CTM 2026 will open with a band that harnesses the tensions and potentials of dissonance and resonance like few others: drone metal legends Earth. Further highlights in our first acts announcement offer glimpses into a dedicated spatial sound programme in collaboration with d&b audiotechnik, commissions exploring sonic traditions from contemporary perspectives, collaborations with Seoul’s WeSA Festival and Kyiv’s ∄ and more. Spanning concert and club programmes, this first lineup tunnels through doom and drone, erupting in blackened choral metal and EBM fury, and mutating into amalgams of rap and hyperpop, noise-laced chaos, and bass-heavy tropical heat. From spectral Americana to Afrofuturist cartographies mapped through pop’s distorted mirror, we open with every frequency aching to break form.

We launch our 2026 programming with artists:

• ABOPF (KR)
• Stygian Bough – A Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin Collaboration (US)
• Boutcha Bwa (FR)
• CATNAPP (AR/DE)
• CORIN (AU) – »Resonance«
• Cortisa Star (US)
• Earth (US)
• Emiddio Vasquez (CY) – »21s«
• GAZAEBAL (KR)
• Growlers Choir (CA) – »Voices of the Void«
• Guedra Guedra (MA)
• KAVARI (UK)
• Khrystyna Kirik x Mark Bain (INT) – »The Core«
• Marcin Pietruszewski with Lukas de Clerck (INT) – »Oto Aulos«
• Nataša Grujović & Steve Moore (INT)
• Pain Magazine (FR)
• RONI (FR)
• Sote (IR) – »Sound Design In Far Sea«
• Tohal Kyna & Sara Persico (KR/DE)
• undo despot x Zeynep Schilling x alen hast + myk rudik (INT) – »Heavy Waters«
• Valesuchi (CL/BR)
• Vartan Markarian (UA) – »Horizons of Extinction«
• Yetsuby (KR)

Read the full announcement

Early-bird passes are on sale now in limited quantities. You can choose from CTM Festival passes which grant access to most CTM events, or Connect Passes for CTM + transmediale. Weekend Passes for each respective CTM Festival weekend are coming soon.

Tickets to the CTM Opening Concert with Earth on 23 January are also on sale now. More event tickets will be released with our November announcement. 

CTM 2026 passes and tickets

Selected from over 380 entries from artists in 60 different countries, »21s« by Emiddio Vasquez is a dense confabulation radio drama that permeates the nexus of militarism and club culture in Cyprus. The project will premiere at CTM 2026, with subsequent radio broadcasts via Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ORF in spring and autumn 2026 respectively.

More information

The Vorspiel 2026 call for registration is now open. Supported by transmediale and CTM and taking place in parallel to both festivals, the initiative is aimed at independent project spaces, platforms, initiatives, curators and artists based in Berlin that wish to propose an event or activity to take place within Vorspiel. Installations, performances, presentations, concerts and other formats dedicated to digital art & culture and experimental music and sound are central to the programme.

More info & to apply

10 November 2025 | silent green

Known for her collaboration composing the soundtracs for Ryūsuke Hamaguchi's films Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist, Japan-based artist Eiko Ishibashi has released on labels including Drag City, Black Truffle and Editions Mego. In March 2025, Ishibashi released her new album Antigone on Drag City - her first song album in seven years.

More information & tickets

Funded by
Senate Department of Culture and Social Cohesion | Goethe-Institut | German Federal Foreign Office | Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

In Cooperation with
Berghain | DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program | HAU Hebbel am Ufer | Haus der Visionäre | iii – instrument inventors initiative | Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien | Radialsystem | RSO.Berlin | transmediale 2026 | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

Institutional Partners
Checkpoint Charlie Foundation | Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism | KOFICE Korean Foundation for Intercultural Exchange | Kore A Round Culture

Programme Partners
Archipel Festival | ∄ | Deutschlandfunk Kultur Hörspiel / Klangkunst | Forecast | Freie Universität Berlin | Kunst Universität Linz | Leuphana Universität Lüneburg | NERDS | ORF Ö1 | Sonic Acts | tekhnē | u2203 studio | Universität Oldenburg | WeSA

Supported by
Ableton | d&b audiotechnik | d&b Soundscape | Stager

Media Partners
Deutschlandfunk Kultur | Refuge Worldwide | Resident Advisor