Vorspiel 2026

a citywide programme
by spaces and initiatives
around transmediale
and CTM festivals



Spaces


Events

Fri, 16.01.

18:00, wrangel66 Exhibition, Performance, Installation, Vernissage

19:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation, Vernissage


20:30, panke.gallery Concert, Performance

21:00, panke.gallery Exhibition, Performance, Installation

neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) Exhibition

wrangel66 Exhibition, Performance, Workshop, Installation

panke e.V Exhibition, Performance, DJ set, Installation, Vernissage, Hybrid Event

panke.gallery Vernissage

Sat, 17.01.

14:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

16:00, studio baustelle Exhibition, Performance, Installation, Lecture, Screening

18:00, Halfsister Exhibition, Vernissage

18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Vernissage

/rosa Exhibition, Vernissage

Sun, 18.01.
05:00, Hotel Continental - Art Space in Exile Performance


15:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

15:00, studio baustelle Exhibition, Performance, Installation, Lecture, Screening

16:00, Halfsister Exhibition

Mon, 19.01.
19:00, Make-Believe Studio Workshop

19:00, /rosa Workshop

19:00, Trust.support Lecture

Tue, 20.01.
19:00, Studio dB Concert, Performance, Installation

Wed, 21.01.


Thu, 22.01.
11:00, Make-Believe Studio Workshop

17:00, DOCK 11 / DOCKdigital Exhibition, Performance, Hybrid Event

19:00, ZK/U - Center for Art and Urbanistics Exhibition, Vernissage

19:00, ZK/U - Center for Art and Urbanistics Exhibition

19:00, Jaime Levy / TVOD Productions Concert, Performance

19:30, alpha nova & galerie futura Performance, Installation, Screening


Fri, 23.01.

14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation


18:00, wrangel66 Exhibition, Installation


18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

19:00, Backhaus Projects Concert, Performance

Sat, 24.01.
14:00, wrangel66 Exhibition, Workshop

14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

14:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

16:00, Halfsister Exhibition

18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

20:00, DOCK 11 / DOCKdigital Concert, Performance, DJ set, Hybrid Event, Screening

20:00, Bodrum-Berlin Performance


Shared Frame Exhibition, Concert, DJ set, Hybrid Event

Sun, 25.01.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition


16:00, Halfsister Performance

16:00, Halfsister Exhibition

Mon, 26.01.
19:30, Lichtblick Kino Concert, Performance, Hybrid Event, Screening

Tue, 27.01.
11:00, Make-Believe Studio Workshop

Wed, 28.01.
12:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

16:00, Pilz Kunst Labor / Satellit Performance, Workshop, Installation, Lecture, Screening

19:00, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) Performance, Screening

Thu, 29.01.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) Exhibition, Lecture

18:00, Make-Believe Studio Workshop


19:00, panke.gallery Hybrid Event, Lecture

19:00, Jaime Levy / TVOD Productions Concert, Performance

Fri, 30.01.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

14:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

15:00, top e.V. Exhibition, Performance, DJ set, Workshop, Installation, Hybrid Event, Screening

16:00, Illulab at Illuseum Berlin Concert, Installation


18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition


19:00, Uferstudios Performance

19:00, Baumhaus Performance

19:30, MotionLab.Berlin Hybrid Event

Sat, 31.01.

14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

15:30 Performance

16:00, Halfsister Exhibition

17:00, Public Art Lab Exhibition

18:00, /rosa Exhibition, Vernissage

18:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

18:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation


19:00, Uferstudios Performance

top e.V. Exhibition, Performance, DJ set, Workshop, Installation, Hybrid Event, Screening

Sun, 01.02.

14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, Apartment Project Exhibition

15:00, Bodrum-Berlin Finissage

15:00, Bodrum-Berlin Exhibition

16:00, Halfsister Exhibition


17:00, Dreifaltigkeitskirche Concert

18:00, Make-Believe Studio Concert, Performance

19:00, Uferstudios Performance


Thu, 05.02.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

Fri, 06.02.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

15:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

Sat, 07.02.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

14:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

18:00, SCOTTY – Raum für aktuelle Kunst und experimentelle Medien Exhibition, Installation

Sun, 08.02.
14:00, Art Laboratory Berlin Exhibition, Installation

Mon, 09.02.

Articles


The Vorspiel Collection brings together artworks, films, photo-essays, texts, graphs, images, podcasts, sound experiments, and more.


Image Gallery

Find some impressions of the 2022 opening here.


Video

Our famous interview Staffette has returned! Watch this year's edition featuring a few of the participating spaces of Vorspiel / transmediale & CTM. The 2022 edition marks the 11th anniversary of our initiative and aim to showcase the richness and diversity of Berlin's independent project spaces and artist initiatives.


