CTM’s 24th edition will take place 27 January – 5 February 2023 at Berghain, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, silent green, radialsystem, and other Berlin venues. While we expect that in 2023 we can return to pre-pandemic structures, we are ready to respond to unforeseen changes with experimentation and creativity.

CTM 2023 uses the metaphor of Portals as curatorial shapes through which, on the one hand, we attempt to make contact with specific modes of experience, histories, communities, and speculative futures, and, on the other, reflect on the preconditions, thresholds, regulation, and fundamental function of sound and music as gateways to other realities.

Read more on the Portals theme here, and see below for first open calls for our 2023 edition.

CTM 2023 Portals

Since 2014, the CTM Radio Lab has commissioned new works that explore the intersection of radio with live performance or installation within the context of the festival’s yearly theme. The initiative is led by CTM Festival and Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Radio Art / Klangkunst in collaboration with Goethe-Institut, ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst, and Ö1 Kunstradio.

The call is open to artists worldwide and relevant to fields of experimental music, sound art, radio art, new radio drama, and performance. The commissioned works will premiere at CTM 2023 Festival in Berlin (27January – 5 February  2023), and will be subsequently broadcast in Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s Klangkunst programme in spring in the form of a 40–55 minute radio piece. The Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Broadcasting Service) will also present the works via one or more of its platforms: the Ö1 Zeit-Ton or Ö1 Radiokunst – Kunstradio radio shows, and/or the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival in Graz (Autumn 2023).

Application deadline is 30 August 2022.

More details and to apply

The Research Networking Day (RND) is an exchange platform for students and researchers from different graduate and postgraduate programmes traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines. This RND edition will take place in collaboration with the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Paderborn University, and the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research (GMM).

The RND 2023 open call seeks innovative and critical submissions from all areas of study addressing the scope of CTM 2023’s Portals theme. The selected candidates will give short presentations within different modules, linked by discussion rounds and completed by a closing discussion at the end of the day. Presentations should take place in English.

Application deadline is 30 September 2022.

More information and to apply

We are currently looking for several interns to support us in Festival Production and Festival Administration for CTM 2023. The internship duration spans a maximum period of October 2022 to March 2023. The calls are aimed at students that must complete an internship as part of their degree requirements. Due to the fact that the internship requires a strong command of German, the internship calls are provided in German only.

Applications deadline is 31 July 2022.

More information and to apply

Building upon the previous SHAPE platform, CTM festival is a contributor to the new SHAPE+ initiative for innovative music and audiovisual art. The list of artists to be supported in the platform’s first year of activity has now been announced. It combines a selection of audiovisual projects and sound artists alongside musical acts that range from club music and forward-thinking media art to free improvisation and spatial music. This new stage of the SHAPE platform will be marked by an emphasis on residencies and, where possible, greener forms of travel. SHAPE+ is a project by 13 European partner organisations, and is co-financed by the Creative Europe programme.

More information

Have a look back at various CTM 2022 programmes by checking CTM 2022 Discourse talks our YouTube channel; a first batch is also available as audio-only on our Soundcloud page. Impressions from several concerts and events are collected as photo albums on our Flickr page. Three CTM 2022 Contact playlists are also still up on buymusic.club. Last but not least, don't forget to tune in to Jonathan Reus's ongoing generative stream, »In Search of Good Ancestors / Ahnen in Arbeit.« It is also possible to modulate the stream by adding your own inputs via the project's website.

Three magazine articles were published as part of CTM 2022 Contact.

In »The house is built but empty. Potential futures for Alkisah's decentralised network,« Marianna Lis & Luigi Monteanni explore Senyawa's initiative of releasing their Alkisah album via an open call that involved more than 40 labels worldwide, thus challenging the music industry's increasingly corporatized protocols.

In conversation with music journalist Dominika Sitnicka, Avtomat discuss his musical influences, dance floor politics, their hopes and fears for Polish society, and how the artist »Lost faith in clubs, fell in love with playing live again.« The article is also available in its original Polish version.

De Schuurman speaks with Kit Mackintosh about the evolution of bubbling, the value of mistakes and failures, and the culture accompanying the bubbling genre in an interview titled »It's the rawness I like.«

Funded by
Senate Department of Culture and Europe | Goethe-Institut | Auswärtiges Amt

In Cooperation with
Berghain |  HAU Hebbel am Ufer | Silent Green | Radialsystem | Morphine Raum

Supported by
Complete Audio