VECTOR FESTIVAL 2025: 404_not_found
July 10 – 20, 2025
Application deadline for all programs: April 7, 2025 at 11:59PM ET
Presented by InterAccess, Vector Festival 2025, 404_not_found, embraces the broken hyperlink, the loading screen, and the sharks biting undersea fiber-optic cables.
The 12th edition of Vector Festival, 404_not_found, will resurface our forgotten realities of the 1:1 relationship between digital representations of the physical. If we held close the understanding that our digital memories had physical footprints – motherboards that can corrode or servers that require maintenance – would we still expect immortality from the web? How can we build websites that are meant to decay, perennial files, or computers that are only awake with the sun? Can our machines teach us to celebrate impermanence?
Curated by Dallas Fellini, Vector Festival 2025’s flagship exhibition questions notions of permanence associated with the web, considering how we might come to terms with the broken archival promises of digital media or begin to understand decay as a distinct but equal counterpart to growth. We invite artists working in new media to submit work engaging with digital decay, impermanence, the anti-archival, and the ephemeral qualities of digital memory.
InterAccess invites submissions of artworks to the festival’s 2025 program, taking place July 10 – 20, 2025, with most exhibitions and site activations running through July 10 – August 9, 2025.
There is no limit on the number of submissions per program or overall.
Vector Festival does not charge submission fees or provide production expenses. All artists selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with CARFAC and IMAA fee schedules, as well as support to apply for external funding.
Open Applications for Festival Programs
We invite submissions of new media artworks for the following festival programs, the scope and perspective of which will respond to the submissions received.
Flagship Exhibition
New media artworks for consideration in our flagship, on-site exhibition, curated by Dallas Fellini.
Workshops
Proposals for online and in-person workshops teaching emerging and experimental approaches in new media and game art.
Game Art Residency: random access memories
Artist applications to take part in a game jam residency, supported by curator Bracy Appeikumoh. Residency starts during Toronto Games week (June 13 – 20) continues with workshop and thematic support for game development, ending in an exhibition opportunity during the festival.
This program is co-presented with Toronto Games Week, Hand Eye Society, and The Centre for Culture and Technology.
Community Programming
Proposals for community, grassroots, and DIY programming aligned with the festival theme.
AR Multi-Site Exhibition
Digital 3D artworks for a multi-site augmented reality street installation.
Window Activation
New media artworks for installation in street-facing windows.
Screening
Time-based video, film, and moving image works for screening consideration.
Performance
Live performance proposals including, but not limited to: live coding, experimental sound art, dance, etc.
Outside the Box
Any proposals that do not fit within the above programs.
SELECTION PROCESS
Proposals will be selected by InterAccess’s Programming Committee or program curator based on alignment with InterAccess's Programming Policy, organizational mandate, feasibility, and festival thematic.
InterAccess is committed to equity and strongly encourages applications from equity-deserving communities, including artists who are Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, LGBTQ-identified, Gender Diverse, Two-Spirit, and Persons with Disabilities.
Reach out to art@interaccess.org with any questions.
INFORMATION SESSION & OFFICE HOURS
For insight into the application process, please join us for an information session or office hours at the following dates:
Information Session and Q&A
March 20, 2025, 5 – 6PM ET
Online over Zoom, registration required here
Office hours
Office hours are a space to ask questions about the Vector Festival and the application process with InterAccess's Progamming Manager.
Reserve a time here or drop-in at the above times.
Office hours are held in InterAccess’s Discord server, invite link provided upon sign-up. If appointment slots are full, feel free to check in the Discord during open hours if there are any last minute openings.
ABOUT VECTOR FESTIVAL
Vector Festival is an experimental media arts festival dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. The festival is proud to be a participatory and community-oriented initiative organized by InterAccess in Toronto, Ontario.
The festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, kris kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger.
ABOUT INTERACCESS
InterAccess is an artist-run new media gallery, education facility, studio, and festival, dedicated to new media and emerging practices in art and technology. Annually, Interaccess executes multiple exhibitions, a full curriculum of skill-building and critical theory workshops, and a broad range of discursive events that explore the impact of technology on the social, political and cultural aspects of contemporary life.
Header image of Vector Festival 2024 programming, starting from left: work by Timur Si-Qin from too fragile to hold Flagship Exhibition, work by Samy Benammar from Many Ways Screening, work by aenl and Wes Vis from too fragile to hold Flagship Exhibition, performance by Anne-F Jaques at Hold On Festival Party, all curated by Miriam Arbus, photos courtesy of Maksym Chupov-Ryabtsev.