Video

A look behind the Shared Frame streamed event for Vorspiel 2021 (pandemic edition).


Essay

How we got there and how important it was for Panke.


Essay Artwork

Postcards from the Metaverse speculates on the value of the popular 20th century medium – the postcard – in providing accessible and underrepresented perspectives on a newly- hyped infrastructure


Essay

Former transmediale artistic director Kristoffer Gansing applies a bit of home-grown numerology to reminisce about the secrets of Vorspiel!


Essay

The reSource network has been an extremely valuable resource in the process of establishing and running SPEKTRUM Berlin. It allowed us to connect with like-minded people in the city, to start up new collaborations, and to learn from those facing similar issues in running project spaces.


Essay

The essay summarizes the Czech-Brazilian cultural theorist and media philosopher Vilém Flusser’s ideas on the apparatus, codes, and programmed and manipulated society. He ends his texts by highlighting the importance of artists who might be able to play with and against the apparatus and challenge mass media and their preprogrammed functions.


Essay

From 2011 to 2014, Tatiana Bazzichelli and a team of others designed a sprawling event program called “reSource transmedial culture Berlin,” which picked up on transmediale-related projects and flung them far further.


Essay

Since 2013 designtransfer – the gallery and communicates interface of the Faculty of Design, Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin) and the public – participates yearly at Vorspiel to present various projects as exhibitions, installations, and talks related to their New Media & Design courses.


Video

Watch a digital interview Staffette with some of the participating spaces of Vorspiel / transmediale & CTM. The 2021 edition marks the 10th anniversary of our initiative and aim to showcase the richness and diversity of Berlin's independent project spaces and artist initiatives in collaboration with transmediale.


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Events Exhibition, Performance, DJ set, Workshop, Installation, Hybrid Event, Screening

ecoSYNTH² — Living Interfaces


15:00 –
top e.V.

ecoSYNTH² — Living Interfaces Vorspiel 2026 · CTM × transmediale 30–31 January 2026 · Berlin

ecoSYNTH² returns for its second edition as part of Vorspiel 2026 (CTM × transmediale), hosted by TOP Lab, a transdisciplinary community space and Berlin's first DIY biolab.

As part of the Vorspiel program, which highlights independent and self-organised spaces across Berlin, we reopen our exhibition space and basement biolab for screenings, discussions, and hybrid encounters between art, ecology, and technology. ecoSYNTH² focuses on living interfaces, multispecies alchemy, biohacking, and more-than-human ecological synthesis—where digital media meets living systems, and art becomes a tool for sensing, resistance, and transformation. We aim to incubate anti-capitalist futures, host critical conversations, and create space for practices operating between code, culture, and biology.

Program Overview 

30 January opens with workshops, talks, and the exhibition in our main space. Film screenings and experimental cinema take place inside the biolab basement, creating an intimate, scientifically and aesthetically charged environment where digital culture meets living processes.

FREE ENTRY

31 January deploys as a three-stage club night curated by RAPSODICA, a Berlin-based collective rooted in underground culture, pushing the intersection of art and technology and gradually creating new standards within the scene.

RAPSODICA will present INTERFERENZA, a collaborative effort with TOP LAB, a biolab edition of their ongoing series, where experimental art spaces converge with rave and club culture through the work of forward-thinking artists.

Doors open on 31 January at 22:00 for a three-stage club night inside the biolab, carrying us through the night into 1 February.

ENTRY donation based - suggested 15€-22€

By opening our wet lab to the public and inviting people into living systems in progress, we create a shared space for curiosity, care, and collective responsibility, blurring the line between learning, celebration, and being together—toward more regenerative ways of relating to the ecosystem and each other.

ecoSYNTH² creates space for critical conversations and hybrid practices operating between code, culture, and biology—and for experiencing science as something lived, shared, and embodied, dancing until early morning inside a mushroom lab.

ecoSYNTH² is guided by commitments to justice and solidarity, particularly with communities resisting occupation, genocide, ecocide, and displacement—including Palestine. The project operates outside institutional neutrality, understanding ecological work as inseparable from anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-war practice.

