WHERE WATER GATHERS
In 2026, Sonic Territories works with water as a guiding image of change. Its movements, pauses, pressures, erosion and returns shape the rhythm of the programme, connecting events across selected sites in Vienna from summer through to the main festival period in October.
Taking water as both material condition and connective force, this year’s edition traces the ways in which Vienna itself has been shaped by systems of circulation, storage and transformation: from rivers and engineered urban landscapes to industrial architecture, collective infrastructures and spaces of concentrated resonance. Sound becomes a way of tracing these shifts.
In this context, the 2026 edition develops the festival’s ongoing interest in sound, space and listening through a more local and site-specific approach. The programme moves between sites with distinct spatial and acoustic conditions: public and outdoor spaces such as Donaukanal and Kritzendorf; historical and infrastructural sites including Otto Wagner Areal and the Wasserturm; experimental laboratory settings in Seestadt; an undisclosed forest location by the water; and sacred interiors. Each site transforms the way sound is experienced — through openness, enclosure, distance, echo, exposure or intimacy.
Sonic Territories 2026 unfolds as a deliberately concentrated programme. Through listening sessions, public interventions, site-specific works and experimental formats, the festival invites audiences to notice what is usually passed through, overlooked or unheard.
The programme unfolds across Vienna throughout the coming months, culminating in the festival from 19–25 October 2026.