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Press Release

Announcing 2027 Festival Curator

10.02.2026

We are delighted to announce that Barbara Cueto will curate the 2027 festival edition of transmediale, marking its 40th year. The curator was selected through an international open call from a strong field of applicants. Proposing a programme of interconnected formats that activate a networked structure, Cueto brings a research-driven curatorial practice shaped by long-term engagement with critical technologies, decentralised infrastructures, and questions of value and resistance.

Barbara Cueto

In my curatorial practice, I explore the intersection of contemporary art, digital cultures, and the politics of emerging technologies. For the 40th edition, I envision transmediale as a lattice, a structure that provides the scaffolding upon which complexity builds. A lattice is porous, holding by what it connects and by what it leaves open, carrying weight through relation. These apparently blank spaces sustain the political imagination of digital culture, where other futures can be rehearsed rather than predicted. This edition builds a counter-infrastructure that connects practices, stories, and communities across four decades, treating technology not as a fixed system but as a shared space of imagination.

— Barbara Cueto

Barbara Cueto is an independent curator, writer, and researcher based in Berlin. She has curated and commissioned projects for institutions worldwide, including LAS Art Foundation (Berlin), KANAL–Centre Pompidou (Brussels), C/O Berlin, Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Fundación La Caixa (Barcelona), MMOMA for the 6th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Asian Culture Centre (Gwangju), InterAccess (Toronto), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Impakt Festival (Utrecht), and de Appel arts centre (Amsterdam). Her forthcoming book White Papers on Dissent: Rethinking Art, Value, and Resistance through Blockchain will be published by MIT Press in summer 2026 She also co-edited Authenticity? Observations and Artistic Strategies in the Post-Digital Age (Valiz, 2017 with Bas Hendrikx.

Barbara Cueto holds a PhD in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam, where her research examined decentralised ledger technologies as tools for radical imagination and social experimentation. She is an alumna of the de Appel Curatorial Programme (Amsterdam) and holds an MA in Arts Management from Maastricht University and a BA in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid.

Cueto’s vision for the 2027 festival edition operates across different timelines, connecting long-term research with ongoing public encounters, and bringing historical lineages of critical technological practice into conversation with contemporary experimentation. Resisting the expectation of a single technological future or shared timeline, the edition engages a multiplicity of internets and modes of relation.

Barbara Cueto was selected by transmediale’s advisory board consisting of Nora Al-Badri, Asia Bazdyrieva, Gabriele Horn, and Jussi Parikka.

Barbara Cueto presents a consistent approach that reflects transmediale's earlier iterations, while adding new insights into how to celebrate the anniversary festival. She is well attuned to key Berlin communities with the capacity to establish relevant collaborations beyond those already existing. Her proposal contributes to the festival’s commitment to creating an inclusive, vibrant, and complex ecology of thought and praxis. Together with her strong track record and curatorial experience, the board feels that she can present a really ambitious and coherent festival together with the exhibition curator already selected.

The 2027 edition coincides with the 40th anniversary of transmediale, which began as VideoFilmFest in 1988. Marking this moment, alongside the 2027 festival edition, a major exhibition curated by Antonina Stebur will be presented at Akademie der Künste. Exhibitions extending the festival week will continue in future years on a biennial rhythm alongside the annual festival.

Image credits
Image courtesy of Barbara Cueto, photo by Jong Geleerd

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About transmediale

transmediale is an annual festival and a critical space for the development of new experimental approaches in art and digital culture. Beyond the yearly event, transmediale is a transversal, dynamic platform that facilitates year-round activities including a residency programme and journal. Each festival edition focuses on a specific theme in the spectrum of art and digital culture that is reflected through a great variety of programmes like exhibitions, discourse formats, performances, screenings, and workshops.

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