Through mobile, instant access to the constant data stream it seems that space and time have been dissolved into real-time and media society has been switched on live. This liveness is no longer bound to the presence of real bodies in concrete locations, but relates primarily to temporal dimensions and the determination of processes. It touches on central issues in both non-media and mediated perception, and the interconnected real world and media spheres.

In the first place there is the technical recording and playback media of the liveness mentioned above, which brought about the possibility of time-shifted and location-independent reception of art and introduced the concept of live – a previously unneeded differentiator – into the world. In this age of digital and networked liveness we deal increasingly with hybrid media formats, their dimensions and disembodiment seemingly triggering a desire for the analogue and a passion for physical, affective experiences and collective encounters.

At exactly these interfaces between the real world and the media sphere, between liveness and reproduction, between virtual and physical hovers this year’s performance programme at transmediale. Over the course of the festival, at three locations, in the Auditorium, on the Café Stage and in the HacKaWay Zone, hybrid manifestations of media will be switched on and their potential for experimental malleability will be tested. Herman Kolgen, Daito Manabe, Eboman and Ursula Endlicher demonstrate very different forms of body and media assemblages, whether literally or figuratively. Cécile Babiole & Vincent Goudard, People Like Us and Fair Use respond to the ever accelerating media/consumer culture and its ever-growing reservoir of permanently available and accessible media content. Ei Wada, Rosa Menkman and Tina Tonagel, Preslav Literary School and Eosin, Dorothy of the Day and TOUR de VINYL play with the diverse materiality of media and make it tangible as well as give new life to the archives of memory.

To close the festival evenings – or to set the mood for the club transmediale night programme – DJs splash electronic sounds through the HKW’s halls into the night.

Sandra Naumann, Programme Curator, Performance

This year, both transmediale and CTM explore the characteristics of live and real time media, thus creating numerous connections between the performance and discourse programmes of both festivals.

Furthermore transmediale and CTM jointly present six A/V performances: two evenings at the auditorium of the HKW and two performances at Festsaal Kreuzberg.