'I realized that the future has expired' - Dixon.   

Join Transmoderna's co-founders Dixon & Ana Ofak talk about new tendencies in electronic music and digital arts with Mélanie Courtinat and Portrait XO.


ABOUT TRANSMODERNA
Transmoderna is an artist aggregate and studio merging digital arts with electronic music. Their immersive multimedia installations and events infiltrate both museum and club environments, bridging the gap between two cultures that are often perceived as antithetical. Transmoderna was co-founded by Steffen Berkhahn (aka Dixon), music producer and DJ, and Ana Ofak, creative director and writer/researcher. They collaborate with a fluid and ever-expanding roster of artists from around the world. Their work often combine virtual reality, music production, live performance, and world-building elements. In their practice, they have explored media of extended reality, film, motion capture, photogrammetry, 3D sculpting, and game development. Previous events have taken place at Printworks London, NXT Museum Amsterdam during ADE, and at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn, New York. Their virtual reality installations have been exhibited at Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Julia Stoschek Foundation, SIGGRAPH, Nxt Museum Amsterdam, and Centre Pompidou Metz. 


ABOUT DIXON
Few artists walk the line between past and future as well as Dixon. As a DJ, he cuts a striking figure behind decks, rising from Berlin's beginnings among the original pioneers of electronic music. Over a career, he has evolved his sound into something visionary, running the renowned record label Innervisions with Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Rädle of Ȃme. His ear for the perfect mix eventually brought down Resident Advisor’s Top DJs Poll, after taking out first place for last four years running. However, Dixon’s ambition has driven a calling into wider fields of fashion and technology, expanding what it means to be a contemporary innovator.
Early on, a young Dixon was already remixing for the likes of Femi Kuti with his version of “Victim of Life” in 2000. His reputation as a remixer sprung out of edits hidden within his sets, adjusting tracks to give his own mixing an edge. Dixon’s edits were for himself, but became infamously in demand for friends and high-profile artists, with takes on The XX’s “Tides” and Disclosure’s “Boiling” in 2013. Major recognition came in 2017 when Depeche Mode asked him to remix their iconic anthem “Cover Me”, and the following year reworking LCD Soundsystem’s “I used to”. Recently, Dixon’s 2019 interpretation of Kelsey Lu’s “Why Knock For You” revealed his genre-bending take on today’s dance music.
Translating this view into running Innervisions earnt success from creating constellations within the label’s universe. To distribute their carefully crafted sound, Muting The Noise came to be in 2010. Dixon remains key in their music selection, always saving unreleased tracks to bump his own sets above the rest. Throwing parties from Innervisions’ essence led to Lost In A Moment forming as an events agency. Leaving no trace behind, offbeat locations are prioritised as the backdrop for the label’s otherworldly showcases. To gather other like-minded artists, a booking agency Temporary Secretary was born in 2017, where Dixon still sits among an impressive roster of talent.
However, his holistic interest in nightlife culture meant pushing the clubbing envelope further. In 2017, he co-founded the fashion label Together We Dance Alone, with its creative director Ana Ofak. The brand’s vision translates clubwear into the digital age and gazes at a future melded with machines. All designs are co-created with collaborators and friends in unique capsule drops, linked by the core concept of layering. Dixon’s fashion conscience has since synced up with some of the best in the industry. He was asked to provide soundtracks for four seasons of Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy runway shows and in 2018 was handpicked as a muse for Virgil Abloh’s first season of Louis Vuitton’s Men’s.
His most recent venture is Transmoderna, an artist aggregate and studio merging digital arts with electronic music. Transmoderna’s immersive multimedia installations and events infiltrate both museum and club environments, bridging the gap between two cultures that are often perceived as antithetical. Transmoderna was co-founded by Dixon and Ana Ofak, creative director and writer/researcher. They collaborate with a fluid and ever-expanding roster of artists from around the world. Their works often combine virtual reality, music production, live performance, and worldbuilding elements. In their practice, they have explored media of extended reality, film, motion capture, photogrammetry, 3D sculpting, and game development. Previous events have taken place at Printworks London, NXT Museum Amsterdam during ADE, and at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn, New York. Their virtual reality installations have been exhibited at Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Julia Stoschek Foundation, SIGGRAPH, Nxt Museum Amsterdam, and Centre Pompidou Metz. 


ABOUT ANA OFAK
Ana Ofak is a writer and creative director based in Lisbon. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural and media history from the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Previously, she has worked at an array of academic institutions including research projects on archiving digital and virtual art, tools of drafting in architecture, and cultural sources of newness. Her writing has been published with Art Agenda, e-flux, Die Zeit, and 032c. In 2019 she published her book on the art and architecture collective EXAT 51, “Agents of Abstraction”, with Sternberg and MIT Press. She is the co-founder and creative director of Transmoderna. 


ABOUT MÉLANIE COURTINAT
Mélanie Courtinat is an award-winning artist and art director, born and based in Paris, France.
Considering video games as a major medium, she focuses on their extraordinary immersive properties and seeks to push back their limits. The outcome, crafted through the use of digital tools, results in CGI images and films, Interactive experiences, Virtual and Augmented reality.
As an art director, she works on commissioned projects for clients in the Luxury, Fashion, Culture & Music fields.
As an artist, her personal work is consistently being shown worldwide in cultural institutions, galleries, and museums, from Tokyo to New York.
Mélanie also teaches video game theory and regularly gives lectures and workshops within an academic context.


ABOUT PORTRAIT XO
Portrait XO is an independent researcher and transdisciplinary artist. 
Recently awarded jazzki award by ELBJAZZ, the first German human-AI jazz prize, she’s been recognized over the years for her work in sonic innovation with AI audio pioneers Dadabots.  They won ‘Best Experiment’ award at VUT Indie Awards 2021, and Eurovision AI Song Contest Jury Vote for ‘most creative use of AI’ in 2020. 
Her development into AI audiovisual art evolved through several artist residencies from NEW NOW FESTIVAL and BBA Gallery in 2021, and Factory Berlin x Sonar+D in 2020. 
She researches computational creativity, human-machine collaboration, and explores new formats & applications for forward-thinking art and sound. She holds a monthly radio residency with her art & activism collective CO:QUO (CO-CREATE STATUS-QUO) on Refuge Worldwide Radio, and a founding member of The IASAS (International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists) and recently launched SOUND OBSESSED - sonic innovation archive celebrating the journey and milestones of new innovation in sound. Her debut research-based AI audiovisual album 'WIRE' was released on December 9th, 2022 as a first-of-its-kind NFT to Vinyl release on the music NFT polygon marketplace twelve x twelve.  
She has performed, presented, and exhibited at SXSW, Ars Electronica, MONOM, Reeperbahn Festival, International Music Summit, Amsterdam Dance Event, BBA Gallery, RE:PUBLICA, Sonar+D, Factory Berlin, Tech Open Air, Redbull Music, Future Forum by BMW Welt, KIKK Festival, Github, and more.