MUTEK Forum 2026 returns to Montréal under the theme “Symbiotic Frequencies,” bringing together artists, writers, researchers, curators, technologists and cultural thinkers working across AI, sound, XR, ecology, media art, gaming and digital culture. Running alongside the wider MUTEK Festival, the Forum positions itself as a space for radical imagination, interdisciplinary exchange and critical reflection on the shifting relationships between bodies, technologies and ecosystems.
"MUTEK Forum 2026 unfolds under the theme Symbiotic Frequencies, an acknowledgment that something is shifting in the web of relations between bodies, technologies, and ecosystems, and that we are all entangled in it, whether we chose it or not. Existing boundaries between disciplines, cultures, and intelligences are dissolving, giving way to multiple, overlapping networks that cut across technology, climate, geopolitics, and art."—MUTEK Montréal
The 2026 Forum programme is articulated through several thematic strands that cut across the three days:
(Artificial) Intelligence, Myth and the Non-Human
Within “(Artificial) Intelligence, Myth and the Non-Human”, MUTEK Forum brings together Mindy Seu, New Models (Caroline Busta and Lil Internet), Zach Blas and Claire L. Evans, among others, to probe the sexual and spiritual unconscious of the internet, AI’s techno-religious imaginaries and alternative, more embodied notions of intelligence.
Story, Memory and Indigenous Futures
“Story, Memory and Indigenous Futures” features Caroline Monnet, Tracy Renée Rector and the collaborative duo Murthovic & Thiruda, who rework colonial, institutional and cinematic narratives across film, AR interventions and speculative live performance, opening onto Indigenous and climate-attuned futures.
Sound Systems and Embodied Listening
Under “Sound Systems and Embodied Listening”, Honeydrip, MORPH, Fait Poms, Salima Punjani, the Afrosonic Innovation Lab, Sonic Street Technologies and Tati au Miel explore sound systems as infrastructures of power, care and resistance, from custom speaker design and vibrotactile environments to workshops on active listening and spatial sound.
Together, these strands weave AI, Indigenous epistemologies, speculative world-building, and sound system culture into a continuous inquiry into how intelligence, memory, and listening are being reshaped across bodies, technologies, and ecosystems.
Day 1
Storytelling: Expanding Realities
presented by the Canada Media Fund (CMF)
Day 2
Technology: Future Interfaces
Day 3
Sound: Collective Resonance
MUTEK Market
The 2026 edition also marks an expansion of MUTEK Market, the festival’s professional marketplace for digital creativity. With curated 1:1 matchmaking, ecosystem-building sessions and a dedicated space at Édifice Wilder–Espace danse, MUTEK Market aims to connect artists and creative studios with international presenters, curators and industry leaders.
About MUTEK
Founded in Montréal in 2000, MUTEK has become an international reference point for forward-thinking electronic music, audiovisual art and digital culture. Its Forum continues this legacy by serving not only as a conference, but as a live incubator for the ideas shaping contemporary art, technology and creative practice.
For the first time, MUTEK Forum welcomes The Lumen Prize, the world's leading award for art created with technology, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, as a partner.
