SIMULTAN FESTIVAL ed. XX
ReMEDIATE
1–12 Oct 2025, Timișoara
Comenduirea Garnizoanei, Cinema Studio, Theatrul Maghiar, Hala C4C
PAGINA EDIȚIEI
The 20th edition of SIMULTAN Festival took place between 1–5 October 2025 in Timișoara (hosting exhibition programs extended until the 12th), continuing the exploration of the relationship between art, technology, and society through different artistic methods and practices.
The use of the transitive term Re:MEDIATE for the current edition is not a festive one, but rather a call to action, as well as an opportunity to reflect on the journey the festival has taken over the past two decades. Remediation is a process, as formulated by Bolter and Grusin on the evolving phenomenon of new media technologies, which adapt and transform older media forms, creating a dynamic progression in the media landscape. Extending this logic beyond visual aesthetics, the natural and essential question arises: what can we, in fact, remediate today?
The evolutionary phenomenon of new media technologies adapts and transforms older media forms, creating a dynamic progression in the media landscape. This process, as described by Bolter and Grusin, involves both immediacy – the tendency towards immersive, fluid experiences – and hypermediacy – the awareness of media layers, of their presence as media. In the contemporary art environment, this situation generates hybrid forms, where the old and the new cohabit, and the result becomes a space of continuous reconfiguration. But extending this logic beyond visual aesthetics, the natural and essential question arises: what can we actually remediate today … a situation, a relationship, a feeling?
In a world in a continuous process of disintegration and reconfiguration, remediation is no longer just a technological or aesthetic concept, but a subtle form of ontological rebalancing. In mental space, the overlap has become obvious: between crises and solutions, between the past and an as yet unnamed future, between memory and forgetting. In the context of these dualities, remediation appears as an organic necessity – not just as a reformulation of the old through the new, but as a reconciliation between forms, discourses, identities.
The political no longer seems to have the strength to establish coherent narratives without being contaminated by viral aesthetics or the aesthetics of fear; the economy seeks itself in a recycling loop of failed paradigms; and society, caught between nostalgia and anxiety, manifests itself in increasingly strange echoes.
Remediation thus becomes a form of symbolic survival, an alchemy in which ruins become raw material for new meanings. It is not restoration, nor revolution, but a slow movement of rewriting reality in terms of a hybrid language, born of the collision between what was and what could be. It acts as a vital tension between memory and becoming, between exhausted forms and their potential to be reborn in another register.
After all, McLuhan warned that the tendency to focus exclusively on content, blinds us to the expression of the form. Mediums are not neutral channels, but forms that create perceptions and identities, and remediation is precisely the gesture by which one world is born from another, not as a copy, but as a rewriting of memory in the language of the present.
— Levente Kozma, Artistic director
PARTICIPANTS
– LIVE
Andrei Raicu & Iulia Ripan, Sébastien Robert & Mark IJzerman, Emotional Support (Aya Metwalli, Emma Souharce, Beatrice Beispiel), Nicola Di Croce & Marta Magini, Vittoria Assembri, Katarina Gryvul, Makunouchi Bento x Selfmademusic x Ștefan Tiron, Sillyconductor, Anthony Pateras, Marie Delprat
