Transmediale (International Media Art Festival Berlin) announced its 2026 program in July with an open call for artists, collectives, and researchers. The festival’s theme — “The Long Now: Timescales Beyond Urgency” — signals a deliberate pivot away from rapid-response art and toward work that engages deep time, speculative futures, and technologies that operate on scales other than real-time. The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2026.
Watch: Festival Transmediale Berlin 2024 (YouTube)
Urgency versus deep time as a curatorial stance
Transmediale’s 2026 theme is implicitly a critique of the acceleration baked into contemporary media — algorithms that optimize for engagement, social platforms that reward speed, artist residencies structured as rapid-iteration sprints. The festival is asking: what would media art look like if designed for centuries instead of weeks? Not science fiction, but actual projects that engage geological time, evolutionary timescales, or technological futures that don’t resolve within a fiscal year.
Call categories and support
The festival accepts submissions across multiple categories: site-specific installations, performances (digital and embodied), screenings and film, research projects, and curatorial proposals. Prize funding is available for selected works, and the festival provides technical support for complex installations and performance systems.