The 2026 Festival Artists Program
Seven Visionaries Shaping the Future of Performance AT UFERSTUDIOS
FRIDAY 22.05.2026, 7pm
Dr. CHANG GAO
Affective Encounters: Body, Wonder and Machine is a live multimedia performance by Dr. Chang Gao, Lehrauftrag at UdK Berlin and Associate Researcher at Intervenierende Kunste, FU, exploring bioelectric sensing and AI generate real-time audiovisual feedback between bodies and machines, questioning anthropocentric bias.
Film/AR/ECG interactive installation/AI interface/
Hand/Touch/Light/Sound Sculpture Systems: Dr. Chang Gao
Sound/Music: Chang Gao; Max Richter; Peter Gregson
Performance/Reading: Body, Wonder and Machines: Dr. Chang Gao
Video Credits: Dr.Chang Gao
Aljoša Dakić
Pipestream investigates what happens when physical, analog processes are reintroduced into digital image-making — using feedback, body, and material resistance as compositional tools.
All audio-visual content is created in realtime.z
Photo Credits: Aljoša Dakić
Sandra Bak
Schwarzes Gold II 2025
Sandra Bak, UdK, Klasse Neugebauer, VR experience - work explores questions of materiality, resource extraction, and digital imagery through immersive virtual reality technologies, combining artistic research with new developments in immersive media. The activation of VR installation for Hybrid Festival will be presented in collaboration with dancer and choreographer David Mariano.
Concept: Sandra Bak
Performance: David Mariano
VR: Sandra Bak, thank to Vadim Schäffler
Music/Sound: Piotr Madej
Photo Credits: Sandra Bak
SATURDAY 22.05.2026, 7pm
Norbert Pape
In Turbulence, simulations of natural phenomena such as water, earth, fire and air addresse the troublesome yet co‐constitutive entanglement between our selves, technology and nature. Grounded in science, engineering and aesthetics, both magical and deeply melancholic, simulations give insights not only into the way we think the elements, but also into how we perceive and feel them.
Funded by the ministry of culture and science North Rhein‐Westphalia in
the frame of the funding program New Arts Ruhr
By: Norbert Pape
Text: Ben Woodard
Sound: Franziska Aigner
Spiritual guide: Pêdra Costa
Technical development: Simon Speiser, Norbert Pape
Video Credits: Norbet Pape
Viola Yip
The Ombré of Touch (2025)
for body, air, inflatables and electronics
"The Ombré of Touches" is an embodied electronic performance for Viola Yip herself and her self-built inflatable instrument with electronics. The piece explores touch as an multifaceted interface for listening and music making, developing a highly person-specific music through touching a volume of air.
Concept: Viola Yip
composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and instrument builder
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Photo Credit: Viola Yip
SUNDAY 24.05.2026, 7pm
Saulut Bonansea, Castagnola
Mycelial Skin
Mycelial Skin is a mixed media performance in which generative visual system captures and reinterprets movement through sound, space, and image. Its architecture draws from mycelium treating interconnection and distributed intelligence as structural principles. The piece weaves a living grammar that dissolves the boundaries between body and space.
Choreographie: Christine Saulut Bonansea, https://www.cbcdance.com
visual design, sound composition: Ricardo Castagnola, https://www.riccardocastagnola.com
Video Credits:
INTER_SECTION (Sabine Ercklentz & Claudia Schmitz)
With RAUM:FALTEN, the intermedia duo INTER_SECTION challenges our everyday understanding of space as a bounded and bounding entity.
Everyday and imagined boundaries are countered with a poetic utopia expressed through sound and moving images.
Composer, musician and performer: Sabine Ercklentz
Media Artist, Multimedia moving image, sculpture, AI: Claudia Schmitz
Video Credits: VGBild-Kunst_INTER_SECTION_photo_TorstenPinne
TALK After Show Schedule
1 — Where Performing Arts Meet New Technology
2 — The Body and the Device
3 — The Expressive Space
May 22, 2026, 9pm
Opening night features immersive digital dance and interactive soundscapes and Installation with University Programs
TALK AFTER SHOW, FRIDAY 22.05, 9pm
Moderated dialogue with artists, the audience and invited guests
- Prof. Mathilde ter Heijne, Berlin University of the Arts, Professor of Performance and Time-Based Arts, Founder of art&dialogue, an intersectional feminist, artist-led initiative
- Prof. Dr. Lena Gieseke, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Professor of Image-based Media Technologies, Dean of the M.A. Creative Technologies, Co-Director of Creative Exchange Studio
- Dr.-Ing. Angela Brennecke, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Professor of Audio and Interactive Media Technologies, Co-Director of Creative Exchange Studi
Studio 1, Uferstudios, Berlin
Video Credits: Dr Chang Gao
May 23, 2026, 9pm
Second night experience experimental VR installations by leading artists pushing the boundaries of performing arts and creative soundscape performance
TALK AFTER SHOW, SATURDAY 23.05, 9pm
Following the 2 performances, we propose a
moderated dialogue with artists, the audience and invited guests
- Nuno N. Correia, Tallinn University (EE), Director of the MODINA European Platform
- Maria Kyrou - Architect / Design researcher focused on transdisciplinarity, digital media and emerging forms of knowledge production.
- Artists Norbert Pape and Viola Yip
Studio 1, Uferstudios, Berlin
Video Credits: Norbert Pape
May 24 2026, 9pm
experience experimental theater and multimedia installations by leading artists pushing the boundaries of performing arts.
TALK AFTER SHOW, SUNDAY 24.05, 9pm
Following the 2 performances, we propose a
moderated dialogue with artists, the audience and invited guests
- Nuno N. Correia, Tallinn University (EE), Director of the MODINA European Platform
- Artists Claudia Schmitz, Riccardo Castagnola and Sabine Ercklentz
Studio 1, Uferstudios, Berlin
Video Credits: VGBild-Kunst_INTER_SECTION_photo_TorstenPinne