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From April 23 to 26, Nizhny Novgorod hosted the ninth edition of INTERVALS, Russia's largest international festival of media art.
This year, the festival welcomed more than 530,000 visitors, transforming the city into a vibrant meeting point for media art enthusiasts, industry professionals, and audiences from across Russia and around the world.
The 2026 theme, Sign / Symbol, united the festival's exhibition, performance, music, and educational programs, inviting artists and audiences to experience the city as a landscape of images, meanings, and evolving interpretations.
The media art exhibition featured artists from Russia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, and beyond, including Quayola, Josep Poblet, Saeed Gebaan, mammasONica, SKGPLUS, Dominic Kießling, Filip Roca, PANTERRA, Sasha Kojjio, OUROBOROS, dreamlaser, KBDUKE, re4ee, Anton Morokov, Denis Astakhov, and many others.
More than 20 locations across Nizhny Novgorod became part of the festival route, spanning historic landmarks, museums, riverfronts, hillsides, and former industrial sites. Alongside returning venues — including Tseh.Space, Mayak Academy, Nizhny Novgorod Fair, Pakgauz Exhibition Hall, and Strelka — the festival introduced several new locations. For the first time, visitors explored installations at Zelensky Descent, Ice Arena, Chkalov Stairs, Garantia Bank, MediaHall, Sverdlov Square, Sergievsky Ravine, Heritage Quarters, and former Sormovo Oil Depot.
As the festival's title partner, T-Bank presented Strata, an installation created in collaboration with dreamlaser and metanoeia studio. Telecommunications partner T2 presented Transmission, developed together with dreamlaser.
The music program opened with a performance directed by Vladimir Varnava, featuring the Attaque de panique choir and Gruppa Varnava. The nighttime program brought together Husky, Yang Bing (China), GLUM, Symbol, Gorkovskaya Metro Stations, and Kirill Shapovalov, while media artists 404.zero, digital moss, Shihua Ma (China), and arthew0 presented a series of audiovisual performances.
The educational program included 36 events and more than 60 speakers.
The lecture series was curated by the Kafedra platform and Tatyana Tenkova, with support from Central University, Moscow Music School / Universal University, the Presidential Academy, the HSE School of Design (Nizhny Novgorod), and the Moscow Innovation Cluster Foundation.
Festival partner Samokat, a major grocery and household delivery service in Russia, created a dedicated gaming zone for visitors throughout the event.
"INTERVALS continues to grow together with its audience, discovering new venues and bringing together one of the strongest international communities in media art. What means the most to us is seeing Nizhny Novgorod become, even if only for a few days, one of the world's key destinations for artists, professionals, and audiences working with media art. Today, we're also delighted to invite everyone to the tenth anniversary edition of INTERVALS in 2027 — a milestone not only for the festival, but for Nizhny Novgorod and the development of media art in Russia," noted Denis Chuchko, Executive Producer of INTERVALS, Co-founder and Commercial Director of dreamlaser.
"This year's exhibition was our most diverse to date, bringing together the widest range of artistic formats in the festival's history, including works based on analog technologies. Every year we aim to surprise both our audiences and ourselves, and it was inspiring to watch visitors engage with the artworks and shape their own experience of the exhibition," noted Anna Gagarina, Curator of INTERVALS 2026 and Head of Exhibition Projects at dreamlaser.
See you at INTERVALS 2027!