CTM – club transmediale
festival for adventurous music and related visual arts CTM (club transmediale) is a prominent international festival dedicated to contemporary electronic, digital and experimental music, as well as the diverse range of artistic activities in the context of sound and club culture. Since 1999 it takes place concurrently and cooperatively with the transmediale – international festival for art and digital culture, Berlin.
CTM’s aim is to present the most outstanding international productions in adventurous, experimental and electronic music and audiovisual performance, as well as to reflect recent artistic and technical developments in panels, screenings and presentations.
CTM presents projects that experiment with new aesthetic parameters and new forms of cooperation, develop possibilities for informational and economic self-determination, and reflect on the role of contemporary music against the backdrop of technological and social transformations. Now more than ever, music emerges as a laboratory for multiform experiments and as an active agent that allows for new cultural techniques to be tested and proffered to the wider world. CTM puts the focus on direct experience, risk-taking and personal interaction, and thereby emphasizes the situational potential of live performance, the interplay of various media – sound and image, in particular – and candid exchange between sub-cultural and academic initiatives.
club transmediale is an independent project and is brought to you by the DISK/ club transmediale GbR, and by the association DISK – Sound & Image Initiative e.V.
Next to the annual festival the two bodies produce and curate events and projects during the year, both in Berlin and abroad: the hard and fast music festival Wasted, the series of experimental sound performances DISK Sessions and numerous collaborations with other international festivals and organisations. DISK/CTM is also a founding member of the ICAS/ECAS network.
History
The first edition of CTM in 1999, held at the old location of club Maria am Ostbahnhof, was conceived as a one-off special program for the transmediale, where it was intended to throw some light on the new and rapidly expanding spectrum of artistic projects that had emerged from the Techno movement and progressive digitalisation at the interface of media arts, electronic music and club culture. The idea fell on fertile ground – evidently CTM had struck a nerve at the right moment and correctly identified the needs of artists and the public.
In 2000 the festival took place in an empty office space with a superb view on Berlin's Alexander Platz on the 7th floor of the Haus des Lehrers – the former GDR training (and indoctrination) centre for teachers.
2001 we couldn't realize the festival due to lack of funding. 2002 saw us re-appear on the surface, this time at E-Werk, an abandoned, wrecked power station, which housed Berlin's legendary E-Werk club from 1993 to 1997. The 2002 edition was not only the most adventurous in terms of location, but with 13 days also the longest we ever did.
In 2003 the festival returned to Maria am Ostbahnhof, at it's new and current location – and has stayed there since, with a number of additional locations each year: Ballhaus Naunystrasse, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg Platz, Carl Zeiss Grossplanetarium, General Public and others.
2005 saw an expansion of the program, featuring a larger variety of musical styles than ever and especially integrating more and more musical hybrids, shifting the foucus from strictly electronic and digital musics to the interplay of electronic and acoustic approaches. Consequentially, in 2006 we changed the festival's subline from festival of electronic music and related visual arts to festival of adventurous music and related visual arts, emphasizing our preference of specific contents, attitudes or methodologies over particular formats or genres and opening-up the festival to the full range of today's music production.
Today, 10 years after the first edition and with more than 15 000 visitors and 1000 professionals attending the anniversary edition in 2009, club transmediale has gained a unique profile and the reputation of being one of the most important international festivals both for state-of-the-art electronic and experimental music and for the manifold artistic activities that unfold in the context of sound and club culture.
Together, the two festivals club transmediale and transmediale comprise one of the most comprehensive and relevant occasions in the world for reflection on digital culture and, moreover, one with a more comprehensive scope than any usual festival remit. The two parallel festivals attract a broad and diverse public, yet at the same time offer artists, producers, agents and curators a lively platform for informed, thoughtful debate and opportunities to network across the globe. In doing so, they fathom and illuminate the minutely diversified grass-roots level of music and media arts production. Both festivals do much more than simply present new trends and developments however. In their role as partners to the artists, as participants in on-going contemporary discourse, as active network facilitators, information resources, research bodies and disseminators of innovative work, they also make a vital contribution to the further development of critical, innovative music and media cultures.
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