The Cost of Connection is a live audiovisual performance by Portrait XO that explores global challenges using AI and data sonification. Drawing on critical datasets from the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she transforms data into sound and visuals to engage audiences with the complex issues facing our world. For part of the show, Portrait XO will be joined by guest musician Dan Gorelick and his cello.

Co-founder of Actual Objects, Rick Farin uses game engines and digital tools to craft speculative fictions blending live action, CG, AI, and VFX. In the AV-performance Chaos Play Live, original music by Farin is performed by a seemingly endless cast of digital characters, both CGI & AI generated, that take audiences into nether zones where human expression and machine artefact meld insolubly into each other to herald a new chaotic era in which fabrication and reality will be inseparable.

This event is included in the transmediale festival pass, CTM festival pass, and connect pass, but not in the transmediale Day passes.