KIKK Festival 2026
From October 22 to 25, 2026, Namur, Belgium, will host the 15th edition of the KIKK Festival, an international event dedicated to digital and creative cultures at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Over the course of four days, more than 40 talks and about 20 installations will take place at various venues throughout the city, covering topics ranging from artificial intelligence to data visualization, including virtual and augmented reality, creative coding, design, and immersive experiences.
Exploring the New Frontiers of Digital Creation
Within the festival, KIKK PRO is specifically aimed at professionals in the creative and technology industries. Its program will bring together designers, artists, studios, and international experts to explore the new possibilities opened up by digital technologies: AI and machine learning, data visualization, interfaces, augmented and virtual reality, algorithmic creation, immersive experiences, and new forms of digital design. This deliberately cross-disciplinary approach examines both the tools themselves and the new creative uses and processes they enable.
Among the many presentations on the program, we can mention, among others:
- "Beyond the Bar Chart" with Moritz Stefaner, an international expert in data visualization and founder of the Truth & Beauty studio, who will demonstrate how to move beyond standardized charts and dashboards to design data visualizations tailored to a specific question, audience, and context.
- "New Work, Dead Work" with Dries Depoorter, a Belgian artist and creative technologist, who will share his new creations as well as prototypes and abandoned concepts. His work explores topics such as AI, surveillance, social media, data visualization, and interactive technologies.
- "Augmenting the Unseeable: Representation at the Limits of Perception," featuring Lauren Moffatt, an artist specializing in immersive environments, will explore the use of spatialized augmented reality to make microscopic organisms visible and translate environmental data into a scale accessible to the public.
- "Building Worlds for The Sphere" with Paul Nicholls, Co-founder & Creative Director of Factory Fifteen, who will present the process of designing digital experiences for the spectacular Sphere in Las Vegas, where spatial design, digital imagery, and immersive technologies converge.
In addition to the conferences, the festival also makes experimentation a central part of its format. Its Art Trail will transform Namur into a digital art trail featuring more than 20 interactive and immersive installations, including “AI as Family” by the Media Design Master’s program at HEAD Geneva and the ECAL Interactive Lab.
For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in French-speaking Switzerland active in the digital, design, communication, or creative industries, KIKK offers a space to observe how new technologies are repurposed, combined, and transformed into concrete experiences and applications. The event also has a strong international dimension: its professional program brings together more than 3,000 professionals from over 40 countries, featuring B2B meetings and networking sessions. The new KIKK Connect format, launching on October 21, takes this concept a step further with a day dedicated to business development, matchmaking, and meetings with international delegations—including a Swiss delegation.
