History

transmediale was founded in 1988 as VideoFilmFest, a side-project of the Berlin Berlinale’s 'International Forum of New Cinema'. The co-founder and artistic director Micky Kwella intended to offer a platform to electronic media productions not accepted at traditional film festivals such as the Berlinale.

Within the following 20 years, the festival steadily evolved. In 1997/98 it changed its name from 'VideoFest' to 'transmediale' in order to reflect upon the festival’s expanding programme which now embraced a wide spectrum of multimedia-based art forms. In 1999 club transmediale was founded. Focusing primarily on electronic music and club culture, it is organised by a curatorially and financially independent team.

Following the appointment of Dr. Andreas Broeckmann as the new Artistic Director in 2001, transmediale was restructured. The relocation of the festival to the House of World Cultures and a further expanded programme lead to increasing numbers of visitors to the festival. At transmediale.02, for the first time, an extensive exhibition was presented to the audience, allowing attendees to a experience media art spatially. In 2004, the 'Kulturstiftung des Bundes' decided to to fund transmediale (alongside documenta and the Berlin Biennale amongst others) as a beacon of contemporary culture. In 2006, the subtitle of the festival changed from 'international media art festival' to 'festival for art and digital culture', opening up the festival to not just pure media art but also to projects where art, technology and the digital age meet the everyday.

Stephen Kovats was appointed as the Artistic Director in 2007. In order to reflect on the growing number of theoretical and critical works submitted for the competition, the transmediale Award was extended to include the Vilém Flusser Theory Award. In 2008, the transmediale parcours was launched in order to reflect upon research, as well as artistic and critical backgrounds behind each festival’s theme.