CTM Festival’s 27th edition will run 23 January – 1 February 2026, returning to a range of Berlin venues such as Berghain, radialsystem, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembug-Platz, RSO.Berlin, and Morphine Raum.

This year we turn our attention to the tensions between resonance and dissonance – generative or irreconcilable, soft or harsh, unexpectedly attuned or demanding dialogue. Rather than opposites, they are partners in an ongoing exchange, offering a lens through which to navigate personal, societal, and aesthetic experiences. If past editions of our festival traced a journey from liminality through transformation toward contact, opening portals and learning to sustain ourselves and our practices, then the CTM 2026 theme »dissonate < > resonate« invites us to inhabit the spaces in-between: the charged fields where frequencies meet, clash, and sometimes unexpectedly unite. 

Three open calls are now announced below, and first programming will be announced in autumn.

Read the full theme text

Together with Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Hörspiel / Klangkunst and in collaboration with Goethe-Institut, ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst, Ö1 Kunstradio, and tekhnē, the CTM Radio Lab seeks proposals from artists worldwide that engage with the CTM 2026 festival theme, dissonate < > resonate.

The call is open to artists worldwide and relevant to fields of experimental music, sound art, radio art, new radio drama, and performance. One commissioned work will premiere at CTM 2026 Festival in Berlin (23 January – 1 February  2025), and will be subsequently broadcast in Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s Klangkunst programme in spring in the form of a 40–55 minute radio piece. The Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Broadcasting Service) will also present the work via one or more of its platforms: the Ö1 Zeit-Ton or Ö1 Radiokunst – Kunstradio radio shows, and/or the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival in Graz (Autumn 2024).

Application deadline: 14 September 2025.

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This open call seeks applications from artists worldwide who engage critically and in-depth with sonic traditions and how to transform them into contemporary contexts. Taking place during CTM Festival week, the lab is designed as an open toolbox for artists exploring how to (re)connect to »the traditional,«, and is intended to help them navigate their practice outside of (self-)exoticisation and the uneven power dynamics created by mass-cultural and other stereotypes.

Application deadline: 14 September 2025.

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The Research Networking Day invites graduate and post-graduate students as well as independent artists conducting self-guided research to submit proposals for short presentations traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines that also address the scope of CTM 2026’s theme, dissonate < > resonate.

Application deadline: 26 October 2025.

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We are looking for a freelance Community Manager to support the coordination and communication of the Vorspiel programme for 2026, networking independent cultural spaces throughout Berlin with the audiences of transmediale and CTM Festivals. Application deadline is 23 August 2025.

More information & to apply

Announcing the artistic fellows for Resynthesising the Traditional – »The Wind Howls« artistic lab in Almaty. Congratulations to the six artists – selected from over 1350 applications – who will spend the week exploring ways of engaging with and reshaping the traditional through sound:

• Archeprototype (Aina Zhekebatyr, KZ)
• Bruno Trochmann (BR)
• Jena Jang (KR/CZ)
• Şüräle (Airat Khaziev, INT)
• VIRUS2020 (Rami Harrabi, TN)
• XAKALELE (NL)

Running from 15 – 25 October 2025, the lab will be hosted by Medina Bazarğali and Bilawa Respati. The fellows will present their practices to the public on 18 October 2025, at the Tselinny Center for Contemporary Culture.

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