CYFEST 16: Archive of Feelings. A Journey, Mexico City

September 4–22, 2025, Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City

CYLAND MediaArtLab presents

International Media Art Festival CYFEST 16 at Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City

September 4–22, 2025

CYLAND MediaArtLab, in collaboration with Centro de Cultura Digital, is pleased to announce the 16th edition of the International Media Art Festival CYFEST: Archive of Feelings. A Journey in Mexico City. As one of the longest-running international media art festivals, CYFEST brings together artists, curators, engineers, and media thinkers from around the world acting as a platform for both emerging and established creators working in interactive installations, sound, video art, XR/VR environments, algorithmic composition, and hybrid forms. CYFEST is a nomadic exhibition series—its 16th edition began in Yerevan, Armenia, is continuing in Mexico City, and will next open at Aether Gallery in San Luis Potosí from September 12 to October 1.

This year’s theme, ‘Archive of Feelings. A Journey,’ explores the complex relationship between emotional life and technological environments. It considers both the personal and collective dimensions of memory, perception, and inner experience—foregrounding the contradictions between human sensitivity and the impersonal nature of digital systems. The project proposes a return to emotional awareness as a form of resistance against depersonalization, while also acknowledging that new technologies are built from and upon archives of human knowledge and feeling. 

The Mexico edition highlights include Gustavo Matamoros’ site-specific sound installation that activates the architecture of the exhibition space through harmonic resonance and directional audio. Hugo Solís introduces a new piano-based sound work that reimagines the instrument as both historical symbol and object in flux, bridging acoustic tradition and digital modernity. Alba Triana’s immersive kinetic sound installation is exploring the unseen natural forces shaping our environment through a probabilistic system that evokes a living, self-generating organism. The exhibition will also showcase a selection from the CYLAND Audio Archive, curated by Lidiia Griaznova and Sergei Komarov—experimental sound works available for playback on a turntable.

The exhibition features kinetic and interactive installations such as Anna Frants’s kineographs, which animate mechanical memory, blending nostalgic imagery with kinetic motion; memory and transformation take center stage in Alexandra Dementieva’s interactive installation that visualizes the fragmentation of memory over time, while Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov’s poetic work reflects on human transience and our cosmic origins. The exhibition also includes works by Liudmila Belova, Alexey Grachev, Andreas Gysin, Heejeong Jeong, Anna Kim, Kira Kim, Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova, Fabrizio Plessi, Mariateresa Sartori, Dmitriy Shishov, Mu Tuan, Eric Vernhes, and Mathieu Zurstrassen.

The festival launches on September 4 with an evening of live sound performances by Hugo Solís, Gustavo Matamoros, and José Hernández Sánchez, setting the tone for a public program of interactive workshops and curated screenings.

---

Opening Night: Thursday, September 4, 2025, 6:00 PM

Public Program

September 17, 5:00 PM —  Kids’ Workshop: Hands-on Session with Arduino Kits 

September 18, 5:00 PM  — The Crosses of Digital Landscapes. CYLAND Video Archive Screening

Read more>>

Curators

Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova, Alexandra Dementieva, Sergei Komarov, Lidiia Griaznova, Victoria Ilyushkina

List of Artists

Tanya Akhmetgalieva, Liudmila Belova, Alexander Bochkov, Alek Borisov, CAA (CYLAND Audio Archive), Alexandra Dementieva, Francesca Fini, Anna Frants, Alexey Grachev, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Sid Iandovka & Anna Tsyrlina, Jose Hernandez Sanchez, Heejeong Jeong, Anton Khlabov, Sergei Komarov & Lidiia Griaznova, Anna Kim, Kira Kim, Yuliya Lanina, Alexandra Lerman, Gustavo Matamoros, Fabrizio Plessi, Mariateresa Sartori, Dmitriy Shishov, Hugo Solis, Anna Sowa & Gohar Sargsyan, Alba Triana, Mu Tuan, Eric Vernhes, Mathieu Zurstrassen 

The Centro de Cultura Digital is a pioneering cultural venue in Mexico City dedicated to critically engaging with the impact of digital technologies on contemporary life. Situated beneath the Estela de Luz, the center offers a space for exploration, creation, and dialogue at the intersection of art, technology, and society. Through exhibitions, workshops, performances, and community-driven initiatives, it fosters deep listening, collaborative (un)learning, and the exchange of situated knowledge. Embracing experimentation, plurality, and the unexpected, the Centro challenges conventional narratives of technological progress, inviting artists, thinkers, and the public to imagine new ways of connecting, creating, and living in the digital age.

CYFEST is a nomadic international media art festival. Since its inception in 2007, CYFEST’s main concerns have been to examine the dialogue between various visual languages and technology cultures, and thus to explore a way of commoning with both art professionals and scientific communities. As a decentralized global network CYFEST unites artists, curators, educators, engineers, programmers, and media activists all over the world, and creates a platform for mapping, mediation, and documentation of new media art on different regional and international levels. Each year, the festival program includes several exhibition projects, sound art, video and educational programs.

CYFEST 16 is organized by CYLAND MediaArtLab. The project's general sponsor is Frants Foundation.

More info >>