MUTEK.ES 2021: una nueva mutación con miradas hacia el futuro

After the recent and successful hybrid edition carried out between MUTEK Japan and MUTEK Mexico, the cycle of the MUTEK International Network in 2020 comes to an end. The next meeting of the network at a global level will be from May 3 to 8, 2021 and the hosts will be the headquarters of Spain and Argentina, which will be joined by the rest of the MUTEK cities within the framework of the MUTEK Connect program.

After the edition of last March '20 of the MUTEK Barcelona festival - the only one in the Network that was held under the old normality - the 12th edition of the festival in Barcelona exceptionally moves its dates to next May together with its counterpart in Buenos Aires. This special bilateral edition will be presented in a hybrid format of physical and virtual events, retransmitted on the online platform virtual.mutek.org

Both teams have already started to work on the joint program that will be announced in early 2021 and will include educational activities, live connections from emblematic venues in both cities, a line-up that will serve as a bridge for Latin American and European artists and that will promote special collaborations and projects commissioned by both cities. The virtual programming will be complemented by the collaborations between the MUTEK Network and other international festivals as part of the MUTEK Connect initiative.

This joint edition will be a further step in the exploration of new hybrid formats, projecting a new era of interconnectivity between the MUTEK Network and its international partners, and giving continuity to the work begun in 2020.

“2020 has been a real challenge and roller coaster of emotions, which began with the joy and satisfaction of our 11th edition in March. Little could we imagine what would come just a few days later. Inspired by the strong values of our International Network, looking back, 2020 has been a year where our objectives and mandates have had more value than ever. We’ve worked to build solid bridges, we have committed ourselves to attend to the emergency that our local and international artistic and professional communities were experiencing and we have experimented with a new hybrid model that, in a way, already existed but that has been materialized through the MUTEK Connect initiative.

With MUTEK Connect, our artistic communities connected with a global audience on multiple occasions, virtually traveling to up to 4 MUTEK editions in the same year. Seen in perspective, this has been a great opportunity to discover, connect and make our artistic communities visible in ways that we might not have explored in the short term.

Our team and collaborators have maintained their work linked to the Association; and above all, we have managed to bring the public closer to cultural experiences related to digital creativity, which had been drastically reduced due to restrictions throughout the sector. We've gained a lot by being able to discover even more local talent and finding a way to support them globally.