The Czech Republic’s largest digital art festival became an international phenomenon this year as it once again transformed the center of Prague into a laboratory for visual experimentation.
The 13th edition of the Signal Festival, which took place from October 16 to 19, presented 20 installations by Czech and international artists, including projections on a cloud of mist and interactive objects that responded to the movements of viewers.
And thanks to a mention in Dan Brown’s new novel, The Secret of Secrets, the festival has gained even more global recognition. Just a few weeks after the release of Brown’s new bestseller set in contemporary Prague, viewers were able to see for themselves what drew the popular writer to the festival, which is the largest Czech and Central European showcase of digital art. In one passage, the Signal Festival has a cameo appearance when the novel’s protagonist recalls attending an event at the 2024 edition.
“We’re happy about it,” festival director Martin Pošta says about the mention. “It’s a kind of recognition.” Not that the event needed promotion, even in one of the most anticipated novels of recent years. The organizers have yet to share the number of visitors to the festival this year, but the four-day event typically attracts half a million visitors.
On the final day, there was a long queue in front of the monumental installation Tristan’s Ascension by American video art pioneer Bill Viola before it opened for the evening, even though it was a ticketed event. In the Church of St. Salvator in the Convent of St. Agnes, visitors could watch a Christ-like figure rise upwards, streams of water defying gravity along with him, all projected on a huge screen.
The festival premiere took place on the Vltava River near the Dvořák Embankment. Taiwan’s Peppercorns Interactive Media Art presented a projection on a cloud of mist called Tzolk’in Light. While creators of other light installations have to deal with the challenges of buildings—their irregular surfaces, decorative details, and awkward cornices—projecting onto water droplets is a challenge of a different kind with artists having to give up control over the resulting image. The shape and depth of the Peppercorns’ work depended on the wind at any given moment, which determined how much of the scene was revealed to viewers and how much simply blown away. The reward, however, was an extraordinary 3D spectacle reminiscent of a hologram—something that can’t be achieved with video projections on static and flat buildings.
Another premiere event was a projection on the tower of the Old Town Hall, created for the festival by the Italian studio mammasONica. It transformed the 230-foot structure into a kaleidoscope of blue, green, red, and white surfaces. A short distance away, on Republic Square, Peppercorns had another installation. On a circular LED installation, they projected a work entitled Between Mountains and Seas, which recounted the history of Taiwan.
An immersive projection MLHA (Czech for “fog”) was created especially for the historic courtyard of the Clam-Gallas Palace. The installation artist Robert Seidel and sound producer Nikolai von Sallwitz, both from Germany, combined Baroque and contemporary aesthetics to transform the courtyard into a space charged with digital light and sound.
While city center locations were mainly dedicated to works by foreign artists, Czech artists could be found at those in Prague’s Vinohrady neighborhood. Artist Pavla Sceranková prepared an interactive installation called Constellation for the Rieger Gardens, allowing viewers to create their own light constellations by interacting with a system of kinetic objects.
The Rafani collective, known for its political and performative interventions in public spaces, presented the performance piece Grill Flame, in which two large trucks spewing flames were parked near the Vinohrady water tower. The members of the group used an ancient form of light—open flames—and with the help of flamethrowers and apocalyptic electronic sound effects, set fire to objects resembling voodoo dolls.
Antonín Kindl created an interactive object called EYE for Svatopluk Čech Park, near Jiřího z Poděbrad Square, that consisted of a sphere on spidery legs emitting beams of light in response to nearby activity. The creature was accompanied by a dramatic robotic voice and cosmic sound effects.
The organizers have already announced that the 14th edition of the Signal Festival will take place from October 15 to 18, 2026. In the meantime, however, they have opened a permanent gallery called Signal Space in the center of Prague. The Czech capital’s first space dedicated to digital and light art presents a selection of the best works from previous editions of the festival.
This story was originally published by WIRED Czech and Slovakia and has been translated from Czech.
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