Text by CLOT Magazine
CTM, one of Berlin’s most influential and experimental festivals, has gone virtual. They rose to the challenge of being unable to gather in person this year and created a virtual multiplayer immersive environment: CTM Cyberia. The new launch date for the virtual festival and exhibition is February 13, 2021, and will be accessible to anyone with an internet connection until March 14, 2021.
Acting as an experimental playground, CTM Cyberia invites festival-goers to explore digital artworks and experimental soundscapes. Users will interact with this landscape of Transformation as avatars. They will be able to wander in search of portals, interact with each other via chat and movements, and watch CTM 2021’s stream programme.
Lucas Gutierrez has largely designed the virtual world, who successfully questions the possibilities of online realities through his expansive indoor and outdoor spaces. The vibrant environment is coupled with Elvin Brandhi’s visceral sound design. Brandhi convincingly blends the user and avatar realities through her sonic play. The featured digital artworks respond to the theme of Transformation, whether social, personal, or aesthetic and technological.
Performer and creator Peaches has collaborated with Pussykrew, a digital art duo dedicated to exploring the spaces between digital and physical realms. Together, they allow avatars to encounter an online gaming experience focused on emotions, gender freedom, and body positivity. Users will journey with Peaches to traverse multiple levels and meet other avatars.
Other parts of the exhibition include explorations by CTM Radio Lab winners Omsk Social Club x Portals Cashmere Radio x Alexander Iezzi, who built a joyful exercise in destabilising anthropocentric constructs. Gabber Modus Operandi x Rimbawan Gerilya x Siko Setyano present viewers with a Southeast Asian futurist narrative, and Sote and Tarik Barri create a personal, visual journey in a neighbouring room.
A few of the festival’s events even invite users to contribute to the streams’ outputs. For example, the newly launched Apotome transcultural music environment by Khyam Allami and Counterpoint and the Society for Nontrivial Pursuits (S4NTP) can be listened to and interacted with.
Join CTM Cyberia as it explores the boundaries of digital worldmaking. Unlike previous years, this festival exists exclusively through a digital platform and imagines new possibilities for digital art and online architecture.
