About

Emerged by software tech pioneers,
risen to an international festival for digital arts & culture

Rooted in a software community

NODE emerged from the community around the graphical programming language vvvv as a place to finally meet in person. Shortly after the multipurpose software toolkit was made publicly available, it attracted a growing number of people from the digital- and generative design and art sphere around the globe and quickly became a widely used software among practitioners in the professional field of creative media. Ever since, the need to exchange ideas and knowledge in a physical space grew extensively.

The software toolkit ‘vvvv’

The first real-life meetup as festival

In 2008, David Brüll, Sebastian Oschatz, Thomas Hitthaler and Eno Henze initiated the first NODE Forum with the support of the vvvv founders & core developers, MESO Digital Interiors and the most active and professional users of the scene in Frankfurt (Main), Germany.

Participants of the first NODE Forum for Digital Arts in 2008

Spreading an open festival spirit for interdisciplinary exchange

Since its first edition, we share the vision of creating more than a large scale expert meeting of developers and users. A spirit of openness, knowledge sharing and idea exchange with other disciplines is an integral ambition of the community. NODE picked up this spirit and took a broad scope across media, professions, cultures and generations through a multifaceted program and by bringing together engineers, coders, designers, artists, politicians, scientists, architects, philosophers and curious individuals – from student to expert.

Today, NODE has grown into an internationally established digital arts festival, a critical school and open platform for students and the industry of creative media, the arts and the public.