Looking beyond the evolving alarmist scenarios of environmental catastrophe prevalent in the global warming debate, transmediale.09 shifts the focus of this challenge to the broader cultural, societal and philosophical consequences that the collapse of the northern ice barrier reveals. Are we about to reach another historically succinct moment of unavoidable and revolutionary change, a point of no return leading to an unforeseeable global transformation akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago? Will it be a time in which we realise that everything will be different, without knowing how everything will be different?

In the search for DEEP NORTH, transmediale.09 seeks the paradoxical and global consequences, the re-orientation, shifting of perspectives and means to interact with the issues of cultural and technological development, innovation and creative sustainability lurking below the surface of climate change. DEEP NORTH becomes not a fixed location, but a paradigm transforming loss into a complex state of being and cultural development - an indicator of location becoming fused with global introspection.

In the real and metaphorical breaking open of the both the North and South polar zone's locked and inaccessible mysteries we discover both new dangers and opportunities. Reinforcing the sense that the Earth acts a truly global system of interrelated events where a shift in the perception and attitudes towards cultural interdependencies become critical, DEEP NORTH is a call to artists, media activists and cultural practitioners to explore the roles that art and digital culture play in defining new media strategies beyond the rhetoric of climate change.

DEEP NORTH focuses on the remote, silent ... indeed, deep zones of artistic and cultural sensibilities and processes of transformation from the arctic to the desert, from the depths of network practice to the remote constructs of scientific and technological systems. As our sense of the natural environment vanishes to be replaced by models, projections and technological mimicry, the need to fundamentally transform cultural thinking by applying, adapting and exploring the creative use of technology increases, thus critically affecting the means of communication, interaction and perception... in the DEEP NORTH of our global cultural awareness.

Through DEEP NORTH transmediale.09 looks to explore the cultural consequences of an issue that has come to dominate virtually all aspects of life and society. However – and perhaps with certain irony – the dire predictions of an imminent cataclysmic ecological tipping point have now been surprisingly superseded by the likely short-term manifestation of a global economic shakedown. Whether ecological, social, or economic, DEEP NORTH alludes to the intense fragility and inherent instability of human interaction with global systems. In the context of climate change, transmediale.09 reflects on the urgency to read global events in fundamentally new ways, developing new cultural vocabularies factoring the autonomous and critical nature of art into the complexity of these equations. By converting the House of World Cultures (HKW) into a makeshift zone of cultural shelter created by the Berlin based design group raumtaktik, transmediale.09 sets off on its journey into these deep states of fragility, insecurity and temporality. Helping realise transmediale's goal of linking art and digital culture with the contemporary issues of a society in transformation, is the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Their funding extension through 2012 guarantees the continued development of transmediale as one of the key international events of the Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH. In programmatic collaboration with organisations including the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the German Foreign Office, which recognise the value of digital media expression in the strengthening of an open society globally, transmediale has key partners helping to develop the depth, strength and reach of its programming. Creating frameworks with which the festival contributes to the region's cultural, economic and educational development are the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, as well as new collaborations with the Offene Kanal Berlin and the Medienanstalt BerlinBrandenburg. As part of its aim to highlight institutions unique to Berlin's media cultural landscape, transmediale looks to deepen its partnerships with the Canadian Embassy's Marshall McLuhan Salon, the Vilem_Flusser Archive at the University of Arts UdK, and with the recently opened Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, transmediale would also like to thank our long-standing partners Serve-U and Echoo for their commitment to thefestival, and to einskommanull for embarking on the task of building our new online platform. Together with the limitless creative energies of transmediale's team, juries and board, I wish all our guests, participants and partners a truly engaging and challenging festival.

Stephen Kovats

Stephen Kovats Artistic Director, Thomas Munz Curator, Magdalena Rothweiler Festival Manager, Tina Ebner Festival Management Assistant, Markus Huber Assistant to Artistic Director, Benjamin Nourney Marketing, Sibylle Kerlisch Production, Laleh Torabi Design, Annette Schäfer Press and Public Relations, Stefan Riekeles Performance Curator, Rob van Kranenburg Co-Chair Conference, Miriam Bax Press Assistant, Ute Bongartz Associate Editor, Adam Thomas Online Co-Ordinator, Filippo Gianetta, Imke Grimm, Stella-Sophie Seroglou Program Assistants, Rico Greb Assistant Design, serve-u, Phillip Sünderhauf, Andreas Buchholz Technical Directors, Ludmila Demke, Marc Klische Assistants to the Technical Directors, **tagr.tv ** Video Documentation, Jonathan Gröger Photo Documentation, telcosystems Video Trailer, Adam Hyde, Alejandro Duque, John Hopkins Streaming/Online

Festival Architecture raumtaktik, Friedrich von Borries, Matthias Böttger, Christian Hiller, Wiesje Bijl

Web Programming einskommanull, Micz Flor, Laura Oldenbourg, Sebastian Göbel

Advisory Board Alex Adriaansens, Marie Cathleen Haff, Saskia Sassen, Yukiko Shikata, Siegfried Zielinski

Main funders: Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Kultur Projekte Berlin, HKW

Partners: Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, gtz, Auswärtiges Amt, .CHB Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Embassy of Canada, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Koninkrijk der Nederlanden

Sponsors: serve-u technical support, Avid, Oktoberdruck, Geier-tronic

Media partners: arte tv, brand eins, radioeins, die tageszeitung, Zitty Berlin

Supporters: Australische Botschaft, Berliner Pilsner, Bionade, Bocca di Bacco, Botschaft von Finnland, [DAM] Berlin, Echoo Konferenz Dolmetschen, GOTO10, ICI Berlin, IN-Berlin, Kitchen Budapest, Offener Kanal Berlin, Pixelache Helsinki 09, Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Recycling Börse, Vertretung der Regierung von Québec in Berlin, Werkleitz - Zentrum für Medienkunst