BETA FESTIVAL 2026
6-22nd November
This year, Beta Festival explores how technology is reshaping how we sense, perceive and understand the world around us. Bringing together artists working across installation, performance, sound, games and digital media, the programme asks what happens when we de-centre the human perspective and begin to consider the intelligence of landscapes, plants, animals and machines.
Through immersive experiences and participatory artworks, audiences are invited to encounter technologies as systems that shape our relationships with each other and with the environments we inhabit.
From biofeedback and environmental sensing to speculative ecologies and multispecies collaboration, this year's festival explores the entangled boundaries between the digital and the living. Featuring 14 new artworks across Dublin city from national and international artists and the Irish premiere of two award-winning performances at Project Arts Centre in addition to two international premieres of work developed through The F Word programme.
Tickets for Project Arts Centre available now and the rest of festival tickets on sale next week with conference details announced soon.
FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
More programming to be announced soon!
Exhibitions
Burrow, stim and fidget your way through Unmasking Nature’s sensory feast—foraged from the rich biodiversity of Ireland for the diverse ways people connect to the world around us. Everyone is welcome to our hibernation sanctuary.
SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.
The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.
Studiotopia is a project that Cezar Mocan and Hung Lu Chan were the Irish residents as part of this programme and over the duration of the project explored XYZ. Here we see their works exploring XYZ
SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.
The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.
SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.
The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.
SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.
The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.
SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.
The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.
Join us for a storytelling walking tour that uncovers the hidden forces that have powered Dublin through the ages. From Europe's oldest fruit-bearing tree to the potential for power in the heart of the city, we'll explore the surprising stories of energy all around us: past, present and future.
An interactive sound installation for dogs where play becomes an art form, inviting them to explore, create music, and, most importantly, play.
Performances
On Saturday 7 November, Goethe-Institut Ireland hosts the second night of The F Word, Beta’s programme exploring disinformation, polarisation and the forces shaping how we understand and navigate our increasingly fragmented digital world.
On Saturday 7 November, Goethe-Institut Ireland hosts the second night of The F Word, Beta’s programme exploring disinformation, polarisation and the forces shaping how we understand and navigate our increasingly fragmented digital world.
The F Word is a cross border cultural programme connecting Ireland, France and Germany, bringing together artists, researchers and young people to ask urgent questions about facts, freedom, fragmentation and friction.
The Garden of d@ta is an installation made of sculptures, performance-vidéos and sound that immerse you in a very special data center in 2050 - build by Maureen Morin, a eccentric tech entrepreneur. The installation is also the set of the performance by the same name.
The F Word is a cross border cultural programme connecting Ireland, France and Germany, bringing together artists, researchers and young people to ask urgent questions about facts, freedom, fragmentation and friction.
Interested in durational performance? In gaming? Have we just the treat for you. Beta Festival is thrilled to present asses.masses a durational performance collectively played by the audience.
An interactive sound installation for dogs where play becomes an art form, inviting them to explore, create music, and, most importantly, play.
UNDERGROWTH is an artist-led, immersive experience exploring the relationship between nature, technology and each other and what becomes possible when we create together.
Talks & Conferences
Beta Festival’s Conference and main discourse programme takes place over the opening weekend on Friday 6th and Saturday 7th November
On Saturday 7 November, Goethe-Institut Ireland hosts the second night of The F Word, Beta’s programme exploring disinformation, polarisation and the forces shaping how we understand and navigate our increasingly fragmented digital world.
Beta Festival’s Conference and main discourse programme takes place over the opening weekend on Friday 6th and Saturday 7th November
Workshops
Build your own radio mesh network communication Device. Over 4 hours, participants learn to build their own mesh network communication device, gaining fundamental skills in electronics, listening and de-centralised infrastructure.
Diy portable and personalised computer workshop! A cyberdeck is a niche hobby originally inspired by cyberpunk fiction, such as the works of William Gibson. They can be as simple or as complex as you’d like and you can use them for anything!
Augmenting Sound - a workshop with Ed Devane exploring improvisation and performance using modular sound software
This course is part of the New Obsolescence programme at Fire Station Artists' Studios
An exploration of permacomputing ideas through the process of building a sustainable webring with HTML and CSS
Featured Artists
Venues
The award-winning Alliance Française Dublin is the second largest in Europe and the first established in a non-French speaking country.
The aim of the Alliance Française in Dublin is to promote French culture, as well as to provide a space for intercultural exchanges between Ireland and the cultures of the French-speaking world. The branch has more than a century of history, and was created in Dublin in 1907.
IMMA is Ireland’s National Cultural Institution for Modern and Contemporary Art. Our diverse and ambitious programme comprises exhibitions, commissions and projects by leading Irish and international artists, as well as a rich engagement and learning programme which together provides audiences of all ages the opportunity to connect with contemporary art and unlock their creativity.
For over 50 years Project Arts Centre has been a home, hub and hive for adventurous artists and audiences. What began in 1966 as a small artist-led collective is now evolving into Ireland’s national centre for the contemporary arts.
Pallas Projects/Studios (founded 1996) is a not-for-profit artist-run organisation dedicated to the facilitation of artistic production and discourse, via the provision of affordable artists studios in Dublin's city centre, and curated projects.
The National Botanic Gardens of Ireland are an oasis of calm and beauty.
A premier scientific institution, the Gardens contain important collections of plant species and cultivars from all over the world.
The Digital Hub is a leading cluster of technology and digital media companies and creatives in Ireland. We provide space for indigenous enterprises to scale and grow.
Home to national and international technology companies and creatives in the heart of Dublin.