TOP Lab is a community-run, self-organized biolab and project space. We work with biofabrication, biohacking, citizen science, XR, and artistic research, bridging living materials and digital culture.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Ala Leresteux Alexandra Maciá Alfie Greenwood Alve Lagerkranz Camille Belmin Giorgio Aloatti Jeremy Leresteux Juliette Collas Karolina Cykowska-Halczuk Lou Huss Maria Dębińska Mauricio Franco Tosso Ramona Gomez Rininta Isdyani Tim van der Loo Tom Lane Xristina Sarli Yelta Köm

FULL PROGRAMME

Friday 30.01

15:00-17:00 Papermaking Workshop — Tim van der Loo

17:00-18:00 TOP PRESENTS — Panel with Xristina Sarli, Alve Lagerkranz and Juliette Collas

18:00-20:00 Talks — Maria Dębińska, ECOSLAY, RAPSODICA

21:15-22:00 Desquamation — Expanded cinema performance by Tom Lane

22:00-00:00 Film Screenings — ecoSYNTH² PROGRAMME III & AWARDS

WORKSHOP

PAPERMAKING WORKSHOP Tim van der Loo

Using a traditional mould and deckle, we transform leftover paper and natural fibres into a custom non-woven material that sits between paper and textile. By shredding the materials into smaller pieces, we create long fibres that, when laid onto the mould and deckle, form a uniform, continuous surface. This sheet is then pressed and dried in a warm environment. Because the fibres are sufficiently long, they interlock and bind to one another, creating a self-supporting surface suitable for a wide range of applications in art, architecture and design.

PANEL DISCUSSION & THE WRONG BIENNALE WALKTHROUGH (PRIMA MATERIA Pavilion)

TOP Lab presents a panel discussion followed by a guided walkthrough of the PRIMA MATERIA Pavilion at The Wrong Biennale.

The panel brings together Xristina Sarli, Alve Lagercranz, and Juliette Collas to discuss community-run biolabs, citizen science, and artistic research. The conversation addresses ecology as an interdisciplinary science and explores how independent spaces operate as sites of knowledge production, experimentation, and resistance within Berlin’s cultural and technological ecosystems.

Following the panel, participants are invited to a curatorial walkthrough of the PRIMA MATERIA Pavilion, introducing the four interconnected spaces and selected works.

The PRIMA MATERIA Pavilion becomes a site of origin stories—both biological and machinic—where sacred matter, ancient gods, and synthetic minds blur into one continuum. Visitors enter an elemental ground zero where myth, biology, ecology, and computation intermingle to reimagine intelligence beyond the human. The pavilion unfolds across four interconnected spaces, each tracing a strand of more-than-human intelligence.

Works by: AI, Alessandro Volpato, Alfie Greenwood, Alina Tofan, Alexandra Maciá, Alve Lagercranz, Andrea Bonfini / FADE OUT LABEL, Anna Maddalena Cingi, Arezou Ramezani, Benjamin Janzen, Christos Kourtidis, Cordyceps militaris, Emma Patmore, Emma Sicher, Enrico Dedin, Fomes fomentarius, Ganoderma applanatum, Ganoderma lucidum, Ganoderma sessile, Giorgio Alloatti, Helena Elston, Ivona Pelajic, Jan Klappenecker, Juliette Collas, Karin Weissenbrunner, Maria Dębińska, Maria Kobylenko, Markella Davu, Matteo Campulla, Mizuki Ishikawa, Mycelionaires, Mycohackers, Panellus stipticus, Pestalotiopsis microspora, Physarum polycephalum, Sharlene Durfey, Sigrid Savva, SYLIA, Tanja Vujinovic, Ulises Urra, Xristina Sarli, Yiou Wang.

🔗 Pavilion link: https://thewrong.org/PrimaMateria

Curated by Xristina Sarli In collaboration with TOP Lab Berlin, Germany

TALKS

Composting Horror Barbie 18:00-19:00 Maria Dębińska

Maria Dębińska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and an Affiliated Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin. She received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Warsaw in 2015 for her research on trans politics in Poland and works at the intersections of queer theory, science and technology studies, and bio-art.

Composting Horror Barbie explores the nexus of human, microbial, and inorganic temporalities, focusing on how different timescales interact and collide. The project examines a polyurethane corset that once belonged to an online entity known as Horror Barbie, investigating the possibilities of its decomposition by plastic-eating fungi. Through this case, the work reflects on mediation between biological decay, synthetic permanence, and cultural afterlives

ECOSLAY 19:00-20:00 Ramona Gomez (in person, Berlin) Camille Belmin (online)

Talk (Hybrid: on-site & online)

Ecoslay is a collective and association promoting eco-social engagement and intersectional environmentalism through popular culture formats and artistic strategies. Their work operates at the intersection of art, politics, and pop culture aesthetics, often approached through the figure of The Girl.

In October 2025, Ecoslay published the first volume of their publication Ecoslay, bringing together artistic and theoretical contributions that address ecology, power, desire, and representation through accessible and provocative visual languages.

DOVES THE COLOR OF LEAD 20:00-20:30 performative reading by Ramone Gomez

Ramona Gomez is an artist studying the cultural and historical significance of pigeons. For ecoSYNTH², she’ll be presenting her poetic sculptural work, Doves the Color of Lead

RAPSODICA 20:30-21:00 Hybrid Spaces Between Art, Science, and Nightlife

RAPSODICA transforms the biolab into a three-stage club night where sound, bodies, and living systems intersect, collapsing boundaries between laboratory, exhibition, and rave.

