[Zoom-in] Beyond the screen
Artificial intelligence, algorithms, virtual realities, and digital technologies are increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives. But what happens when they enter the world of art? Beyond offering new tools, technology is transforming the way art is created, experienced and shared, opening new possibilities while raising questions about creativity, human expression and our relationship with the digital world.
Across Europe, festivals are becoming spaces for experimentation, bringing together art, science and technology to explore both the opportunities and the questions raised by these transformations. Step into a world where art meets technology, and discover festivals inviting us to imagine, question, and experience the future of artistic creation.
Patchlab Digital Art Festival
15 - 18 October 2026
Kraków, Poland
May AI Help You? A question we are becoming increasingly familiar with, but one that Patchlab Digital Art Festival invites us to reconsider. As artificial intelligence becomes part of our creative processes, is it simply a helpful tool, a new artistic partner, or something that could eventually shape our creativity?
With a touch of irony, the festival's 14th edition explores the relationship between humans and machines, questioning who really holds the reins. From a poetic dialogue between human and AI in Misalignment to Ali Phi's Decompositions for Computers, inspired by discarded data and the digital traces we leave behind, Patchlab takes us behind the algorithms.
Rather than asking machines for answers, perhaps it is time to ask them a few questions.
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Facebook
Signal Festival: Dream on! – Dreams and Visions
15 - 18 October 2026
Prague, Czechia
What if technology could make our dreams come true? Or at least bring them to life?
For four evenings, Signal Festival transforms Prague into a playground for the imagination. Under the theme of Dream on! – Dreams and Visions, light installations, kinetic sculptures and digital artworks take over the city's streets, galleries and historic buildings, blurring the boundaries between reality and dreams.
Drawing inspiration from surrealism, the festival gives a contemporary twist to the exploration of the subconscious. Where surrealists once turned to painting and poetry, today's artists experiment with algorithms, sensors, movement, and light. Here, technology is not simply something to understand or question, but a way to see the familiar world differently. And perhaps, for a moment, experience the impossible.
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Facebook
Internationales Digitalkunst Festival
1 - 30 November 2026
Stuttgart, Germany
Who said art belongs to museums?
Certainly not the Internationales Digitalkunst Festival (IDKF). Eccentric, eclectic and deliberately unconventional, the festival challenges the rules of how art should be created, displayed, and experienced. Forget the traditional gallery or concert hall: IDKF brings digital and experimental art into unexpected places, inviting audiences to encounter creativity beyond its usual settings.
In a world where the physical and virtual increasingly overlap, the festival brings together artists from different disciplines to explore the possibilities of this interconnected reality. With its uncurated approach and unconventional locations, IDKF questions not only what art can become through technology, but also who gets to experience it and where. After all, if technology can push the boundaries of artistic creation, why should art remain confined to four walls?
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Facebook (The Window of Dreams by Cendrine Robelin (Experimental Cinema))
ITERATIONS
10 - 12 December 2026
Arnhem, Netherlands
Behind every digital artwork, there is a code. But what if code itself became an artistic medium?
At ITERATIONS, creativity is not limited to a paintbrush, an instrument or a camera. Organised by Creative Coding Utrecht, this symposium brings together international makers from different disciplines who use programming as a means of artistic expression.
Through presentations, interactive sessions, and workshops, participants explore machine learning, computational craft, and creative education while reflecting on how emerging technologies might open new creative possibilities. Inclusivity is at the heart of these exchanges, encouraging different voices to take part in shaping the future of creative coding.
And while algorithms may follow instructions, creativity rarely follows a straight line. At ITERATIONS, the most interesting possibilities might emerge when artists start rewriting the rules.
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Facebook (Creative Coding Utrecht)
transmediale: RFC 40
27 - 31 January 2027
Berlin, Germany
What happens when the system crashes? At transmediale, even an error can become a starting point for something new.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Berlin festival looks back to the early days of the internet with RFC 40, a reference to a 1970 document exploring how networks communicate failures. Almost six decades later, the question remains surprisingly relevant: how can we build systems that remain open, adaptable, and connected, even when things go wrong?
Through its festival ground states and exhibition of fragile currents, transmediale explores the less visible sides of our digital world: the infrastructures we depend on, the inequalities they can reinforce and the alternative futures we might build together. Bringing artists, researchers and communities into dialogue, the festival challenges the idea that technological progress must follow a single path.
Perhaps the future of technology is not simply about making better machines but about rethinking the systems we share. And sometimes, that begins with questioning the ones we already have.
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Facebook (Finding Fanon by Larry Achiampong and David Blandy. Photo: © Luca Girardini / transmediale, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Biennale En Commun(s): VOYAGER
8 March - 30 June 2027
Évry-Courcouronnes, Combs-la-Ville, France
After questioning the systems that shape our present, why not imagine the worlds of tomorrow?
With its second edition, VOYAGER, Biennale En Commun(s) invites audiences on a journey that goes far beyond geographical borders. What might our planet look like in the future? How will technology transform the environments we inhabit? And where might our imagination take us next?
Taking science fiction as its guiding thread, the Biennale brings together digital art, visual arts, design and scientific research to explore alternative futures. Through installations, performances, exhibitions, and participatory projects, more than twenty artists invite visitors to travel across imagined spaces, changing environments, and possible realities.
But this journey is also a collective one. Spread across cultural venues, schools, universities and community spaces south of Paris, the Biennale brings artistic experimentation closer to everyday life, encouraging encounters between artists, researchers and local communities.
Find out more about the festival here
Photo credits via: Festival Finder (© Dylan Cote / © MJR Earving (2025))
