About project
Signal Forum 2026 is an international one-day conference that brings together professionals, experts and the wider public with an interest in contemporary digital and light art.
The third edition will take place on Friday, 16 October 2026, in the Balling Hall of the National Library of Technology (NTK) as part of the accompanying programme of Signal Festival. Through panel discussions featuring artists, curators and experts, the programme will explore the possibilities and meanings of Dream On! Dreams and Visions, the theme of this year’s festival.
Signal Forum is organised with the support of the international project Co-Vision, as well as the Czech Technical University in Prague, the French Institute in Prague, Vašulka Kitchen Brno, and the French networking platform HACNUM.
CO-VISION FINAL PRESS CONFERENCE
9:00–10:00
Final presentation of the creative-participatory CO-VISION project, which maps European cultural heritage through contemporary multidisciplinary art. The session will explore the artistic and research process developed throughout the project, the artworks produced and presented by the partners, and the CO-VISION Digital Archive, conceived as the long-term legacy of the platform.
*CO-VISION is a large-scale international project, co-funded by the European Commission under the Creative Europe program, which uses art to address the pressing environmental issues of our time.
DREAM IN LIGHT
10:10–11:00
Light as a fundamental medium of public space, galleries, and art. Light as both a material and a metaphor. How can we work with light in our professions and creative practices? What does light allow us to express that other media cannot? And can we discover something unexpected through light?
Moderator: Martina Freitag (art historian and art advocate)
Panelists: Marie Foltýnová (GHMP), Hsin-Chien Huang (media artist), Jan Machát (director of the PROTOTYP festival)
AI: SHARED DREAMS
11:10–12:00
Will artificial intelligence alter our ability to dream? In what direction will our interaction with today’s most powerful medium continue to evolve? Where are the boundaries between human authorship and the inventiveness of artificial intelligence, and how is AI redefining the boundaries of artistic and technical professions?
Moderator: Jonáš Kucharský (cultural publicist, curator)
Panelists: Lenka Hámošová (artist and researcher), Daniel Sýkora (professor at the Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction, CTU), Jana Bernartová (media artist)
HRTL: PLUG & PLAY
13:10–13:40
Commented sound improvisation on modular synthesizers by Leoš Hort (musician and member of the Bastl Instruments collective)
DARE TO DREAM
14:00–14:50
How can we define freedom today? Where is civil society headed, and through what artistic strategies can it be shaped? And how should we understand the intellectual legacy of Václav Havel, which also shaped this year’s Signal Festival program?
Moderator: Jolana Humpálová (journalist, creator of Puls podcast)
Panelists: Ester Valtrová (programme manager at Díky, že můžem), Svitlana Reinish (set designer and media artist), Pavel Kopřiva (head of the Interactive Media Studio at the Faculty of Arts and Design, UJEP)
VAŠULKA VISIONS
15:00–15:50
How can a digital archive be transformed into a living environment? Where does 1980s media art intersect with current trends in the creative industries? And what is the legacy of the Vašulka artistic duo—pioneers of video art and digital art—to whom part of this year’s Signal Festival programme is dedicated?
Panelists: Jana Horáková (educator and digital culture theorist) and Andrej Boleslavský (digital artist)
EFORCE
16:00–16:30
Guided tour of the EFORCE Prague Formula student race car with Daniel Měkota (student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, and member of the EFORCE team)