This talk introduces RAPSODICA’s practice within Berlin’s underground ecosystems, framing nightlife as a hybrid cultural space where art, science, and technology already co-exist. Drawing from DIY club culture, experimental art, and collective knowledge-making, the talk positions nightlife as an informal laboratory—a site of embodied research and shared experience that actively interferes with institutional logics of access, authorship, and control.

FILM SCREENINGS

ecoSYNTH² — PROGRAMME I · WAR AGAINST THE EARTH (140 min) Playlist order 15:00–17:20

Dreams of the Past — Dmitri Frolov PROLOG — Daniel Kuge Shot on 9.5mm — Antonio Arango FIRE! — Bruno Pavić Our Day Will Come — Matteo Campulla LA ESPIRAL DE LA CORRUPCIÓN NOS MANTIENE FLOTANDO (THE SPIRAL OF CORRUPTION KEEPS US FLOATING) — Mauricio Franco Tosso echoes of Clayoquot Sound — Zoran Dragelj THE MESSAGE — Bruno Pavić Exit Through the Debt Shop (Full Movie) — Jan Schekauski The Kittens' Tea Party— MilleFeuille A Weak & Panicked Animal — Jake Starr 2nd Day & the End of the World — Sara Koppel Consider — Ж LandBack — Magda Lampropoulou We will definitely talk about this after the last air raid alert stops — Yuri Yefanov succession — David Anthony Sant

ecoSYNTH² — PROGRAMME II · ECOLOGIES OF ATTENTION (150 min) Playlist order: 17:30–21:00

Poetry for Strangers — Martin Krafft Est-ce-là tout ? — Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu Synthetic Forest — Jesed Affordance — Jean-Michel Rolland (a)live — Szabina Péter & Kristóf János Bodnár (blanche the vidiot) Manifesto of Feeble and Bitter Love — Abinadi Meza Being Here, Dreaming There — Péter Lichter Silent Flowers and Other Signs — Tessa Ojala Time Traces — Max Schleser Reflections of the Invisible — Tina Šulc Resnik The Human Memories of the Red Garden — Aytana Angela Ávila Vidalón Fioritura — Raluca Croitoru and Elena Butică Kami no Aika — Emilia Haar Circadian Silence — Johannes Christopher Gerard and Natalie Launay Ensoilment — Alina Tofan The Memory of Matter — Sofie Santos My body covered with a handful of Earth — Maria Plucińska Lácrimas — Jeremy Moss L’Acqua Xe Morta / The Water Is Dead — Benjamin Darville

ecoSYNTH² — PROGRAMME III · MORE-THAN-HUMAN (120 min)

Playlist order: 22:00–00:00 Roller — Pierre-Yves Clouin Twiggly Twig — Katrin Hahner There Is Magic in the Syllables Today — Edoardo Mulato The Birds and I — José J. Martínez Quadratura — Sara Bonaventura Shubnoorah — Milan Zulic Chasing Whales — La Fille Renne When Flowers Dream of Us — Robert Minassian INVISIBLE (La voz del bosque) — Rocío Wabizasui KINESINTESI (2022) — Livia Ribichini Memories for an Unstable Future — Sandrine Deumier Preludio de un destello — Nicolás Onischuk The Ghost of Creation — Matteo Campulla Error_1 — Aram Karsi SpringForth — Andrew Tamburrino PHANTASIA — Jorge Moneo Quintana The Stream XIV — Hiroya Sakurai in the animal's skin — Yuliya Tsviatkova Night Will Never Come — Daniela Lucato Yagoria — Alina Tofan, Plastic Art Performance Collective TR333 — april forrest lin 林森 END — Rita Casdia

FULL PROGRAMME — Club Night INTERFERENZA 31 January → 1 February · 22:00–??:??

Curated by RAPSODICA

OFFICE

OVERTHINK 71

Anaté

Funken

LAB

Solito Caleb

Dr. Schock

COIDO

Svoora

CORRIDOR

Rapsodica’s residents

RAPSODICA deploys a three-stage club night inside TOP Lab; pressuring points between sound, systems, and bodies.

A night moved by interference: club culture colliding with experimental practice, ecological thinking, and living interfaces.

Part of ecoSYNTH² — Living Interfaces, a two-day convergence exploring multispecies worlds, biohacking, and ecological resistance within Berlin’s first biolab and transdisciplinary community.

INTERFERENZA is the nocturnal extension of this process, collapsing boundaries between infrastructure and ritual.

top e.V. Industriestr. 40 12099 Berlin

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