transmediale.09 - DEEP NORTH - festival for art and digital culture berlin :: 27 January - 1 February 2009 :: club transmediale.09 - STRUCTURES - festival for adventurous music and related visual arts :: 23 - 31 January 2009 :: Call for Entries - Deadline: September 5, 2008.

As leading international festivals for art and digital culture as well as adventurous music and related visual arts, respectively, transmediale and club transmediale are calling for submissions to the transmediale Award competition and the Vilem Flusser Theory Award.

transmediale presents and pursues the advancement of artistic positions reflecting on the socio-cultural, political and economic impact of new technologies. It seeks out artistic practices that not only respond to scientific or technical developments, but that try to shape the way in which we think about and experience the technologies which impact virtually all aspects of our daily lives. As such, transmediale understands media technologies as cultural techniques that need to be embraced in order to comprehend, critique, and shape global societies.

club transmediale (CTM) is a prominent international festival dedicated to contemporary electronic, digital and experimental music, as well as the diverse range of artistic activities in the context of sound and club culture. CTM presents projects that experiment with new aesthetic parameters and new forms of cooperation, develop possibilities for informational and economic self-determination, and reflect on the role of contemporary music against the backdrop of technological and social transformations.

For the 2009 edition, the festivals have each set a specific thematic focus.

transmediale.09 - *DEEP NORTH* peers beyond the evolving alarmist scenarios of catastrophe prevalent in the often contradictory global warming debate. transmediale.09 shifts this focus to the global artistic, cultural, societal and philosophical consequences that the presumed imminent collapse of the polar ice barrier may trigger. Are we about to reach another historically succinct moment of unavoidable and cataclysmic change - a point of no return leaving in its wake uncontrollable global transformations? Does climate change elicit cultural change, a shifting of extremes or a collapse in established, systemic and network norms? *DEEP NORTH* becomes not a fixed location, but a paradigm transforming loss, scarcity, inertia and rivalry into urgent and revealing states of being and expression.

With *STRUCTURES* - Backing-Up Independent Audio-Visual Cultures, club transmediale.09 presents projects that spring from the critical, interdisciplinary and experimental practice at the intersections of sound and other art forms. In recent years, a new breed of hybrid projects and initiatives that merges experimental audio and media cultures has developed in the convergence-zone between pop culture, science, arts and media technologies.

This still remains primarily the domain of committed individuals and small, self-organised groups or networks that, often in the most precarious of circumstances, provide the supporting platform for these new artistic articulations and experiments. In its 10th year, CTM looks into the current state and potential development opportunities of these independent structures.

Together, transmediale and club transmediale invite the submission of works and projects that respond to these challenges and embody contemporary notions of art that embrace, question and enrich digital culture. Submissions of art works for both festivals participate in the *transmediale Award* 2009 while theoretical abstracts, papers and critical artistic positions are invited for the *Vilem Flusser Theory Award* with prizes totaling ca. 10.000 EURO.

transmediale is a project of Kulturprojekte Berlin in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt :: club transmediale (CTM) is a project of DISK - Sound & Image Initiative e.V. :: transmediale is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation :: CTM is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.