Village Numerique Third Edition: The Québec and Canadian digital creativity showcase is back from August 20 to September 3

An immersive digital art experience in the heart of Montréal, presented by MUTEK and XN Québec

The Village Numérique is back from August 20 to September 3, 2026, transforming the Quartier des Spectacles into a vast, free digital art circuit. Co-presented by MUTEK and XN Québec, the event features a series of digital art installations in the heart of the city, guided activities, and a professional program.

A showcase for creative scenes from here and abroad, the event brings together artists, studios, and collectives from Québec, the rest of Canada, and around the world.

“Village Numérique has become a leading meeting point and convergence hub for digital creation. By bringing together professionals from around the world, it turns Montréal into a place where different creative scenes engage in dialogue, all while offering the public a vivid portrait of the richness and diversity of this thriving ecosystem.” Mikaël Frascadore, Executive Producer of Village Numérique

A circuit that reinvents itself with every step

Every evening from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., the Quartier des Spectacles becomes a nighttime playground where everyone is free to chart their own path, at their own pace: interactive and contemplative works, video and kinetic projections, immersive installations, sound and light creations, and hologram displays. An accessible, eclectic, and playful program that invites visitors to discover how image, sound, data, and technology are reshaping our relationship with public space.

To guide visitors through this experience, Village Numérique offers a guided and educational program that includes guided tours, introductory workshops, and meet-the-artist sessions. These activities provide insight into the creative approaches and technologies behind the featured works.

These first works are only a glimpse of the 2026 program: more installations, guided activities, and professional events will be announced soon, notably during the opening night on August 20, presented by Télé-Québec.

New this year: presented in collaboration with MUTEK at Esplanade Tranquille on August 28 and 29, the RGBMTL collective brings together 25 digital artists from around the world. Each artist presents 5 to 10 one-minute works in projection, forming an annual group exhibition.

Where audiences bring art to life

Here, it is the gestures, movements, and interactions of the public that bring the works to life. In the gallery of the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT], Be Vardų, Be Kojų: (Traces) by Brigita Gedgaudas, co-presented with InterAccess, uses photogrammetry and a Kinect sensor to transform the audience’s movements into figures projected in real time.

The same participatory spirit runs through SOLSTICE by Ottomata and Stoop by Daily tous les jours, where the public generates light, music, and movement, turning public space, for one evening, into a true site of collective experimentation.

Revealing the unseen

Other works along the circuit give shape to what usually escapes the eye: buried memories, territorial narratives, and contemporary realities.

At the Parterre, Twenty Twenty-Five by Ghazal Majidi, co-produced with DigiBC, captures the audience’s reflection and integrates it into a living archive of airstrike photographs, prompting reflection on our relationship with images of conflict.

At the Cœur des sciences de l’UQAM, Perspectives welcomes visitors, where Après Minuit uses anamorphosis to offer a different perspective on image, digital identity, and the subtle forms of surveillance that surround us.

The persistence of traces

The circuit also explores what humans and technology leave behind.

Co-presented by imagineNATIVE with support from DigiBC, Sacred Tags by Noodin Studio, created by Quinn Hopkins, transforms an urban wall into a visual portal to ancient memories, bringing graffiti and rock painting into dialogue across time, two gestures united by the same impulse: to leave a trace, to make matter speak, and to inscribe a presence.

Meanwhile, Myriam Bleau explores the materiality of screens in Unfold, a luminous LED ribbon structure that folds in on itself, revealing a shifting architecture whose appearance changes depending on the viewing angle.

As visitors leave the circuit, they take away more than a memory: a new perspective on technology, on the spaces it inhabits, and on the traces it leaves behind.

Explore the Village Numérique website

A platform for showcasing digital creativity

Village Numérique’s professional program continues to grow this year, bringing together artists, studios, institutions, researchers, technology professionals, digital experts, and curators.

“Three years after its creation, Village Numérique is no longer an emerging project. This unique, unifying event has become an essential showcase for our studios, a driver of international collaboration, and a statement of Québec’s leadership on the global stage of digital creativity. Integrated into the Forum and Market’s activities, which promise particularly rich editions this year, it is a genuine lever for growth and visibility for businesses and creators.” Jeanne Dompierre, Executive Director of XN Québec

MUTEK Forum will take place from August 26 to 28 under the theme “Symbiotic Frequencies,” exploring the idea of harmonizing creative practices through research, creation, and interdisciplinary collaboration, and fostering exchange between audiovisual performance, electronic music, artificial intelligence, extended realities, ecology, media arts, and design.

In parallel, MUTEK Market offers a space dedicated to industry encounters, professional networking, and building an ecosystem among artists. More than 100 presenters and delegates from Québec and abroad will take part, fostering new collaborations.

By bringing together audiences, artists, and professionals, Village Numérique cements its place as a platform for discovery, exchange, and visibility for digital creation.

Acknowledgements

MUTEK and XN Québec would like to thank their partners, who play a considerable role in sustaining and developing their activities and who provided invaluable support in making Village Numérique possible.

The Government of Québec, the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec, the Secrétariat à la région métropolitaine du ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation du Québec, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the ministère du Tourisme du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, Ville de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, the Society for Arts and Technology, the Quartier des spectacles Partnership, Place des Arts, DigiBC, InterAccess, ArtEngine, imagineNATIVE, RGBMTL, VIA Rail, Orléans Express, AmigoExpress, Télé-Québec, romeo’s gin, Brasserie Dieu du Ciel! and Zamalek.