– SCREENINGS
↳ ReMEDIATE (Artists: APOTROPIA – Antonella Mignone, Cristiano Panepuccia) / George Drivas / Stefan Nacke & Vladimir Genin / Elyse Johnson& Michael Metz / Geo Barcan / Senem Pirler & Monica Duncan / Valentin Sismann / Katina Bitsicas & Scott McMahon / Nicolas Lebrun / Katerina Messini / ffaux & synthcoder / S. Ali Hosseini / Olga Wardęga& Christoph Zeckel / Michel Klöfkorn)
↳ EMERGENCE OF AI (Artists: Zirui Chen / Ana Da Cunha Alves / Hui Kuang & Tao Han & Junshu Fang / Andrea Mikyska / Franz Rosati / Vincenzo Ascione / João Pedro Oliveira / Vibeke Bertelsen (Vertigo) / Jieyuan Huang / Kira Xonorika)
↳ SHAPING SCAPES AND ENVIRONMENTS (Artists: Milan Antic / Karolina Cykowska-Halczuk & Przemysław Ziółkowski / Maciek Stepniewski / Touchy Toy Collective / Leda Vaneva & Edo Garcia & Sari Sandberg / Sandrine Deumier / Inferstudio (Bethany Edgoose, Nathan Su, Sarah Su) / Diana Gheorghiu / Sohyun Lee / Po Yuan Juan / Sub Net / Christelle Mas & Olli Uikkanen)
– EXHIBITIONS
↳ CODING DROPS, Curator: Diane Pricop (Artists: Floriama Candea, Mark Ijzerman, Ioana Vreme Moser)
↳ HUSH GLITCHES (Artistic team: Luciana Andrei, Ada Anghel, Lorena Cocora, Simona Deaconescu, Denis Flueraru, Alexandra Necula, Roxana Nicoară, Codruț Petre, Andrei Raicu, Alina Rusu, Gabriel Stoiciu, Sabina Suru, Andrei Tudose, Mirela Vlad)
↳ NATURE AFTER NATURE, Curators: Ileana Pintilie, Cristian Nae and Raluca Oancea (Artists: Dan Acostioaei, Matei Bejenaru, Josépha Blanchet, Ole Blank, Irina Botea Bucan, Geta Brătescu, Floriama Cândea, Zoița Delia Călinescu, Lorena Cocioni, Giulia Crețulescu, Suzana Dan, Andreea David, Dragoș Dogioiu, Tatiana Fiodorova-Lefter, Constantin Flondor, Lavinia German, Cosmin Haiaș, Michael Höpfner, Mălina Ionescu, Iosif Király, Aurora Király, Ana Kun, Kopacz Kund, Andrei Mateescu, Cătălin Marinescu, Radu Martin, Andreea Medar, Liliana Mercioiu-Popa, Mircea Modreanu, Ana Maria Micu, Marina Oprea, Raluca Paraschiv, Tudor Pătrașcu, Dan Perjovschi, Bogdan Rața, Claudia Retegan, Cătălin Rulea, Sergiu Sas, Ovidiu Toader, Miki Velciov, Mihai Zgondoiu)
– LISTENING ROOMS
↳ SIMULTAN 20: Listening Room (Artists: Eryck Abecassis, Alberta Balsam, Laurian Bardos (Syntax), Bass Clef Poetry, Billy Roisz, Crys Cole, Cătălin Crețu, dieb13, Mario de Vega, Alessandra Eramo, Cedrik Fermont, Feldermelder, Jasmine Guffond, Jacob Kirkegaard, JD Zazie, Peter Kutin, Hanno Leichtmann, LeMarian, Roberto Maqueda, Lala Misosniky, Alberto Novello, Simina Oprescu, Annabelle Playe, Pleq, Usurper Rising, Patrizia Ruthensteiner, Ilpo Vaisanen)
↳ ACOUSMIGNON 41 by Sillyconductor
↳ A CITY DIVE WITH SEMI SILENT (Mădălina Ciocanu, Pheobe riley Law, Mathias Guibaud, Sillyconductor)
↳ SÂMBĂTA SONORĂ: On gardens (Maria Balabaș, Cosmin Nicolae)
↳ TIMIȘOARA ECHOES by Adrian Marian
Photos by Andreea Săsăran, Daliana Iacobescu, Levente Kozma
\ Funded by – The Municipality of Timișoara through the Center for Projects.
\ Organized in partnership with The Municipality of Timișoara through the Center for Projects.
\ With the support of – Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, Creative Australia, Mondriaan Fund.
\ Institutional Partners -Timiș County Directorate for Culture, Cinema Studio, Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre.
\ Cultural Partners – Qolony, Marginal, Obsolete, Semi Silent, Slow-Sync PH, Image and Sound, C4Company, Concentric Projects.
\ Media Partners – Black Rhino Radio, Revista ARTA, Scena9, Revista Zeppelin, IQads, Propagarta, România Pozitivă, Zile și Nopți, Visit Timișoara, Feeder, White Night of Galleries (NAG).