Taking place primarily at SO36 in Kreuzberg, the early years of the festival fostered revolutionary and innovative musical acts such as Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept, Laibach, Psychic TV, 808 State, Die Haut among many others.

Each edition of the festival sees hundreds of individual musicians, choreographers, sound and visual artists performing and presenting their work.

[5] Among the artists who have collaborated with the festival to make new work are: Actress, Caterina Barbieri, Glenn Branca, Wang Bing, Romeo Castellucci, Alessandro Cortini, Bruce Conner, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Tony Conrad, Iancu Dumitrescu, VALIE EXPORT, Forensic Architecture, Marco Fusinato, Cyprien Gaillard, John Gerrard, Mick Harris, Jon Hassell, Florentina Holzinger, Ryoji Ikeda, Mark Lanegan, Alvin Lucier, Zhao Liang, Bridget Polk, Sandwell District, Lillian Schwartz, Shackleton, Deborah Stratman, Strawalde, Tino Sehgal, Wolfgang Tillmans, Mika Vainio, Chris Watson, Leslie Winer and Peter Zinovieff.

The project assembled concerts, performances, electronic live-acts, sound and video installations to form a composition in time and space over 30+ continuous hours.

Parallax was a joint project between Berlin Atonal and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, with a programme of orchestral music from the baroque era to modern micropolyphony.