[spectre] Open letter to transmediale

[list at arambartholl.com]

https://openlettertransmediale.onlyoffice.com/s/nPrbbRCPvBNvLbG

Open letter to:
transmediale e.V. (Filippo Gianetta & Magdalena Ritter) and the advisory 
board: Nora Al-Badri, Asia Bazdyrieva, Gabriele Horn, and Jussi Parikka.

*Why is transmediale not hiring a new artistic director?*

We care about and love transmediale as one of the most important 
critical and experimental media art institutions in Germany and Europe 
which reaches out to the public of Berlin and an international audience 
once a year. The festival is deeply rooted in the city's fabric of the 
media art community with its many project spaces for almost 40 years. 
Therefore, we are concerned about the recent changes in the governing 
structure of the festival.

Nora O’ Murchú, the first female, and now last festival artistic 
director was surprisingly let go in summer 2024. Her leaving was 
announced, although many knew of her plans for the coming years of 
festival editions. Of which several components are executed without her 
as we speak. The circumstances of her departure remain unresolved and 
not transparently communicated with the community of artists and 
participants who have supported transmediale in the past.

At the same time former production team member Filippo Gianetta becomes 
managing director of the institution, which was initially assumed to be 
an intermediary position. Filippo Gianetta is also one of only two 
people (Filippo Gianetta & Magdalena Ritter) on the board of directors 
of transmediale e.V. according to public records. For several months 
transmediale promised to release a call for a new artistic director 
position as soon as possible, while the coming festival’s edition (2025) 
was announced to be organized by the core team of transmediale (link).

It took another six months until the call was out (it is running 
currently till Feb 16th (link). But to our surprise transmediale 
festival is now looking for a lead curatorial position instead of an 
artistic director. The contract for this position is set  for 10 months 
only (April 2025 - Feb 2026). The intention seems to be to hire a new 
curator every year for each festival edition.  Additionally the call 
already lists  several constraints about the festival structure, like 
fully removing the exhibition element for next years edition, which 
seems to leave little freedom  for this new position to reflect on 
transmedia.

Having an artistic director formulate a multi-year vision for 
transmediale that included artistic formats from exhibitions, to talks, 
conferences, performances and interventions has been essential to 
providing reflection on a radically evolving media landscape. This 
valuable contextualising of societal changes beyond the scope of a 
single exhibition, conference or theme is what makes transmediale so 
valuable to our field. To alter this characteristic, and remove a longer 
term artistic lead seems misplaced in times of radical changes in our 
techno-social landscapes. It negates the urgency that we all experience 
within a rapidly evolving culture of censorship, and authoritarianism.

A new artistic lead will likely not move to Germany for a 10 month 
position, will not obtain job security, and will not get the freedom to 
take the position this community needs in these dark times. transmediale 
needs a strong personality with excellent ideas and not a powerless 
curator who gets hired and fired to just execute the festival in the 
shape the management decided to please funding.

We urgently ask the advisory board to re-think the structure of 
transmediale so that the festival remains a relevant voice within the 
European art scene. We urgently ask the leadership of transmediale to 
make transparent the basis for the decisions it took around leadership 
changes, cancellation of the exhibition parts both this year and in 
upcoming editions.

Signed by:
!Mediengruppe Bitnik
Aram Bartholl
Constant Dullaart
Danja Vasiliev