Seventeenth International Festival for Experimental Sound
Prepared Surroundings 2025
(informal dedication to John Cage)
All the Beautiful Stories \ Все Прекрасные Истории
Call for Submissions
Hello. This year, the Prepared Surroundings Festival for Experimental Sound will once again be released as an informal digest of documentations of prepared works.
On the last (or second-to-last) Wednesday of the year, we plan to publish a collection of videos with descriptions on the festival page. On the same day (or night), the festival co-curators will host an open, relaxed online meeting for a joint viewing of the works and subsequent discussion with interested parties.
This year’s theme: All the Beautiful Stories \ Все Прекрасные Истории.
Authors are invited to explore this theme as creatively as possible within the context of an experimental technological sound performance.
A narrative or anti-narrative can be woven from audio streams and wires. Something hidden, something you've long wanted to share – tell it to us through digital-to-analog conversions, write it in crypto-code, and let the choir sing it like musical notes. Your personal story, a fairy tale about a robot, or the quantum ontology of the universe... – it's all beautiful.
As last year, we encourage spontaneity and fleeting inspiration.
Anyone interested is invited to read the traditional manifesto, which creatively interprets the theme: follow this link.
If you’ve never heard of Prepared Surroundings before, check it out [here].
And\or check the slides, celebrating the festival's 15th anniversary: available [here].
The publication format will be similar to the previous year - check it out as well: [here].
Submissions:
For our digest, we accept videos strictly up to 10 minutes long with a text description in Russian or English.
We expect download links from authors for video files in .mp4 / .mov formats.
Works will be subject to curatorial selection.
To participate, please fill out this form by 23:59, December 19, 2025 (AoE time).
festival's curatorial team: vitalina strekalova, dmitriy morozov, sergey kasich