open call will present ideas-in-progress, sketches, and spatialisation exercises under the guidance of the Wilding AI team of Alexandre Saunier, Beth Coleman, Maurice Jones, and Portrait XO, and MONOM.
A free panel discussion titled »Spatial Sound as an Artistic Medium« will take place before the second listening session, on February 1st, bringing together artists, producers, and studios/initiatives working in spatial sound to discuss its creative possibilities. Walter Sallinen and Venus Ex Machina will present new works in the second session alongside a second selection by the MONOM team.
This latest programme marks over five years of collaboration between MONOM and CTM, and reinforces CTM’s ongoing interest in the evolution of spatial sound. Berlin is a growing hub for research and artistic creativity in spatial sound, which we aim to support through commissioned works, labs, and collaborations with partners such as d&b audio, Technische Universität Berlin, Usomo, and others.
A2A Transmission Workshops
A2A Transmission is a series of workshops for artists by artists, with an aim to help sound and A/V practitioners expand their skill sets and practices. The workshops will be held at Morphine Raum.
The series kicks off with Agustín Genoud, who will explore different approaches to vocal techniques and their interaction with machine systems in order to create expressive musical/sound gestures, and how to embed these into design setups for live musical performance.
Improv vocalist Saadet Türköz will offer a different approach to working with the voice, grounded in experiential and expressive approaches that center on the body.
One of Berlin’s most sought after live sound engineers, Olivia Oyama will share knowledge on thinking of and communicating on live sound for touring musicians. The workshop is open to FLINTA artists only and aims among other to share tools to facilitate exchanges with local venue technicians in order to bring one’s sound and performances closer to your artistic aims.
Portrait XO and Noah Pred will demonstrate practical applications of sonification—from sourcing and curation to deploying data sets—in contemporary production practice using a collection of Max for Live devices developed by Pred for Manifest Audio.
Budots pioneer DJ Love will explore the origins, characteristics, and unique structural components of the genre, including a walk-through on the process of creating a Budots track from scratch.
Including a special section dedicated to Arabic music, Abdullah Miniawy will lead a workshop that encourages artists to create original works that are rooted in their own cultures and personal stories, rather than imitating others or overly relying on technology.
Showing audio and video examples from diverse music projects involving people with dis/ability, Alan Courtis will in his workshop lead a group reflection on the social, artistic and historic aspects of music and dis/ability, seeking ideas that can help overcome prejudices and myths.
»Close The App, Make The Ting« with Elijah
On Sunday 26 January at silent green Betonhalle, Elijah—DJ, writer, lecturer and co-founder of the influential grime label Butterz—will present ideas from his »Yellow Squares« project which investigated the state of creating for DIY artists from 2021–2024 across hundreds of short notes on Instagram. The talk brings the project to a conclusion that shows the process behind the writing, visual installations, album, book and lecture series he took around the world.
Research Networking Day
The Research Networking Day will assemble nine students, scholars, and artists/researchers from a variety of fields who will present research addressing one of several themes reflected within three different labs at CTM 2025—affection as explored in the CTM 2025 Radio Lab, engaging with traditional sound forms and ideas as per the Resynthesising the Traditional artistic lab, and playing with anarchic qualities of AI as explored in the Wilding AI lab. The selected candidates will give short presentations within different thematic modules, with discussions after each presentation and at the end of each session. Presentations will be in English, and entrance to the event is free.
This year’s speakers were selected from over 200 applicants to our open call. We look forward to hearing from: Lucy Havelock, Jiawen Uffline, Matwe Kascak, Nilufer Musaeva, Sri Rama Murthy, Cynthia Nkiruka Anyadi, Dragoș Rusu, Yann Martins, and Olia Sosnovskaya.
This RND edition will take place in collaboration with the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Freie Universität Berlin, and the Berlin-based network and project space Trust.
Festival Passes and Accreditation
A range of CTM Festival passes and tickets are on sale now in limited quantities. You can choose from CTM Festival passes which grant access to most CTM events, Weekend Passes for each respective CTM Festival weekend, or Connect Passes for CTM+transmediale.
The press accreditationapplication period is open until 10 January 2025. Journalists can apply to cover CTM or transmediale respectively, or for a combined accreditation to both festivals.