MUTEK Forum Returns with Symbiotic Frequencies: 100+…

MUTEK Forum returns from August 26 to 28 for three days of radical imagination and curated exchange. Across research, creative practices, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the Forum unites artists, studios, institutions, researchers, digital experts, and more around audiovisual performance, electronic music, artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), ecology, media art, and design.

Alongside the Forum, the 2026 edition expands the MUTEK Market, with dedicated space for curated 1:1 matchmaking and ecosystem-building between creatives and delegates from around the world.

Symbiotic Frequencies

MUTEK Forum unfolds under the theme Symbiotic Frequencies. As AI, algorithmic automation, and digital systems reshape how we sense, know, and relate to the world, the most pressing question is no longer what technology can do, but what we want it to become.

MUTEK Forum 2026 brings together artists, technologists, researchers, and cultural practitioners actively shaping that answer to explore the role of creative practice in building more ethical, sustainable, and human-centered technological futures.

“Symbiotic Frequencies is an invitation to listen differently, to recognize that the vibrations shaping our world, sonic, algorithmic, ecological, are entangled relationships to be cultivated. From living systems and biosignals to the many forms intelligence can take, this year’s Forum explores the places where bodies, technologies, and ecosystems are increasingly, inextricably linked. What becomes possible when artists, technologists, and communities truly attune themselves to each other? What does it mean to create, think, and listen together in a world whose interdependencies we are only beginning to understand?”

— Sarah Mackenzie, Director of MUTEK Forum and Creative Development

Day 1: Storytelling: Expanding Realities, presented by the Canada Media Fund (CMF)

The Forum's first day turns storytelling inside out, asking what narrative becomes when it is felt, inhabited, and collectively lived.

Loretta Sarah Todd, Founder and Creative Director of Indigenous media lab IM4 Lab, opens the day with a critical reflection on who gets to tell the stories, and how. Later, French filmmaker Lou Fauroux presents a screening of her film What Remains, Genesis, a speculative fiction set in 2048, where a digital immortality software developed by Google is hijacked by hackers who democratize its access, weaving together AI, techno-capitalism, collective resistance, and queer futurity.

Photo: Loretta Sarah Todd

For the third year in a row, MUTEK is proud to partner with the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO) on Indigenous Immersions, a programming trajectory featuring a selection of activities that highlight Indigenous new media creators, artists, and creative technologists across the full three days of MUTEK Forum. As part of this trajectory, multidisciplinary artist and Sobey Art Award nominee Caroline Monnet, presented by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) will deliver an artist talk and Q&A moderated by Mojeanne Behzadi, curator at MAC.

A handful of Forum sessions explore innovations in digital creativity. Entangled Spaces: Art, Technology and the Future of Cultural Engagement, presented by Communicating the Arts, explores what emerges when creativity and technology intersect in unexpected ways. The session features a presentation from Tracy Rector, whose work centers on an unsanctioned digital intervention that brought together seventeen Indigenous artists to reframe the narratives of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

XN Québec will co-present a series of case studies presentations, highlighting the future of immersive technologies. Hosted by Vanessa Costa from TIFF: The Market (Producer, Innovation), New Horizons: What’s Next in Immersive is a series of case study presentations, showcasing the most exciting projects and innovations in the industry. Immersive Iterations: Storytelling Across Platforms, hosted by Josh Goldblum of Futurespaces, features Samantha King (VIVE Arts), Denys Lavigne (OASIS Immersion) and audiovisual artist Line Katcho in a panel exploring how immersive works can be built with distribution and adaptability in mind from the start.

Presented with SODEC, 10 years of Atelier Grand Nord XR: Pushing the Boundaries of XR Creation celebrates a decade of francophone immersive creation with a retrospective and forward-looking conversation moderated by Éloi Champagne (National Film Board of Canada).

MUTEK is also partnering with Ic3y Mag to present an immersive listening session of Jump Source’s long-awaited album Fold, followed by a conversation dissecting the collaborative process behind the album led by Nyshka Chandran from Resident Advisor.

At the multidisciplinary production house DASA, Swiss-French composer and sound artist Noémi Büchi will lead a hands-on masterclass examining how digital tools can serve as compositional, performative, and organizational environments for live electronic music. Collective interactivity, a workshop offered by Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), will explore collective interactive practices in immersive environments.

Day 2: Technology: Future Interfaces

Day 2 of MUTEK Forum moves into the architecture of tools, asking what it means to create, think, and sense alongside intelligent systems. From biosignals and generative AI to Indigenous data sovereignty and hyper-imaging, the sessions probe not just what these tools make possible, but what kinds of relationships, responsibilities, and futures they call into being.

Presented and moderated by Epson, Into the Visuals: Where Installation Meets Live Experience brings together visual artist Mika Oki, Moment Factory, and Kamil Nawratil (Volvox Labs) to examine how installation-based approaches influence live performance through expanded storytelling, spatial design, and sensory experience.

Photo: Mika Oki

A thread running through the day explores living matter, body-nature relationships, and the limits of intelligence itself. In their lecture-performance Cosmosapience: Embodying our Planetary Mind, Southern California-based interdisciplinary artists and researchers Katie Hofstadter and Memo Akten (Superradiance Center for Entangled Intelligence and Planetary Consciousness) weave together ancient biotechnologies, poetry, dance, and ritual, with artificial intelligence and generative systems to interrogate what intelligence really means, and what we risk losing when we look for it in the wrong places.

