CTM Festival runs 22–31 January 2027 in Berlin under the theme process…ing, and three of its open calls are still live. The one most worth your attention closes in under three weeks.
Spatial Audio Experimentation Lab
- Deadline: 15 October 2026
- Lab dates: 21–24 January 2027, Berlin
- Open to: artists and researchers
- Format: several days of practical experimentation and collective research
The framing is the reason to apply: exploring space as an active compositional element rather than as a delivery format.
That distinction is doing real work. Most spatial audio practice treats space as the last stage — you compose, then you spatialise, then you deliver in Atmos or ambisonics. Space is where the finished thing gets put. Treating it as compositional means the spatial arrangement is a parameter you write with from the start, the way you’d write with pitch or timbre, and a piece composed that way cannot be collapsed to stereo without ceasing to be itself.
Four days of collective practical work on that, with other people doing the same, is a substantially better way to learn it than reading about ambisonic orders.
The other two calls
Research Networking Day 2027 — deadline 25 October 2026. Networking and presentation during the festival, open to graduate and postgraduate students and independent researchers in audio, arts, media, design and related fields. If you’re doing academic-adjacent work and want an audience that isn’t a conference committee, this is the cheaper route in.
Vorspiel 2027 — deadline 6 November 2026. A platform for independent events and activities running 15–31 January 2027, open to Berlin-based independent project spaces, platforms, initiatives, curators and artists. Geographically restricted by design — Vorspiel is how the festival makes room for the city’s own scene rather than importing a programme.
Also noted: Resynthesising the Traditional 2027, an artistic lab, closes 28 September — two days away as we publish, so effectively gone unless you already have the application written. CTM Volunteers 2027 opens in late autumn. In Listening 2027 has closed.
Fees, and what isn’t stated
CTM does not publish participation fees on these call pages, and we’re not going to guess. Before applying, check whether the lab covers travel and accommodation or expects you to fund your own presence in Berlin in January — that’s the difference between a €0 opportunity and a €900 one, and it’s the question the call text doesn’t answer.
Why this beat is worth watching
CTM is one of the few festivals where the research and lab programme is a peer of the music programme rather than a daytime add-on. Combined with transmediale running 28–31 January, immediately after, Berlin in late January is the densest week in the year for anyone working between sound, technology and critical practice.
Applying to a January lab in September is the right timing for exactly that reason: the accommodation situation during CTM/transmediale week is genuinely difficult, and knowing in November whether you’re accepted is what makes it manageable.