“…the history of culture is the story of the struggle between pictorial and linguistic signs, a history that reflects the relations we posit between symbols and the world, signs and their meaning”.. W.J.T. Mitchell “1997, I became involved with the Montreal film festival. I was in charge of the New Media section of the festival, and that's kind of where I laid the groundwork for what Mutek was to become. At the film festival every year, I came up with a project called the Media Lounge, which would take a space somewhere in the city and transform it into an immersive environment full of technology.” Alain Mongeau

Para Montreal el segundo Milenio tuvo una relevancia particular y un impacto en su escena cultural con la inauguración del “festival internacional de creatividad digital y música electrónica” aka Mutek.

Su fundador y Director General (Alain Mongeau) lo presentó mientras trabajaba en el centro cultural de Montreal “Ex – Centris”.

“In 1999, SoftImage founder Daniel Langlois opened up a sort of cultural center in Montreal called Ex-Centris, and I was hired on to be in charge of developing new media programs. The first project I put on the table was Mutek - it was probably the only way that it could have ever begun. They let me do it, but they had no clue as to what it was. Alain Mongeau

Si se piden claves para diferenciar el festival de otros, se debe hacer énfasis en la búsqueda de nuevas fronteras que se promuevan el propósito original de “mutación” en el festival. Otra esencia predominante es el mandato de ser “puristas” con el frecuente “live performance” de los artistas.

“One of the ways we used to distinguish the festival was to feature only live artists, no DJs. And that's still the case today. The program consists of 98% of live acts.” Alain Mongeau