Further sessions examine the most pressing questions at the intersection of AI, creativity, and the body, tracing how biosignals, machine perception, and generative systems are reshaping artistic practice and raising urgent questions around authorship, agency, and collaboration with non-human intelligences. Jackson 2bears (OTEKH Labs), member of the Abundant Intelligences research team, presents Land-Based AI Ecologies, drawing from Indigenous research-creation projects centered on reciprocity, data sovereignty, and community governance.

Developed in partnership with MozFest, Tuning the Machine: Power, Protocol, and Creative AI is a panel grounded in concrete solutions: licensing, frameworks, open protocols, and transparency tools, examining what fair and just AI actually looks like in practice for music and digital creativity. Featuring Margaret McGuffin (Music Publishers Canada), Sean Power (Musical AI), Jesse McKee (221A), and esteemed music lawyer Elizabeth Moody (Granderson Des Rochers, LLP), who has built her practice around helping clients navigate the AI space and counsels generative voice and audio AI companies, right holders on AI strategies, and organizations including Fairly Trained, Audioshake, and Sureel AI. This panel is moderated by Mozilla Festival Director Zeina Abi Assy.

Day 3: Sound: Ecologies of Listening, presented by DistroKid

Day 3 turns toward sound as both medium and metaphor, tracing the deep entanglements between sound system culture, quantum physics, immersive technologies, and the politics of who gets to build and move through sonic space. This year, the Forum deepens its commitment to sound system culture through dedicated programming developed in collaboration with MORPH, a queer and femme-led collective reclaiming sound system culture and technical spaces, alongside the Sound System Lab, a showcase of Montreal's vibrant community of builders and operators.

From Kingston to the World: Jamaican Sound System Culture is a conversation with legendary Jamaican sound system builder and elder Uncle Ronnie (Ronald Jarrett), hosted by D’Ari Lisle (Darkspark Creative Society). The next generation of sound system builders and sonic explorers takes the stage: Fait Poms, Salima Punjani, and Afrosonic Innovation Lab share the projects and ideas carrying the tradition into new territory.

Photo: Uncle Ronnie

A panel on Quantum Listening then brings together artists and scientists, including organist Kara-Lis Coverdale, media arts curator Eva Fischer (soundframe / Civa Festival, Vienna), and poet, performer, and healer Rena Anakwe (NEW INC), to ask what it truly means to listen, and how conditions of uncertainty can reshape creative practice.

Other sessions will examine key topics for the electronic music industry, including care, capital, and accountability in electronic music, presented in partnership with Debaser, and activities examining sustainable alternatives for music. Frequency and Footprint: Rethinking the Live Experience opens with an introduction by Sergio Parra Aguilera (Canadian Live Music Association), offering a first look at the Climate Contingency Roadmap project, followed by a panel with Chloé Gatignol (Courts-Circuits), Samantha Melnyk (KORG), and Amber Mundinger (L-Acoustics), moderated by Pauline Bourdon (Soliphilia). The session examines whether innovation and sustainability can truly align as the technologies powering live performances evolve at an unprecedented pace, while pointing toward concrete solutions.

The day also features a worldbuilding workshop by award-winning XR filmmaker Paisley Smith, presented by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

Industry Networking

MUTEK Forum 2026 creates dedicated space for connection across a series of cocktails and industry meetups.

On August 27, Derivative welcomes the TouchDesigner community and those interested in interactive media art to a meetup with presentations, knowledge sharing, and discussions focused on the TouchDesigner visual development platform.

On August 28, La Piscine is co-organizing a meetup that will bring together professionals from the cultural and creative industries to explore how sustainability can evolve from a constraint into a genuine lever for business growth and innovation. Through case studies, practical demonstrations, and a collaborative workshop, participants will leave with actionable strategies and new professional connections.

An Expanded MUTEK Market

This year, MUTEK Market returns from August 26 to 28 in a significantly expanded format, now fully integrated across the festival as one of its defining features. MUTEK Market includes a dedicated B2B space at Wilder Building - Espace danse, in the heart of the Quartier des spectacles, hosting daily curated 1:1 meetings between international delegates and Québec and Canada creatives, alongside three days of conferences, case studies, performance lectures, and industry cocktails as part of MUTEK Forum.

Studios, companies, and export-ready artists based in Québec working in digital arts, immersive media, music technology, and related fields are invited to submit their interest in participating in the MUTEK Market. Decision-makers, presenters, and curators outside of Québec from festivals, museums, cultural institutions, performing arts venues, public spaces, cities, and municipalities are also invited to submit their interest.

The deadline to submit your call for participation is July 15.

Box Office

MUTEK Forum offers several ticketing options, including the Forum Passport and the Festival + Forum Passport, along with the Student Forum Passport at a fixed price of $90 (+ service fees and taxes). Starting today, Day Passes are also available for purchase at the special price of $85 (+ service fees and taxes).

Tickets

MUTEK would like to thank its partners, who play a key role in the maintenance and development of its activities and have provided particular support towards the production of the Forum.

The Government of Québec, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the ministère du Tourisme du Québec, the Secrétariat à la région métropolitaine du ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation du Québec, the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec, the ministère de l'Économie, de l'Innovation et de l'Énergie du Québec, the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, FACTOR and Canada's private radio broadcasters, the Department of Canadian Heritage, Musicaction, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Ville de Montréal, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, the Consulat général de France à Québec, Society for Arts and Technology, Hôtel Monville, Indigenous Screen Office, DistroKid, Canada Media Fund (CMF), TouchDesigner, Epson, Milieux Institute, XN Québec, Moment Factory, The Lumen Prize, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), SOCAN, Communicating the Arts, Ic3y Mag, Obscura, National Film Board of Canada, La Piscine, Debaser, Mozilla Festival, World Creation Studio and DASA.