Text by CLOT Magazine
For the second time, the L.E.V. Festival of visual electronics and immersive experiences takes place in Madrid in the biggest public-run art space in the city – Matadero. Due to COVID-19, the lineup of 2020 will be divided into three sections, Vortex, Ciudad Aumentada and Planet LEV, which will make the works accessible in physical and hybrid and virtual spaces.
In the onsight Vortex section, ‘Spheres’ will premiere, the first VR venture by film director and screenwriter Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan), directed by Eliza McNitt. Also, insight Matadero, Laurie Anderson‘s and Hsin-Chien Huang‘s work To The Moon celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.
The audience can listen to the sound of gravitational waves plus the voices of rock legend Patti Smith and actress Millie Bobby Brown (‘Eleven’ from the ‘Stranger Things’ series). Furthermore, the Vortex section will feature works related to big names of international sound creation, like the project Tonandi, a collaboration between Sigur Ros and Magic Leaps, and A Symphony of Noise VR by Matthew Herbert.
The augmented reality section “Ciudad Aumentada” will provide room for collective experiences such as ‘M.O.A (My Own Assistance) AR’. This interactive fiction in augmented reality is based on the book The Stealthies by Alain Damasio, which takes place in a 2040 dystopian reality. The audience may walk around the novel’s locations and participate in the narrative using mobile devices.
This world premiere has been developed by Marie Blondiaux and Charles Ayats and produced by Red Corner. Madrid artist Claudia Maté will create a big visual sculpture for L.E.V. Matadero that reveals the artist’s personal references related to her home town. Using a free app for mobile devices, the audience may visualise this work in different spaces inside and outside the walls of Matadero Madrid.
The project Planet LEV was created by Children of Cyberspace and produced by Matadero Madrid and L.E.V during the lockdown to turn these challenging times for culture into a chance to experiment with new formats. This parallel universe is a chance to create new formats and to experiment with digital art for national and international artists such as Biosphere & Initi, Robert Lippok & Lucas Gutiérrez, Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones, Elías Merino & Sergio Milla and many more.
The festival will take place from the 24th to the 27th of September, with the Vortex section offering onsite experiences in different spaces of Matadero Madrid (Nave 0, Nave 16, Workshop) and Cineteca Madrid (Plató Hall and Archive).
The section Ciudad Aumentada (Augmented City) compiles a series of urban experiences of augmented reality at different points of the city of Madrid beyond the walls of Matadero. Planet LEV is a recently created virtual Internet environment showcasing several avant-garde musical and artistic experiences.
