About MUTEK Forum

MUTEK Forum is the professional platform of MUTEK dedicated to exploring, developing, and showcasing creative technologies for artistic research, digital creation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Based in Montreal, the Forum brings together each year an international community of artists, researchers, technology professionals, cultural institutions, and innovative organizations.

Mission

MUTEK Forum creates a space where artists and technology professionals come together to expand collective imaginaries through alternative perspectives and radical ideas. Through artist residency and development programs, conferences, screenings, masterclasses, networking events, demonstrations, and workshops, the Forum critically examines technological futures and the intrinsic role of digital creativity.

Its mission is to support the development of artistic practices related to creative technologies, foster knowledge sharing, and build a strong professional network around digital creation, electronic music, and media arts.

Approach and Values

MUTEK Forum adopts a distinctly artist-centered approach, placing emphasis on innovative practices, concrete discussions, and horizontal exchanges between peers. The Forum foregrounds ethical considerations, the ecological sustainability of technologies, and the social impact of digital innovation at the core of its programming.

By facilitating knowledge sharing and international networking among industry professionals, MUTEK Forum highlights the most recent, inspiring, and responsible practices in creative digital technologies.

Annual Gathering in Montreal

Having evolved since its first edition in 2013, the annual MUTEK Forum gathering now takes place in August, alongside the MUTEK festival, in Montreal. It brings together artists, institutions, researchers, technology professionals, digital experts, curators, and innovators, fostering collaboration and dialogue across disciplines.

Spanning a wide range of fields—including music, artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), quantum physics, ecology, media art, video games, architecture, and design—the Forum explores the intersections between these sectors to generate new connections, working methods, and ideas.

The MUTEK Market

With the MUTEK Market, a program designed to accelerate and develop artistic careers, the Forum strengthens its mission to support industry professionals. The Market brings together in one place a wide range of presenters, programmers, curators, and multidisciplinary festivals, offering essential visibility to artists in electronic music and digital arts.

The MUTEK Market offers exclusive networking opportunities, one-on-one meetings between artists and buyers, as well as studio visits. It particularly supports emerging artists from Québec and Canada performing at the MUTEK festival in the development of their international careers, while enabling industry professionals to track emerging trends.

Learn more

Key Activities of MUTEK Forum

• Annual MUTEK Forum Gathering in Montreal
  An international event held during MUTEK, as part of the festival’s daytime programming, bringing together a diverse community of artists, technologists, and innovators.

• MUTEK Market
  An initiative dedicated to artist career development and to connecting emerging talent with international decision-makers: targeted networking, one-on-one meetings, showcases, and studio visits.

• Research and Creation
  Residencies, labs, and think tanks—such as Future Festivals or AI Ecologies Lab—that provide time, resources, and support to experiment with new forms of creation and mediation.

• International Educational and Professional Events
  Conferences, workshops, and training programs organized or co-presented by MUTEK Forum internationally, during MUTEK satellite events or in partnership with other festivals and institutions.

• International Export Missions
  Professional delegations organized by MUTEK in cities such as Barcelona, Mexico City, or Tokyo, fostering connections between local scenes and international networks.

Who is it for?

MUTEK Forum is intended for:

• artists, collectives, studios, and creators working in digital arts, electronic music, media arts, creative AI, XR, video games, architecture, and design;

• cultural professionals: producers, curators, programmers, managers, and representatives of organizations and festivals;

• researchers, students, and experts in creative technologies, immersive media, digital innovation, and cultural policy;

• institutional partners and public or private stakeholders interested in the intersections of art, technology, innovation, and society.