We are excited to announce Dr. Nora O Murchú as the new artistic director of transmediale. Commencing the role from the 2021 edition, O Murchú will be the festival’s fifth artistic director and the first woman to take this position in its 33-year history.

An independent curator, O Murchú has over a decade of experience in digital arts, curating exhibitions and events for institutions including Akademie Schloss Solitude, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, The Science Gallery, and ZKM Karlsruhe. Notable exhibitions included Coded After Lovelace at Whitebox Gallery in New York and Land/Sea/Signal at Rua Red in Dublin. She has held positions as a research associate for the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick, the Interaction Research Studio at Goldsmiths, and CRUMB at the University of Sunderland. Her research on the impact of technology on curating has been published at Goldsmiths Press, Taylor & Francis and Springer. She currently serves as a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick in Ireland.

O Murchú was selected for the role by the current transmediale advisory board, consisting of Marie-Luise Angerer, Dieter Daniels, Micz Flor, Hito Steyerl, Moritz van Dülmen, Ben Vickers, and Hortensia Völckers.

Commenting on the appointment, Micz Flor, chair of the Advisory Board, said: “We were impressed by Dr. Nora O Murchú’s remarkable curriculum as well as by the complex and clear vision she presented which combines both a bold personal perspective and a deep understanding of the values of transmediale. The advisory board and the entire team welcome Nora O Murchú as their new artistic director and are excited about seeing her diverse set of experiences and her personality enrich and shape transmediale in the future.”

O Murchú said: “I’m excited to join the team at transmediale and to continue its long legacy of critical reflection on digital culture.”

Nora O Murchú will succeed the current artistic director Kristoffer Gansing who will leave transmediale after nine successful years with the festival. The last edition under his direction will be transmediale 2020.