L.E.V. Matadero Festival Kicks Off: Four Days of Audiovisual Experimentation, Electronic Music, and New Technologies

• British company Neon Dance will present the Spanish premiere of Last and First Men, a stage adaptation of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s film, featuring an original score composed by Jóhannsson and Yair Elazar Glotman.
• Concerts and audiovisual performances will feature creators such as New York-based artist Kelly Moran, the Schnitt duo with Aoi Yamaguchi, Drew McDowall alongside Pedro Maia, and Kyria Libia.
• Artist Suso Saiz will host a new edition of L.E.V. Silent Sound Sessions, offering a free wireless headphone sound session in Plaza Matadero.
• The Vortex section reinforces its focus on extended realities with award-winning projects from international festivals, such as A Long Goodbye by Kate Voet and Victor Maes, and the premiere of the new work by Spanish artist Carles Castaño.
• The audiovisual installation circuit will be headlined by an interactive proposal developed by Vitalic and the 1024 Architecture studio, alongside the work of Riccardo Giovinetto.
• The festival hosts the XR Camp activity: Habitating the Virtual: New Ways of Thinking About Extended Realities, an international gathering linked to the European project Realities in Transition (RiT2).
• For children, the Playground interactive gaming system by the Czech collective Initi will occupy Nave Una at Matadero.

Matadero Madrid, the contemporary creation center of the Area of Culture, Tourism, and Sport, is celebrating the 8th edition of L.E.V. Matadero starting tomorrow through Sunday, September 20. With a program combining absolute premieres, national debuts, and projects specially conceived for the festival's context, L.E.V. reaffirms its commitment to experimentation and new audiovisual languages.

Considered one of the top five essential art fairs and festivals according to the Cultural Observatory of Fundación Contemporánea, L.E.V. Matadero will showcase some of the most compelling proposals in contemporary creation, connecting music, visual arts, and digital technologies. Concerts, audiovisual performances, stage pieces, immersive installations, and XR experiences make up a program that uses technology as a tool to address deeply human issues. Memory, resilience in the face of illness, the dialogue between tradition and new technologies, the relationship between body and machine, and the reinterpretation of the contemporary landscape run through the proposals of an edition that invites the public to discover new forms of perception and shared experience.

Far from understanding the digital as an end in itself, the proposals of L.E.V. Matadero utilize technological innovation as a language from which to imagine new spaces for encounter, listening, and transformation.

Live Shows and Audiovisual Performances at Centro Danza Matadero

L.E.V. Matadero will kick off on Thursday, September 17, at 8:30 PM with one of this edition's most anticipated proposals: the Spanish premiere of Last and First Men, a stage adaptation of Jóhann Jóhannsson's acclaimed experimental film, inspired by the 1930 science fiction novel of the same name by Olaf Stapledon. British company Neon Dance transforms the film's imagery into a show that merges 16 mm film, contemporary dance, the voice of multi-talented artist Tilda Swinton as narrator, and an immersive soundtrack by Jóhannsson and Yair Elazar Glotman, bringing a powerful reflection on humanity's future to the stage.

Friday, September 18's program brings together leading figures in contemporary sound creation. At 8:30 PM, Scottish composer Drew McDowall—a key figure in experimental music and former member of Coil and Psychic TV—will present an audiovisual show alongside Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Maia, where electroacoustic composition and experimental film engage in real-time dialogue. Following that, Kyria Libia will premiere her latest work, El arrobamiento, a piece centered around sacred music developed at Matadero Madrid's Center for Artistic Residencies (CRA) that intertwines mysticism and electronics.

Saturday, September 19 will begin at 8:30 PM with the Spanish presentation of Calligraton, a live show developed by the Schnitt duo in collaboration with Japanese calligrapher Aoi Yamaguchi, in which the art of shodō comes to life on stage in dialogue with experimental electronics. Afterward, composer and digital artist Milian Mori will deliver an intense live audiovisual set marked by stroboscopic visuals that will take dancing into uncharted territory.

On Sunday, September 20, at 8:30 PM, New York pianist and producer Kelly Moran will return to L.E.V. Matadero to present her album Don’t Trust Mirrors, an introspective journey where the piano and synthesizers take center stage. The program will conclude with Japanese artist NAO, who is premiering THE CLUSTERs in Spain, a performance fusing dance, robotics, sound, and real-time imagery, creating a fascinating dialogue between the human body and the machine.

