SAVE THE DATE – Biennial of Digital Imaginaries
12 May 2026
Founded in 2018 and organized by CHRONIQUES, the Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques is the premier event for digital arts and culture in the Sud region. By exploring the visual arts, sound arts, and the performing arts, the Biennale examines the presence and use of digital media and new technologies in art, takes over public spaces, and gives a voice to national and international artists from diverse backgrounds.
For its fifth edition, the Biennale will take place across several cities in the South region—Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Avignon, Arles, Istres, and Port de Bouc—featuring a multidisciplinary program from October 23, 2026, to January 17, 2027.
Events you won’t want to miss
OPENINGS
Three highlights of the opening celebrations
– Friday, October 23, and Saturday, October 24, in Marseille
– Friday, October 30, and Saturday, October 31, in Aix-en-Provence
– Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7, in Istres
EXHIBITIONS
A series of exhibitions in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Arles, Istres, and Port de Bouc throughout the three months of the Biennale.
For this edition, Jean-Paul Fourmentraux is the guest curator.
Biography of Jean Paul Fourmentraux
Jean Paul Fourmentraux is a philosopher and socio-anthropologist (PhD), art critic, and media theorist (AICA) from France, specializing in the relationship between art, politics, and digital technologies. He is a professor at Aix-Marseille University, a researcher at the Norbert Elias Center (UMR CNRS 8562), and the author of several books on digital (counter)cultures, including Art and the Internet (CNRS ed., 2010), L’œuvre Virale. Net art et culture Hacker (La lettre volée, 2013), Identités numériques (CNRS éd. 2015), Digital Stories (Hermann, 2016), Images Interactives (La Lettre Volée, 2017), antiDATA. La désobéissance numérique (Presses du réel, 2020), Sousveillance. L’oeil du contre-pouvoir (Presses du réel, 2023).
CLOSING
A program of live performances and music
– Thursday, January 14, and Friday, January 15, in Aix-en-Provence
– Saturday, January 16, 2027, in Marseille
Theme: Resistance
hacktivism, diversions and artistic tactics in the digital age
The theme of resistance, explored from the perspective of digital cultures, creates a space for diverse reflection, at the crossroads of activism, subversion tactics, and artistic gestures of disobedience. The idea is to explore how digital practices – whether they stem from performance, installation, live performance, augmented reality, video or algorithmic writing – can become spaces for symbolic, political and aesthetic struggle.
To resist is to oppose, divert, hack, disturb.
It is also to subvert, transform the impact, cross the fault, build in the crack, and create.
But some forms of struggle do not shout, rather they dance, laugh, and sing. These approaches do not deny reality, they do not weaken it – they choose to experience it differently. They create spaces of collective power, desirable fictions, rituals of resistance based on relationship rather than confrontation.
Rather than being in opposition, these two dimensions coexist in contemporary artistic practices, offering a range of sensitive and political responses.
Metaphorically speaking, resisting is also a poetics of the obstacle, a balancing force, a capacity to slow down, redirect and filter. To resist is not to block – it is to bring another dynamic into existence within an imposed flow.
Guest of Honor: the 2026 Mediterranean Season
Having previously featured Quebec, Taiwan, Belgium, and Lithuania, this fifth edition is part of a broader Mediterranean narrative that celebrates the diversity of its artists and creators engaged in various forms of digital creation, and will be a highlight of the 2026 Mediterranean Season.
Online programming starting in July 2026
