The city of Karlsruhe and the drugstore chain dm are inviting submissions for the dm-award connecting worlds, an open call for innovative projects under the motto PLAYGROUND. The award is endowed with €10,000, with up to €20,000 in production costs also available.

The call asks applicants to connect the digital space of the SCHLOSSLICHTSPIELE – the projection-mapping festival that lights up the castle facade in August and September 2027 – with the analogue space of the city's Marktplatz. The aim is to draw the light festival's glow out into the streets and to turn public space into a playful field of action.

Each project must therefore consist of two elements: a projection-mapping piece for the castle facade, running two to five minutes, and at least one satellite element in the surrounding urban space. The selected projects are to be realised in 2027 as part of the SCHLOSSLICHTSPIELE Light Festival and the exhibition "Media art is here".

The KME Karlsruhe Marketing and Event GmbH and the ZKM, the Centre for Art and Media, will advise and support the participants on curatorial and technical questions, giving the call a strong institutional backbone. The combination of a city marketing body and one of Germany's most important media-art institutions suggests the award is meant to be more than a one-off spectacle.

The brief's insistence on two linked elements – one digital and monumental, one grounded in the square – reflects a wider curiosity about how media art can move beyond the facade and into everyday life. For artists and collectives working with light, sound and public space, the call offers both a budget and a rare large-scale stage.