‘It’s Like a Gateway Drug’: How Prague's Signal Festival Transforms Digital Art

‘OVERLOЯD’, by mammasONica. Photo credit: Tomáš Slavík

‘This,’ the driver says, pointing, ‘is a club called Bike Jesus. You can go after the opening party, for more party.’ The building in question is a stout, isolated cement block by a main road—not where I’d expect to find any party, let alone more.

‘Signes’ by Playmodes, located in Signal Space. Photo credit: Kateřina Fialová

Thankfully, the rest of the landscape is more inspiring. Reddish sloping roofs, pointy spires, trees bursting with fall foliage. I have just landed in Prague, only an hour and a half from London, feeling like a fugitive from the hectic art month that is October.

Multiple art fairs, the most famous being Frieze, pop up around London this time of year, hoping to snare art lovers and dazzle us with parties. But all these events are thinly-veiled excuses to court favours and cut business deals. Practicing cynic that I am, even the most dazzling artworks hardly compensate for the air of corporate stuffiness.

So I’m trying something new: Signal Festival, in the capital of the Czech Republic. It’s the country’s biggest cultural event, drawing over 500,000 visitors. The focus is digital art, and over one long weekend lighting installations, video mapping, holograms and other cutting-edge technologies take Prague into the future. The festival has been running since 2013, but the 2025 edition was particularly special: this iteration signalled (sorry for the pun) the opening of Signal Space, the festival’s first permanent, and impressively large, premises.

In one long weekend lighting installations, video mapping, holograms and other cutting-edge technologies take Prague into the future.

Heading to Signal instead of Frieze feels like bunking off school. The energy is different. Instead of VIP passes and snobby security, it’s inherently accessible, with a good chunk of the offering taking place outside for free. Tourists and locals join together in ooh-ing and aah-ing, packing together along the riverbank to see works like ‘Tzolk’in Light’, a geometric 3D light projection named for the Mayan calendar.

‘Tzolk’in Light’, by Peppercorns Interactive Media Art. Photo credit: Viktor Schwing

‘We try, even for those that live in the city, to give them a new angle to explore their own home, through art,’ says Martin Pošta, the festival’s charismatic founder. ‘That’s why we change locations every year, so we can mutually explore different parts of the city.’ His idea for Signal was born in that hallowed institution: the pub. A friend of Pošta’s shared his idea to video-map a film onto a church, and Pošta’s mind was blown. He then took it to the city officials, who suggested something even greater: doing the project on the 600-year-old Clock Tower. 

This tech takeover blends the future and the past in startling glory. 

‘I quit my job for this,’ Pošta shares. ‘We didn’t know what we were doing, honestly’. But it project proved a huge success, and the city commissioned them again. He hasn’t stopped since, ‘I love technology and I love art!’ he gushes. ‘It makes me very excited – this is what I live and breathe for.’ Pošta is a refreshing personality in the art world. He wears leather jackets and baseball caps, instead of the sharp suits favoured by the Frieze squadron. He is not afraid to show unbridled excitement, and his energy is infectious. 

Prague is a historic city, laden with soaring buttresses and lofty cathedrals. Signal, with its experimental futurism, should feel out of place, but this tech takeover blends the future and the past in startling glory. 

‘Constellation’ by Pavla Sceranková. Photo credit: Tomáš Slavík

There are two routes mapped out for the Signal sightseer, each one hitting key artworks both outdoors and inside venues ranging from religious spaces to art centres. On a park slope, three huge hoops tower above us: this is ‘Constellation’ by Pavla Sceranková, which allows viewers to move and interlace with the installation, mimicking the movement of celestial bodies. There are three movable components, and those manoeuvring them need to work together. It’s a good activity to get strangers talking. Sceranková, who is from Slovakia and is based in Prague, is a good example of Signal’s interest in making space for local and Central European artists.

‘Lux Domus’ by Josep Poblet. Photo credit: Dušan Vondra

My favourite piece is from Barcelona-based light designer Josep Poblet. ‘Lux Domus’ is a kinetic installation in a grammar school’s chapel. The bloom-like lanterns, lining the room in rows, bathe everything in a warmly lit fog as they gently open and close. The light scattering seems to sketch out Gothic arches made of smoke, and viewers’ voices naturally fall to a whisper in this reverent atmosphere. Matching the venues to the artworks is ‘a really delicate game of mix and match,’ notes Pošta meditatively. 

Another poignant work was the late Bill Viola’s ‘Tristan’s Ascension’ - a monumental video capturing a man’s body as it’s gradually lifted by rising water. Installed in arches of the Church of St. Salvator in the Convent of St. Agnes, it’s even more resonant considering the artist’s death in May last year.

‘Tristan’s Ascension’, by Bill Viola. Photo credit: Tomáš Slavík

There is, as to be expected with digital art, a fair amount of lasers and light shows, and critics have accused these kinds of large-scale public artworks as flashy performances that lack the depth of traditional fine art. Questions like the relationship of beauty to technology or showmanship inevitably rear their heads. But if people only spend 27 seconds looking at a masterpiece in a museum, perhaps Signal is the kind of fair we need. 

‘It’s like a gateway drug. We hope it’ll be a bridge to something more classical.’

‘We get half a million visitors in four days,’ says Pošta, ‘that’s how many our National Gallery gets for the whole year.’

For Pošta, digital art is a way in. ‘It’s like a gateway drug. We hope it’ll be a bridge to something more classical. I don’t want to say something more meaningful because in my perception, art doesn’t necessarily have to have meaning and it does not have to tell you a story. But it does have to move you, create an emotion.’ 

Have I shared that there’s an extra twist? Most of the shows have to be seen at night. Viewing art in the wee hours is a novel experience, especially in such a storied city. When you take art outside the white box, you see older visitors or families with prams in greater numbers. Signal is not a festival that just caters to art insiders or tourists – it’s as big a draw for locals who show up in happy droves and stay all night long.

‘Grill Flame’, by Rafani. Photo credit: Dušan Vondra

‘I think it’s time for the snobbiness surrounding digital art to be let go.’

‘I think it’s time for the snobbiness surrounding digital art to be let go,’ Pošta adds. It’s hard to argue with this: if your goal is bringing culture to the public, then Signal achieves a camaraderie among attendees that is rare with analogue art, and more frequent at gigs.

On my last day, I’m back in the cab, sharing it this time with a French journalist. ‘What was your favourite show?’ the driver asks politely. ‘Oh,’ the Frenchie rolls his eyes in ecstasy, the one where they threw fire at participants.’ He chuckles, ‘that would be so illegal in France. But I love to see this kind of thing.’ There’s a pause. ‘So you had a good time?’ continues the driver. 

Frenchie chuckles again, ‘I did not sleep because I was in Bike Jesus till 5am. I really love this city.’ Maybe our London fairs could learn a lesson about loosening up.

Signal Space is a newly opened permanent gallery for digital art in Prague. To find out what’s on, visit their website.

The 2026 Signal Festival will take place from the 15th - 18th October. For more information, visit their website.