International Media Art Festival CYFEST: Midpoint
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- Oct 17
- 3 min read
October 17–25, 2025, Yerevan, Armenia
CYLAND MediaArtLab announces CYFEST: Midpoint, a special edition of the International Media Art Festival taking place across major venues in Yerevan from October 17 to 25, 2025.
EVENTS PROGRAM
October 17, 7:30 PM | Cinema House
October 18, 6:00 PM | Yerevan Botanical Garden
sound installation: Phenomenon and Paradoxes of Information Transmission
live performances by Nikita Bugaev and Purpurniy Dyadya
on view until November 2
October 19, 7:00 PM | Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA Yerevan)
Robot-in-the-Loop: interactive media installations
on view until October 25
October 25, 7:00 PM | Arno Babajanyan Concert Hall
Live performances by the concept horse and Yoshio Machida
Parallel Event
October 16 - November 17
Opening: October 16 7:00 PM
Tuan Mu＆Lu Wei Dual Solo Exhibition: Echoes in Calligraphy
This year’s program explores the origins of media art and its resonances today, connecting early experiments in cinema, telecommunication, and electronic sound with contemporary practices in bioart, AI, and robotics. The program begins on October 17 at Cinema House Yerevan with a special screening of Sergei Parajanov’s early work Hakob Hovnatanyan, presented alongside films by Louis-Paul Caron, Mathilde Reynaud, Amy Karle, Alessandro Zannier, Ethel Lilienfeld, and Yulia Sharkina, together tracing how contemporary artists turn vision, sound, and sensory experience into philosophical and scientific inquiry, revealing perception as a dynamic field shaped by art, technology, and culture.
A multi-channel sound installation at the Yerevan Botanical Garden features five new commissions by contemporary sound artists — ceph, Purpurniy Dyadya, Sergei Komarov and Lidiia Griaznova, Nikita Bugaev, and the concept horse — exploring intersections of sound creation, electronic music, and signal transmission. The opening night includes live performances by Nikita Bugaev and Purpurniy Dyadya, inviting audiences into the spirit of sonic experimentation that shaped 20th-century sound and music.
At the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA Yerevan), Robot-in-the-Loop presents three interactive robotic media installations by Anna Frants and Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov that question the boundaries between human intention and machine agency.
The program culminates on October 25, 7:00 PM at the Arno Babajanyan Concert Hall, featuring performances by the concept horse (Austria), whose compositions are built from an array of physical sound sources relying on iteration, slight change, analog error, chance and unrepeatability. Yoshio Machida (Japan) joins on the iconic 1970s EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer, performing immersive ambient canon. Together, these works echo the spirit of the early sound pioneers who transformed circuits and noise into new musical languages.
Partner Event:
Tuan Mu＆Lu Wei Dual Solo Exhibition: Echoes in Calligraphy
ICA Yerevan | October 17–November 17, 2025
A dual solo exhibition by Taiwanese artists Lu Wei and Tuan Mu, exploring the evolving relationship between writing, corporeality, and digital technology through video works informed by the practice of ink painting.
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 is organized by CYLAND MediaArtLab. The project's general sponsor is Frants Foundation.