Sound Session in Plaza Matadero

On Friday, September 18, a new L.E.V. Silent Sound Session will be presented in Plaza Matadero—a shared listening experience utilizing wireless headphones provided by the organization to create an intimate and immersive space in the public sphere. On this occasion, musician and composer Suso Saiz, a fundamental figure in Spanish experimental music, will headline this special session with two free passes (at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM) marked by processed guitars, complex textures, and soundscapes.

Vortex: Memory and Shared Emotions

In this edition, L.E.V. Matadero once again commits to interactive virtual, mixed, and augmented reality projects that allow visitors to rediscover the world and themselves, featuring proposals where intimate experience is conceived from a collective perspective. The various projects in the Vortex section can be experienced in two spaces: Central de Diseño and Terrario.

Highlights include A Long Goodbye, winner of the Venice Immersive Achievement Prize at the last Venice Biennale. This virtual reality experience created by Kate Voet and Victor Maes explores the impact of dementia from the intimacy of a love story, turning memory into a habitable and immersive space to reflect on bonds that endure beyond illness.

L.E.V. Matadero also presents the absolute premiere of [“Á”1653 “gora” 23035], the new piece by digital creator Carles Castaño produced by Servicios Inmersivos. This immersive and interactive mixed reality installation confronts us with the memory of our own planet from an uncomfortable perspective: what if the extraterrestrials are us?

Audiences can also enjoy the work of Bárbara Mydlak and Yann Deval, Chronica V1, a sensory experience intertwining craftsmanship and technology based on traditional papermaking techniques. Combining physical installation with multiplayer augmented reality, this experience invites visitors to explore the different layers of memory, illness, and healing processes.

Audiovisual Installation Circuit

L.E.V. Matadero is programming the immersive audiovisual installation Puppet in the Taller space, developed by the 1024 Architecture studio in collaboration with French producer Vitalic. Receiving its national premiere in Spain, the piece offers a playful approach to musical composition through the manipulation of a puppet-like figure that generates rhythms and melodies with every movement. It is an opportunity for live sound creation halfway between a game and a performance.

Cineteca Matadero’s Plató room will also host the Spanish premiere of H U M I, one of the new works by Riccardo Giovinetto, in which the Italian audiovisual artist, composer, and physicist reflects on the concept of borders as spaces in constant transformation. It is a sensory experience intertwining satellite images and soundscapes to construct imaginary geographies that invite visitors to rethink the configuration of the contemporary world. The project extends throughout the Matadero grounds via an augmented reality activity accessible via mobile devices.

Children will also have their own space in Nave Una, courtesy of the Czech studio Initi, with their interactive game Playground, a system that turns any wall into a space for collective play and experimentation.

XR Camp: Rethinking the Future of Extended Realities

Matadero Madrid’s Aulario will host two activities open to the general public within the context of XR Camp: Habitating the Virtual: New Ways of Thinking About Extended Realities, a gathering linked to the European project Realities in Transition (RiT2) taking place from Wednesday, September 16 to Friday, September 18.

On Thursday, September 17, at 12:00 PM, the workshop Anatomy of an Immersive Piece: How Extended Realities Are Built will be led by artist Carles Castaño, offering an accessible introduction to XR technologies and walking participants practically through the various creation phases of an immersive experience. This activity is recommended for ages 15 and up, and advance registration via the provided form is required.

That same afternoon at 5:00 PM, the roundtable discussion How to Approach XR Technologies? Accessibility, Formats, and Distribution Policies will begin, bringing together artists and professionals to address the challenges of distributing and accessing XR art. Participants will share experiences regarding its presentation to diverse audiences and explore how to expand accessibility without sacrificing artistic experimentation. Moderated by Marie Pont, director of the art production agency Dark Euphoria, the session will feature Elena Carbajal (Onkaos), Diego Iglesias (MMMAD), and artists Irene Molina and Carles Castaño. Admission to this activity is free with limited capacity.

The Visual Electronics and Extended Realities Festival, organized by Matadero Madrid, is curated by L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual y Realidades Extendidas) and features the collaboration of Centro Danza Matadero, Cineteca Madrid, and Centro de residencias artísticas, alongside the participation of Central de Diseño. The festival is supported by the European project Realities in Transition (RiT2), with Radio 3, OCI Magazine, Clot Magazine, and Metal Magazine as media partners. The visual identity is designed by Iván Puñal.