DGTL ACADEMY CLASS OF 2026 • DGTL

Discover the DGTL Academy Team

The DGTL Academy Team is a collective of emerging female DJs and VJs selected through an open call to accelerate female talent in the electronic music industry. Guided by mentors and supported by DGTL and ABN AMRO, they take part in an intensive program of knowledge sessions, community building and artistic development, working towards a presentation at DGTL Amsterdam 2026. Together, they are building a new network of makers and contributing to lasting change in the scene.

Naomi Rechtman

Naomi is a multidisciplinary visual media artist and painter/designer working under the name Fluid Meditations. Her practice combines generative and interactive systems, spanning analog processes such as film and hand-drawn work alongside digital tools including 3D rendering, data visualization, and real-time visual engines. Using modern technologies such as TouchDesigner, interactive camera systems, and custom generative workflows, she creates responsive visual environments that evolve in relation to movement and data. Alongside installations, she also develops visuals for VJing and live audiovisual contexts. Her work explores the tension between chaos and calm, translating inner states, emotions, and silence into immersive visual experiences. Grounded in her parallel practice as a yoga teacher, she approaches art as a meditative and embodied experience.

Roza Huizing (RHUIZ)

Under her artist name RHUIZ, Roza creates dark, cinematic electronic music featuring deep basslines, powerful drums, strings, and her own vocals. She builds a layered artistic universe where sound, performance, and visual aesthetics merge.

She is currently developing a new live show that blends DJing with live vocals from her EP Vuurmaker, which she will perform across multiple stages. Roza aims to grow in technique, performance, and artistic confidence, seeking ways to amplify her identity in a male-dominated industry

She is currently developing a live show that blends DJing with live vocals and an all sense experience. Roza aims to grow in technique, performance, and artistic confidence, seeking ways to amplify her identity in a male-dominated industry.

Niki Scheijen (Nikilia)

Niki Scheijen / NikiliaMedia ArtistNiki moves fluidly between digital art forms by combining interactive installations, A/V performances, livecoding, VJing, 3D, electronics and TouchDesigner to create experimental media art.Performing as her alter ego Nikilia, she explores how music and visual experience reinforce each other live. As a recent graduate of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague, she aims to expand her practice and career as a full-time artist.Based in Rotterdam, she organizes a monthly livecoding meetup at V2_, researches the role of women in technology, and strives to be a role model for young women by linking art, technology, and community.

Pien Breeuwsma (Scalio)

Scalio brings playful, high-octane energy to the stage with a blend of raw breaks, acid grooves, and her own captivating vocals. Moving between DJ sets and live performances, she fuses her knowledge of the craft with bold femininity. With EPs on the horizon via United Identities and previous shows at Boring Festival, Club3, and as a support act for Kelly Lee Owens, Scalio is making serious waves in the electronic underground.

Emma Warmelink

Emma, known as Warmelink, is a classically trained cellist who merges expressive string performance with electronic dance music. Coming from the worlds of orchestras and concert halls, she also feels at home in dark club environments filled with bass, rhythm, and mystery. Her work centers on combining drama, rhythm, emotion, and trance-like club experiences.

Emma’s last project focuses on developing a freakshow-inspired techno concept, inspired by her experience performing Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 18 times at the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. Playing downstairs in the orchestra pit, detached from the visual narrative of the ballet, she allowed her imagination to create its own dark, dramatic world, which now influences her work. She aims to further evolve her unique sound through her own productions and artistic concepts.

Deniz Kurt

Deniz works across technology, art, design, and nature, with a background in programming and design. Using creative coding, machine learning, generative and real-time systems, she creates audiovisual and interactive experiences where digital systems behave, respond, and evolve. Informed by experimental sound practices and MIDI-driven systems, her work explores rhythm, feedback, and collective embodiment as compositional forces. Treating technology as a living material rather than a fixed tool, she develops immersive installations and bio-inspired, speculative works that translate complex ideas into felt, sensory environments. Her work has been presented internationally at festivals and institutions including Ars Electronica, IMPAKT, Dutch Design Week, NXT Museum, and the Luxembourg AI Pavilion.

Carolien Teunisse (mentor visual arts)

Carolien Teunisse is a visual media artist and educator. Through her work, she explores the compelling dialogues that can emerge from combining different forms of media, blending realities, and bringing together humans and technology. She enjoys working with computer code, creating installations and performances that use video projections and sensors to generate engaging and immersive experiences. Next to creating she is also passionate about sharing her knowledge and skills through workshops and by teaching at the HKU and the HU.

Carolien is a member and co-founder of DEFRAME, a collective of artists focused on creating (interactive) installations and live performances. Their work is often site-specific, and their performances and installations have taken the collective to many beautiful locations both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Jessica Dreu (mentor visual arts)

Jessica Dreu is a visual artist and photographer who creates live visuals, installations, mixed media works and digital art, both independently and as part of DEFRAME, a collective of visual artists. Her practice lives in the space between control and chance, combining the unpredictability of analog techniques with the precision of digital tools. She's drawn to analog processes for their built in surprises, like the way they resist complete control and create something unexpected. Digital work offers the opposite, a different kind of freedom where every detail can be shaped and refined.

Music is a constant source of inspiration for her image making. She's interested in how things work and why, often getting lost in the mechanics of creation itself. Whether developing moving images for live performances, creating photographic works, or designing standalone installations, she approaches each project as an opportunity to explore how images can interact with their environment and reshape how we experience a space.

Mary Lake (mentor music production)

Mary Lake is an artist whose sound merges driving techno with textural and emotional undercurrents. Shaped by an upbringing across Algeria, France, and the Netherlands, her musical identity is informed by cultural multiplicity and a deep sensitivity to atmosphere, rhythm, and presence. Her work explores how intensity and intimacy can coexist on the dance floor. In her DJ sets, she shapes atmosphere and movement with deliberate pacing and emotional clarity, creating an experience that is both physical and deeply attentive. A resident at Club RAUM/Spielraum and a regular at Berghain, she has developed a storytelling approach to DJing defined by fluidity, focus, and instinct.Her live work, presented at STOOR, Dekmantel and Positive Education, reflects a continuously evolving approach to sound. It brings her production sensibility to the foreground, with an emphasis on texture, pacing, and dynamic control.Her debut EP on Nous’Klaer Audio introduced her forward-leaning production voice—one that continues to expand as she develops new material and performance forms.