DA Fest – International Digital Art Festival Sofia

21. bis 25. Oktober 2025 L44.Space, 56 Dondukov blvd, Sofia, Bulgarien

Masterstudiengang Interface Cultures, Kunstuniversität Linz präsentiert Studierendenausstellung

From October 21 to 25, the Interface Cultures department was invited to participate in the 10th edition of DA Fest, Sofia's international festival dedicated to new media art, curated by Venelin Shurelov and Galina Dimitrova-Dimova. Us students, along with professor Manuela Naveau, Fabricio Lamoncha and Gudrun Oberndorfer traveled from Linz to Sofia to attend the festival and participate in its program.

The DA Fest is organized as a decentralized festival, where exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops are spread across multiple venues throughout the city. Moving from one place to another has been an integral part of our experience, and it has been extremely enjoyable to see how the festival has been conceived in close relation to Sofia itself.

The festival team was very welcoming, and as we arrived at the airport we were immediately greeted by Akseniya, a fellow exhibiting artist and part of the organisation team, who introduced us to the city and took us to the L.44 Gallery, our base for the festival. There, Nikolaj from L44 supported us throughout the setup of the exhibition, offering practical help and recommendations, and contributing greatly to making our stay at L44 particularly nice, smooth and enjoyable.

Interface Cultures participated, in fact, both as visitors and contributors. In addition to attending the programme, three works developed within the course Critical Data were presented, engaging directly with the festival’s thematic framework. L44.Space hosted the Interface Cultures exhibition and served as a central hub during the festival. Located in the city centre, its exhibition space and cosy café became a place we regularly returned to, where we could observe how visitors engaged with the works and situate the exhibition within the wider DA Fest programme.  The exhibition featured three works by Martina Pizzigoni, Emma Silvana Tripaldi, Ahmed Jamal, and Till Schönwetter, developed within the Critical Data course taught by Manuela Naveau.

The opening night on October 21 offered us a first opportunity to meet the other local and international artists, curators, and organizers. During this event, Venelin Shurelov introduced us to automatic.gallery, a space open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which reflects on the idea of a different exhibition format, with continuous and automated access to the space. 

The day after, the Interface Cultures exhibition officially opened in the afternoon. On the opening day, Martina, Emma, and Ahmed had the chance to present their projects and introduce them to the festival audience. 

Over the following days, we visited the various exhibition venues, including Credo Bonum Gallery, Academia Gallery (NAA), ONE Gallery, Doza Gallery, DEPOO Gallery, UniCredit Studio, Bobbina Cultural Space, and the French Institute. On the 22nd, at ONE Gallery, we had the opportunity to visit the exhibition with artists Pietro Lugaro and Alessandro Mac-Nelly and artist Dorotea Dolinšek. Pietro and Alessandro presented us their work ACV (Algorithmic Cultural Vandalism) and Dorotea introduced us to her Ex.A.R.U. (Exo Auxiliary Respiratory Unit), offering an insteresting overview of their artistic process and research.

Alongside the festival programme, we had time to explore Sofia and its surroundings, as well as to share some time with each other outside of the lecture room. Within the city, we visited St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and spent time in central areas characterised by Sofia’s yellow paving stones. Along the city we also took a day to visit Vitosha Mountain, located about thirty minutes from the city centre. And of course we made time to try the local cousine, never missing an occasion to try new amazing Bulgarian specialties. 

The festival concluded on the 25th with the performance by ALVA NOTO, focused on audio-visual perception, followed by drinks and vmusic on the terrace of the Toplotsentrala RCCA, where we gathered one last time with the other artists and the organisers, saying our goodbyes before parting ways.

DreamAtlas
Ahmed Jamal (EG), Emma Silvana Tripaldi (IT), Till Schönwetter (DE)
DreamAtlas is a growing map of shared dreams, inviting visitors to contribute personal dream fragments to a collective dream-diary. Through algorithmic analysis, individual dreams connect into a visual constellation that reveals shared symbols, themes, and emotions. A repurposed telescope guides participants through this inner universe, transforming the act of stargazing into a ritual of inward exploration. DreamAtlas exists both as a web-based platform and as an installation, cultivating an evolving archive of collective memory and opening space for intimacy, reflection, and research.
dreamatlas.cloud

Emma Silvana Tripaldi
Technosymbiosis: Feedback feed
This installation stages the symbiotic dynamic between users and algorithm-driven social media. Platforms adapt content to user behavior, while endless streams of stimuli trigger dopamine release, reinforcing compulsive scrolling. Here a plant becomes the agent: its bioelectrical signals activate a mechanical device that performs screen gestures on TikTok. The algorithm adjusts and curates the content as it would with a human user, creating an unusual loop of feedback and adaptation. By transposing this addictive cycle onto a non-human organism, the work reframes the relationship between nature, technology, and algorithms, questioning their influence on behavior, mental health, and the reinforcement of biases embedded in everyday digital infrastructures.

Martina Pizzigoni (Italy)
(Very) Neural System
Interactive Installation, 2024 - 2025
AI Models, Unreal Engine, Metahuman plugin, Audio2Face, Python scripts
(Very) Neural System is an ongoing investigation into the intricate dynamics of identity construction in the digital age. Harnessing the transformative power of artificial intelligence, a digital embodiment of the artist's persona emerges: an amalgamation of seemingly authentic features, responses, voice and cognitive patterns, meticulously synthesized from data from major corporate entities. This digital simulacrum delves into the domain of hyper-realistic emulation with an eerie tinge of dystopian atmosphere. The resulting manifestation, an interactive doppelgänger existing in real time, invites viewers to cross the twilight zone between physical reality and virtual existence.

Ausstellungszeiten:
21. bis 25. Oktober 2025, 10.00 bis 19.00 Uhr

IC students @ DA Fest 2025.pdf

da-fest.bg/25-10/exhibition-students-linz