As the pandemic changes our means and understanding of connection, CTM 2021 »Transformation« aims to respond to some of the challenges facing arts and culture in these exceptional times. Streamed performances and special commissions, an immersive exhibition, interactive experiments in virtuality, a hackathon, and discursive events structure our 22nd edition.

While we can't physically congregate in Berlin, the good news is that anyone with an internet connection can take part at CTM 2021. The festival spills over core dates of 19–31 January 2021, with both preceding and follow-up programming, notably with a series of hybrid events that will take place in the second half of 2021. We hope that opening our digital doors allows for more distributed access that can only strengthen our sense of community. Let's chart the unknown and find togetherness in transformation.

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Virtual Multiplayer Festival Environment and Exhibition

With: Alba G. Corral, Byrke Lou, Florence To, Gabber Modus Operandi, Khyam Allami x Counterpoint, Lucas Gutierrez & Robert Lippok, Marcin Pietruszewski with Alex Freiheit, Mouse on Mars and Louis Chude-Sokei, Omsk Social Club x Portals Cashmere Radio x Alexander Iezzi, Pussykrew & Peaches, IOR50 x Club Qu with Monster, SFX, Society for Nontrivial Pursuits, Sote & Tarik Barri

19 January – 14 February 2021 | via dedicated app or web browser

CTM Cyberia throws festival goers into a landscape of Transformation. Explore a range of digital artworks hidden throughout a disorienting environment of mercurial visuals and erratic sounds. Access Cyberia via an app or your web browser to explore a range of digital artworks hidden throughout a disorienting environment of mercurial visuals and erratic sounds.

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Virtual Sci-fi rave in Minecraft

With 33EMYBW, Amazondotcom, AYA b2b xin, Bored Lord, De Grandi, Floating Sound Nation, FRKTL, Mary Anne Hobbs, Moa Pillar, object blue, Pisitakun, rRoxymore, S280F / 011668 / VVXXII, Sonia Calico, t0ni, Tegh, W00dy, ZULI

23 January 2021 | Club Matryoshka Minecraft & Twitch Channel

The second collaboration between Club Matryoshka x CTM takes shape as 6-hour journey through the specially created »Hyphae Lebbeus« Minecraft world, with a story-based gameplay narrative co-developed with Children of Cyberspace. Live soundtrack over two stages is provided by a range of collaboratively curated artists.

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Generative Music Environment for Microtonal Tuning Systems

With Deena Abdelwahed, Enyang Ha, Faten Kanaan, Lucy Railton, Nene H, Slikback, Tot Onyx, Tyler Friedman, Wahono

19 January – 14 February 2021

Apotome is a browser-based generative music system focused on using microtonal tuning systems and their subsets (scales/modes). It was created by Khyam Allami and Counterpoint as a tool to help counter the cultural asymmetry embedded in modern music-making softwares, which share a bias inherited from Western music theory and culture.

Apotome will be launched at CTM 2021 via a dedicated URL through which listeners may tune in to autonomously generating audio-visual material based on algorithms curated by Allami. During this time, anyone, world-wide, will be able to sign-up for a predetermined time slot and have the chance »perform« Apotome by manipulating its parameters, whilst the result is broadcast live. Apotome will also be featured with a live networked performance, commissioned artistic takeovers of its stream, and a panel discussion exploring the software's extra-musical implications.

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In Collaboration with Frequent Defect, Irtijal, and Ruptured Records

With Abed Kobeissy, Aya Metwalli & CALAMITA, Fadi Tabbal, Jad Atoui, Marta de Pascalis, NÂR with Akram Hajj, Senyawa

22–27 January 2021 | online

Througouht it's programme, CTM 2021 will feature streamed excerpts from the Morphine x Beirut Fundraiser. The extraordinary 17-hour fundraiser took place on the day of the Lebanese revolution, in which many of Beirut’s musicians and cultural producers came together with artists and organisers from Europe and beyond.

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Speculative Exercises in Transformation

With Jay Jordan and Jack Jordan, DeForrest Brown Jr., Michelle Lhooq, Taeyoon Choi

14 – 18 January 2021 | online | Open Call out now until 21 December 2020

Since 2019, our Rethinking Music Ecosystems series has brought together artists, organisers, activists, thinkers, promoters, and listeners alike to speculate on what a more collaborative, equitable, and interdependent music ecosystem might look like, and how we might work towards one. Taking place mid-January within this series, four workshops aim to offer diverse speculative exercises in Transformation that hone-in on specific topics with the goal of responding to current problematic working models and conditions, and finding potential responses and resources with which to challenge and improve them.

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We've debuted a wearable collaboration with Transe Paris, the clothing and accessory line by Gu Song An. The label has used our Liminial motif – designed by VOJD for CTM Festival – to create all-over prints on various sleek pieces. Select items such as tops and undergarments are available now, with more items to come in 2021.

Take a look inside the CTM Shop

Funded by

Senate Department of Culture and Europe | Initiative Musik | German Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media | NEUSTART KULTUR programme | Goethe-Institut | German Federal Foreign Office | Creative Europe Programme of the European Union | Fonds Podium Kunsten | Performing Arts Fund NL

»CTM Cyberia« is developed as part of »dive in. Programme for Digital Interactions« of the German Federal Cultural Foundation with funding by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the Neustart Kultur programme.

Media Partners

The Wire | FACT | Deutschlandfunk Kultur | Ask Helmut