DIGITAL CULTURES: 23-24 SEPTEMBER 2026, WARSAW
In an era defined by algorithmic fragmentation and digital isolation, the 2026 edition of Digital Cultures serves as a laboratory for Collective Resonance. We are moving beyond solitary immersion to explore the digital arts as a relational field, a space where technology no longer acts as a screen between us, but as the very fabric that binds us together.
This year, the festival investigates the concept of the technology of togetherness. We shift our focus from the "individual user" to the "collective organism," asking how immersive experiences can foster empathy, mutual responsibility, and shared breath. We look at the code as a social score: a choreography that sets the tempo for how we move, think, and feel in connection with others and with the environment.
Digital Cultures 2026 invites you to inhabit the in-between spaces of our digital lives and transform them into a common ground. We are here to prove that in the hands of the collective, technology becomes an instrument of care, a vessel for resonance, and a tool for building a more interconnected world.
Free access, registration is required
Discovery
A day of talks and panels exploring immersive art, storytelling and creative technology, bringing together Polish and international artists, researchers and industry voices.
industry
A day built around Poland's emerging XR talent - Best of Poland project pitches interwoven with international case studies on immersive distribution and production, closing with the Best of Poland award.
MESSAGES TO A POST HUMAN EARTH
Messages To A Post Human Earth is an interactive, multi-sensorial journey through a local woodland or green space area, where you and your partner will embark on an evocative audio journey featuring augmented reality (AR), to reimagine your relationship with the natural world.
The experience will be open to the public on September 23–24 at CSW.
The story is told through audio narration which guides the participant around the park, giving instructions on where they should look and what they should do and also delivering narrative content.
Designed for two people to experience together, participants book tickets and arrive at a Front of House location where they are greeted by futuristic docents who provide the participants with a phone in a specially designed secure sculptural case, before being sent off to explore the natural world.
Both participants must begin the experience at the same moment facing one another. Each person’s journey is different and designed to work in synchronicity with the others. It is written to create a symbolic choreography in their moments with each other and around the park. At different moments the actions of one person acts as a performance for the other, illustrating aspects of the story that they are following in the audio in a playful way.
At various moments in the experience they are asked to look at their device which reveals elements in the world which are invisible to the naked eye. This AR layer works on the environment around them, beneath them and also on their partner. AR is an exciting new tool for storytelling that is increasingly widely available. It is best used within a narrative framework that gives it meaning. Sculptures are placed around the park to heighten the AR and audio experience.
The narration takes into account the other person in the story and that relationship. Creating this as a two person experience also means that it is immediately shared and allows conversations to begin at the moment that it ends. A crucial moment for immersive experiences.
ONLINE CONSULTATIONS
Advance your digital media project with a free, exclusive 1:1 online consultation. Talk directly with curator and producer Anna Szylar about international distribution, co-production models, and how to navigate the new media art landscape.
To support our community of visionaries, we are launching exclusive 1:1 consultations with Anna Szylar - free, online sessions designed for creators working at the intersection of art and technology. Whether your project is at the concept stage or already in production, these conversations offer a dedicated space to think through what comes next. Do you have an XR project and don't know where to take it? Let's talk! Sessions can cover whatever is most useful to you: festival strategy and how to navigate the international circuit, funding and co-production models, creative and production development, or exhibition formats for new media art. The sessions are informal but focused - think of them as a conversation with someone who has navigated this landscape from multiple angles.
Anna Szylar is a curator, producer, and cultural strategist with over twelve years of experience in immersive media and digital culture, and the founder of Monster Mind Studio. She guides projects from early strategy and fundraising through production and international distribution, and has collaborated with platforms including Venice Biennale College Cinema Immersive, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival, and Sheffield Doc Fest. She has served on juries and advisory boards at IDFA DocLab and One World International Human Rights Festival.Previously, Anna built and led the Digital Culture programme at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and led global distribution strategy at vnLab, placing Polish XR projects at Venice, IDFA DocLab, and Art VR Prague. Current and recent work includes producing Channelers (Biennale College Cinema Immersive) and her own mixed reality installation Nothing is Ever Really Lost. She is the founder and artistic director of the Digital Cultures festival.
The Team
Anna Szylar
Founder of Monster Mind Studio, curator, and a cultural manager with over a decade of experience in international collaboration within the immersive media field. She initiated and curated the Digital Cultures festival and has been a propagator and promoter of Polish art, building its recognition through collaborations with festivals such as SXSW, MUTEK, Tribeca Film Festival, and Sheffield Doc Fest. From 2014 to 2021, she was associated with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and later with the Visual Narratives Laboratory (vnLab), where she was responsible for VR distribution and international relations. She is a frequent speaker and moderator at international industry conferences. Anna Szylar also serves as a program advisor for IDFA DocLab, one of the world's leading festivals dedicated to interactive and immersive documentary. Her curatorial work includes exhibitions such as "Ground Control" during the Venice Film Festival (2023), Mixer Festival (2024) and MDAG Vision (2025). She is also an alumna of the prestigious Biennale College Cinema Immersive program, through which her Monster Mind Studio is producing the VR piece "Channelers" (2025), directed by Jakub Wróblewski. Her past and present partners include the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, vnLab, IDFA DocLab, Millennium Docs Against Gravity Festival, Biennale di Venezia, the Korea Foundation, the panGenerator collective, and numerous cultural festivals and institutions in Poland and abroad.
Pola Komarowa
Multimedia artist, born in Belarus, PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. She creates in Warsaw, combining photographic practices, photogrammetry, point clouds and digital scans. Author of video works, photography and VR experiences that explore identity, oppression, trauma and memory space.
Past editions
