TIMISOARA — SIMULTAN Festival 2026, the 21st edition, opens in two days under the theme Against Resolution: Unfinished Thinking. Undisciplined Art. From 24 to 27 September at MX — the Corneliu Mikloși Museum — the Romanian new-media meeting gathers live performance, installations, talks, screenings and listening sessions, with side programmes stretching through about 4 October. Founded in 2005, SIMULTAN treats the city as raw material and hybrid practice as a way of thinking rather than a style label.
Organisers frame the edition around a pointed question: what do we lose when everything becomes perfect? Against a tech culture that promises sharper images and cleaner processes, the festival argues for friction, imperfection and unfinished thinking — "a workshop for an uncertain future," in the festival's own words. Radio Romania Timișoara's advance coverage echoes that brief and maps four days of experimental art and music at the Mikloși transport museum on Bulevardul Take Ionescu.
Opening night and live programme
Official live-acts listings put Dirty Electronics and Tim Shaw at 20:00 on 24 September, followed by Noémi Büchi at 21:00 — an opening-night pairing of circuit-bent electronics and contemporary AV composition. Subsequent nights include Giovanni Lami; Dieb13 with Marina Džukljev; Alex Deak; Ion D and Horațiu Șerbănescu; Julie Semoroz's MYELINE; then a closing cluster of Kasper T. Toeplitz, Nicolas Montgermont, dj sniff and Myriam Bleau, with f v n g v m listed for 3 October in the extended window.
Radio Romania Timișoara summarises the core weekend as 11 live performances, four installations and nine presentations, plus projections and listening sessions that continue after the opening nights. Coverage highlights laser work from Myriam Bleau, a tram-turned community radio studio under the "Adevăruri în mișcare" project, Ars Electronica On Tour material, and a selection of experimental films by Takashi Ito.
Co-productions, workshops and access
Beyond the September climax, SIMULTAN 2026 is framed as a year of co-productions with local and European partners — new works intended to tour partner networks — plus workshops and mentoring for young artists using digital tools in interactive AV and performance. A printed publication tracing twenty prior editions, with essays and interviews, launches alongside the festival. Partners listed by the organisers span the French Institute of Romania, Goethe-Institut, Werktank, IKLECTIK, Aksioma, MUTEK, Ars Electronica and others, with municipal funding through Timișoara's Center for Projects.
Ticket notes from local reporting: Early Bird four-night passes were 100 lei until mid-September, then 150 lei; single-evening tickets 50 lei via iabilet.ro and at the door. Exhibitions and presentations are free; school pupils enter free. For searchers tracking SIMULTAN Festival 2026, the practical spine is MX / Corneliu Mikloși Museum, 24–27 September core dates, Against Resolution theme, and side events into early October.
Why Against Resolution lands as a Technology story
SIMULTAN Festival 2026 is not a product launch week; it is a critical laboratory for how artists think with tools once those tools stop feeling new. The festival's own essay stresses that technology is now an ambient medium — the question is how to stay responsive when answers arrive before questions. That framing places the Timișoara edition squarely on a Technology desk: live electronics that treat architecture as instrument, laser volumetrics over audiences, community radio inside a museum tram, Ars Electronica touring modules, and presentations on sound studies and independent infrastructure.
For travellers and local students, the free exhibitions and talks lower the barrier beside paid evening performances. For European digital-art calendars, the 24–27 September core plus early-October side programmes make SIMULTAN a bridge between summer festivals and autumn media-art seasons. Dirty Electronics and Tim Shaw with Noémi Büchi on opening night set the tone: unfinished systems, undisciplined art, and a city still converting an industrial museum into a centre for art, technology and innovation. That is the advance brief for anyone searching SIMULTAN Festival 2026 before the MX doors open.
Attribute this advance guide to simultan.org's Against Resolution feature and live-acts schedule, plus Radio Romania Timișoara's festival agenda piece. With Opening Night two days away, the XXI edition is still a planning story — and a clear Technology-desk target for anyone following European digital-art calendars this week.