The CTM Radio Lab supports the creation of new works that explore the intersection of radio with live performance within the context of the festival’s yearly theme. The initiative is led by CTM Festival and Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Radio Art / Klangkunst in collaboration with Goethe-Institut, ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst, and Ö1 Kunstradio. In 2024 it is also presented within the framework of the sound art initiative tekhne.

The call is open to artists worldwide and relevant to fields of experimental music, sound art, radio art, new radio drama, and performance. The commissioned works will premiere at CTM 2024 Festival in Berlin (26 January – 4 February  2024), and will be subsequently broadcast in Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s Klangkunst programme in spring in the form of a 40–55 minute radio piece. The Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Broadcasting Service) will also present the works via one or more of its platforms: the Ö1 Zeit-Ton or Ö1 Kunstradio radio shows, and/or the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival in Graz (Autumn 2024).

This year the Radio Lab focus is on live performance formats (rather than installations). Projects must respond to CTM 2024’s theme of Sustain, and more specifically engage with the emancipatory potential of technology in music and sound art, which is the core focus of tekhnē. Narrative, speculative, investigative approaches might for example explore technology as a tool to corrupt or strengthen democracy, histories or potentials of radio and modern broadcasting methodologies, the agency of users, accessibility, or other. Live performances should be conceptualised in such a way that a radio piece can be created in the same spirit.