MUTEK Connect 2020: a new global MUTEK experience

Credit: Hiroaki Umeda

Building bridges and working as a network to support the promotion, exhibition, training and internationalization of artistic communities and cultural agents, who work around digital creativity in sound, music and visual arts, has been MUTEK’s main motivation for more than 2 decades. A motivation, which is now more necessary than ever, due to the new challenges derived from the global health crisis.

Inspired by the mandate and objectives of the INTER_CONNECT project presented in 2017, the MUTEK International Network has developed a new initiative, in a hybrid format of physical and virtual events, called: MUTEK Connect.

MUTEK Connect is presented as a unique opportunity to develop, experiment and evaluate a new model of digital interconnectivity based on the multiple and strengthened cultural connections existing between the MUTEK headquarters in Montréal, Mexico City, Barcelona, ​​Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Tokyo. The objective is to offer artists, promoters and cultural organizations - from each city - the possibility of connecting, thus expanding their audiences so that they can give greater visibility to their artistic community and so that they can establish professional ties through collaborative activities and the opportunities for exhibition and professionalization that the platform offers them.

The program of activities of MUTEK Connect 2020 will be integrated into the framework of the next editions of the MUTEK festivals: MUTEK Montréal Edition 21 (September 8 to 13), MUTEK Mexico Edition 17 (24 to 29 November) and MUTEK Japan Edition 5 (December 9-13).

These will present an ad hoc program of professional content (Digi Lab, MUTEK Forum) and performances (A/Visions, Play, Nocturne) generated, for the first time, from each of the cities and for a global audience. This, in addition to supporting the artistic communities, will create a professional exchange network between the venues that will continue to function over time; and it will promote a more sustainable and sustained model, which will facilitate and globalize the circulation of new content.

The MUTEK Connect programs produced by each city will be presented through the new virtual platform designed from Montreal, in collaboration with Folklore agency, which will host:

• three virtual Stages will be home to nearly 60 audiovisual performances captured live indoors each evening in Montréal, or elsewhere in the MUTEK network and its international partners
• an interactive Gallery will offer up more than 20 VR, AI, video or sound pieces
• an Auditorium will provide a selection of masterclasses and presentations from MUTEK Forum, hosted by artists in the fields of sound design and digital creativity
• a Listening Room will feature a continuous selection of live performances recorded at MUTEK over the past 20 years.
• the online broadcasts will be open to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world.

In addition to the five cities that are part of the MUTEK network, three other partners will be taking part in the virtual version of the MUTEK Montreal festival: the Transart Festival in Italy, cultural venue Chapelle XIV in France, as well as artistic centre B39 and its associated festival, PRECTXE, in South Korea. In total, 9 programs totalling 25 performances will add diversity to the Festival's online experience.

Parallel to the virtual platform and the performance program, the MUTEK Forum presents a virtual market of ideas that will serve to inspire and bring together creative and innovative minds through a program of live talks, presentations or round tables, in a hybrid format, with the public present in their places of origin and with global audiences connected online. The content of the Forum will inhabit a dedicated online platform and will bring together more than 600 people and 200 organizations with the aim of providing everyone with a path to online exploration adapted to their needs.

More details here.

For all this, MUTEK will promote its role as a cultural facilitator, inviting from each of its headquarters, collectives and projects focused on artistic creation to present their work at the MUTEK Forum, providing them with international visibility, increasing their contact networks and promoting synergies between their counterparts in the rest of the cities.

MUTEK Connect will explore new models that drive the creative industries and digital arts, and examine critical technology-related political and ethics issues that emerged from recent events. The artists and partners will participate in the debate on the new models of touring and live concerts both in physical spaces and in digital format, and on alternative monetization possibilities, aspects of great relevance for the positive development of our cultural field.

MUTEK Connect will offer artists from the different cities a great opportunity to meet, exchange and present their work in a favourable and highly visible context thanks to the virtual platform.

Discover the complete program of all MUTEK Connect 2020 collaborations:

Connect MUTEK.AR
Bionautas (Jonas Kopp & Flor del Valle) ^AR Live A/V Bruno De Vincenti ^AR – Hyper Dreams (VJ Javier Casadidio ^AR) Efe Ce Ele ^CO/AR – Biosynthetic Borders Live A/V Flor de Fuego ^AR – Fractal Live A/V Naiborg ^AR (VJ MMOS ^AR) SidiRum ^AR (VJ Tama ^AR)

Connect MUTEK.ES
Joana Gomila ^ES Marina Herlop ^ES

Connect MUTEK.JP
Ai.step ^JP Live A/V Hiroaki Umeda ^JP — Intensional Particle Live A/V Junichi Akagawa ^JP — Geist on the Lake Live A/V Sakura Tsuruta & asagi ^JP Live A/V

Connect MUTEK.MX
Mabe Fratti & Milena Pafundi ^GT/MX+AR Live A/V Wasted Fates & Future Forward ^MX — Illuminations Live A/V

Connect MUTEK.SF
Arushi Jain & Carly Lave ^US — GOLEM (via GHUNGHRU) George Hurd ^US — Echolocation

Connect B39/PRECTXE
ARTEXTE ^KR — Blade Live A/V COR3A ^KR — Same Old Fear, Conditional Trigs, Run Run Run LIVE A/V KnovCompile ^KR — Reconstructive LIVE A/V

Connect Chapelle XIV
Bambounou ^FR DJ set Molly FR NSDOS ^FR — The Man In The Middle

Connect Festival Transart
Grand River & Marco C ^NL+IT — 0,13% Live A/V Maotik & Maarten Vos ^FR+NL — Erratic Weather Live A/V