MUTEK

Composer and sound artist France Jobin, artist and physicist Sebastián Duque Mesa, and teaching professor Olivier Landon-Cardinal (ÉTS), moderated by Pía Baltazar (SAT), explore how principles of quantum mechanics such as interference, entanglement, and uncertainty can inspire and transform music as both a conceptual and technological practice, from algorithmic composition and granular synthesis to speculative listening practices that treat perception as a participatory act of world-building.

Presented by Institut en sciences et génie quantique de l'ÉTS, this panel spans metaphorical, technical, and philosophical dimensions, asking whether a shift in physics and technology demands a corresponding shift in our musical imagination, toward an aesthetic that embraces uncertainty, emergence, and the co-creative nature of reality.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

Speedy J (NL) @jochempaap

Live at MUTEK Montréal | Édition 26

Métropolis 1 on August 22

Mastered by @pheek (audioservices.studio)

Speedy J channels decades of techno mastery into a fiercely tactile live set. Navigating between hypnotic loops and raw improvisation, he constructs a pulse-driven narrative in real time. This is techno at its most physical—unpredictable, immersive, and deeply felt on every frequency.

Luisa Ji (UKAI Projects), Rachel Weldon (Debaser / Pique), and Mira Silvers (FEMINAE NOX / FORT Agency) propose critical, hands-on interventions in building more accessible, capable, and resilient cultural infrastructures, from community-driven Pay-What-You-Can ticketing models, to festivals reimagined as adaptive platforms for new rituals and exchanges, to a blueprint for a live music ecosystem driven by BIPOC womxn in leadership, on stage, and behind the scenes.

Part of the Future Festivals think tank, which since spring 2023 has assembled independent festival makers from Québec, Canada, Germany, and Mexico to collaboratively reimagine cultural infrastructures.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

Sasha Stiles, language artist, presents a talk and performance exploring poetry as both ancient technology and contemporary lens, examining how the encoding of memory and meaning through verse can illuminate the impacts and possibilities of AI, and open new ways of thinking about creativity, communication, and the future of human expression.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

Game Changer : stéréotypes, diversité et pouvoir de création présenté par Club Sexu

Léa Séguin et Justine Lahaie-Gagnon, chercheuses au Club Sexu, présentent les résultats de Game Changer, un projet de recherche explorant comment naissent les représentations stéréotypées du genre et des relations intimes dans l'industrie de jeux vidéo montréalaise, et proposent des pistes d'action pour bâtir une industrie plus équitable et inclusive.

Enregistré à MUTEK Forum 2025

A Conversation with Cristóbal Tapia de Veer

Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, multi-EMMY and BAFTA-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist, delivers a rare and intimate masterclass and Q&A, offering a behind-the-scenes look into his creative process, from composition and sound design to inspiration and method, moderated by curator, scholar, and musician Jarrett Martineau (Chan Centre for the Performing Arts).

Internationally acclaimed for his inventive, genre-defying scores, Tapia de Veer has redefined expectations of music for screen across cult series and films including Utopia (Channel 4), Black Mirror, The White Lotus, Smile (Paramount), and A24's Babygirl, earning him iconic status among a new generation of composers.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

Harry Kumar (MOTH) and multifaceted artist, producer, and vocalist ILĀ present a talk and live demo-performance exploring their collaboration RECURSE, a project applying quantum machine learning to musical composition, generated on a real quantum computer in partnership with hardware company IQM, and performed live with MOTH's quantum synthesiser ACTIAS.

Unlike conventional AI tools that rely on large datasets of scraped content, MOTH's quantum engine Archaeo learns from a small corpus of original input data. For RECURSE, a custom quantum model was trained on a curated dataset of original material by ILĀ, becoming both compositional tool and generative engine for a continuously evolving stream of music.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

Kahentawaks Tiewishaw (Revital Software) and Vanessa Racine present two Indigenous-led game projects exploring how interactive media can serve as a tool for storytelling, resistance, and cultural revitalization, from language learning through collaborative development, to speculative 8-bit futures that challenge colonial narratives of land, followed by a live demo of orange pekoe (2023) and a discussion on ethical and inclusive game design rooted in Indigenous perspectives and lived realities.

Katsi'noniowá:nen – The Flying Head is part of Revital's Language Learning Library Project. orange pekoe (2023) was presented in a live demo during the session.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025

McKenzie Wark writer, theorist, and performer delivers a live reading with accompanying beats drawn from Raving and Love and Money, Sex and Death, followed by a conversation on techno-sensuality, queer rave culture, and the poetics of refusal.

Author of influential works including A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, and Capital is

Dead, Wark has helped rethink strands of Marxist theory in books such as Leaving the Twentieth Century and Molecular Red, while also examining collective forms of knowledge production in General Intellects and Sensoria.

This talk offers an intimate and political exploration of celebration, desire, affective economies, and finitude, connecting queer, trans, and rave experiences to contemporary systems of power and knowledge.

Recorded at MUTEK Forum 2025.

Techno Para Dos (MX) @technoparados

Live at MUTEK Montréal | Édition 26

Expérience 3 on August 21

Mastered by @pheek (audioservices.studio)

In Amor, Techno Para Dos navigates a deep emotional spectrum through shifting sonic terrains—blending ambient, IDM, techno, and breaks. This live set is a meditation on love’s many forms, merging intricate rhythms with atmospheric depth to create a performance both tender and kinetic.