Introduction
The monthly Glitch Tonic workshop and meetup series at A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture in Bratislava – was launched in September 2024 to address a specific gap in the local experimental music scene. While festivals and concerts offer presentation opportunities for finished works, there is a lack of opportunities for musicians to open up their processes to the public, share tools, and exchange knowledge in an informal setting.

Over ten evenings, the publicly accessible Glitch Tonic events created a space for non-formal collaborative learning and sharing, with the aim to develop a community of practitioners who are, at the same time, also specialised audiences. Each workshop session invited, on average, three local, regional or foreign artists to demonstrate their creative practices – from modular synth patching and live coding, to prepared piano, VR, and other audiovisual experiments – in front of peers and curious visitors. In total, 29 musicians, composers, and artists presented their creative approaches in a conversational format, with general discussion and Question & Answer sessions as integral parts. Many who first attended as audience members later return as presenters themselves, supporting a culture of exchange and mutual learning.

Context

This text is one of the pilot studies of Re-Imagine Europe: New Perspectives for Action. In these contributions we explore and reflect on artistic practices and experimental approaches in the cultural field that can engage and activate audiences and communities to address ecological, social, and political challenges. The pilot studies provide an overview of practices of cultural organisations that can serve as models, recipes, or tools for transformation for current and future generations of cultural workers and artists.

Read the pilot study directly on our website or download the PDF to save for later.