L.E.V. Matadero is back with the best visual electronics, immersive experiences and a journey into a new virtual environment

• For the second year in a row, Matadero Madrid is organising the L.E.V. Matadero Festival of Visual Electronics and Immersive Experiences, a key event that brings to Madrid the most avant-garde experiments in the field of audiovisual creation, electronic music and the use of digital tools.
• The festival features unique virtual reality experiences, augmented reality, interactive fictions and new digital environments, many of them brand new.
• The festival lifts off from the confines of the Matadero complex to touch down in other public spaces within the city and on a virtual planet, a new online environment for programming and creation.
• This edition will welcome such artists as Laurie Anderson, Hsin-Chien Huang and Claudia Maté and the first virtual reality project by film director Darren Aronofsky and creator Eliza Mcnitt will be presented. there will also be works related to major names from the international sound creation field, such as Biosphere, Sigur Ros and Matthew Herbert.

Madrid, 10 September 2020

Matadero Madrid, the Centre for Contemporary Creation that belongs to the local Government’s Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports and is managed by Madrid Destino, presents the second edition of L.E.V. Matadero. Produced by Matadero Madrid and Cineteca Madrid film archive under the direction of the Datatrón platform, the Festival of Audiovisual Creativity and Immersive Experiences will take place between 24 and 27 september 2020.

In 2019, a new festival was created for the city of Madrid. Thanks to Matadero, after having been held in the city of Gijón for many years, L.E.V. extended its field of action to the capital offering a wide programme that explored the state-of-the-art of contemporary digital creativity. In 2020, L.E.V. Matadero is as ambitious and experimental as ever, albeit adapting to the new times and to the current health and hygiene measures. This means that it will offer four days of new experiences in the field of audiovisual creativity, electronic music and the use of digital tools, through face-to-face activities and new proposals created specifically for a digital environment.

Through this project, Matadero reinforces both its support to national creators and its international vocation by presenting in Madrid the works of artists such as Laurie Anderson, Hsin-Chien Huang and Claudia Maté, the first virtual reality project by film director Darren Aronofsky and creator Eliza Mcnitt, and works related to major names from the international sound creation field, such as Biosphere, Sigur Ros and Matthew Herbert. 

The city, the internet and the cultural centre are the venues for the L.E.V. Matadero Festival
At a time when face-to-face activities are necessarily limited, matadero madrid creates new spaces for the pursuit of cultural activities. In this way, the programme of the L.E.V. Matadero Festival is structured in three sections that will be held in physical, virtual and hybrid spaces.

The Vortex section will offer face-to-face experiences with Virtual Reality and VR Cinema in different spaces of Matadero Madrid and Cineteca Madrid Film Archive. Augmented City is the name given to the urban augmented reality experiences for all audiences that will take place in different parts of the city of madrid, outside the walls of matadero. Lastly, Planet Lev is a newly created online virtual environment that will present cutting-edge musical and artistic experiences. In this way, L.E.V. Matadero sets itself the goal of redefining creative processes, the artistic experience and dialogue with the audience in the new global context, offering a festival full of surprises, one that is growing and expanding within the city of Madrid, proposing a creative use for the technological tools we all use.

Vortex. Virtual Reality and VR Cinema Experiences
The Vortex (vrtx) section, which focuses on immersive experiences, will continue to explore the artistic and narrative possibilities of the new digital environments and it will do so in a face-to-face way, in small groups and complying with all the current health and hygiene measures, in different spaces of Matadero, with Nave 0 as its hub, but also occupying Nave 16, the Workshop, the Plató Room and the Cineteca Madrid Film Archive.

Vortex’ programme will be made up of projects that experiment with sound in the digital field, with the concept of a journey in mind. That is the case of “To The Moon”, a project with which Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang commemorate the 50th anniversary of man’s arrival on the Moon by creating a new moon through references from Greek mythology, literature, science and science-fiction films. ‘Spheres’, is the first VR project by film director and screenwriter Darren Aronofsky (‘Requiem for a Dream’, ‘Black Swan’). Directed by Eliza Mcnitt, it invites us to listen to the sound of gravitational waves, accompanied by the voices of Singer Patti Smith or actress Millie Bobby Brown (‘Eleven’ in the series ‘Stranger Things’).

This section will also present works related to major names from the international sound creation scene. The ‘Tonandi’ project, a result of a collaboration between Sigur Ros and Magic Leaps, allows us to explore in an interactive way, through augmented reality, the sounds and the imaginary of the icelandic band. For its part, ‘A symphony of Noise VR’ is an interactive virtual reality project based on work by Matthew Herbert, which allows people to create their own sound compositions.

Augmented City. Urban Augmented Reality Experiences
With this new section, L.E.V. Matadero will present different artistic experiences which, through the use of augmented reality, will allow the audience to use their mobile devices to visualise the new layers of digital reality that are increasingly present in our everyday lives.

The programme of this section has left room for collective experiences such as ‘M.O.A. (My Own Assistance) AR’. This interactive fiction in augmented reality is based on the novel The Stealthies by Alain Damasio, and is set in a dystopic reality in the year 2040. The experience will allow the audience to explore the environment in which the novel is set, and to use their mobile devices to take part in its narrative. Developed by Marie Blondiaux and Charles Ayats and produced by Red Corner, this is a worldwide première in collaboration with the NewImages Festival (Paris) and the Chroniques Biennale (Aix en Provence & Marseille).

Claudia Maté, an artist from Madrid and one of the most internationally renowned net art creators will create for L.E.V. Matadero a purpose-built, large-format virtual sculpture that will reveal the artist’s personal references regarding her hometown. Through a free application that users can download to their phones for free, the audience will be able to see a sculpture that is located in two places, inside and outside the walls of Matadero Madrid. With this project, matadero once again stimulates the production of new projects, supports the national creative fabric and encourages the creative use of the technology we use regularly.

Planet Lev Matadero. Digital Explorations
L.E.V. Matadero will feature a large virtual, immersive and participative stage. Planet Lev is a newly created artistic experience, available both in virtual reality and in web browsers, a dreamlike universe that will house animated sculptures as well as sound installations, concerts, and audiovisual performances by artists from around the world, some of which will be live.

Created by Children of Cyberspace and produced by Matadero Madrid and L.E.V., the Planet Lev project was born during the confinement with the intention of turning these most challenging times for culture into an opportunity to experiment with new formats.

This parallel universe is an opportunity for the creation of new formats with which experiment in digital art, and it once again underlines Matadero’s commitment to the production and showcasing of audiovisual experiments by international and national artists such as Biosphere & Initi, Robert Lippok & Lucas Gutierrez, Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones, Mshr, Elías Merino & Sergio Millan, Npvr (Nik Void & Peter Rehgber), Boris Divider, Sabrina Ratte, Meuko!, Arcanoid, Naxs Corp or .tape.

L.E.V. Matadero
Festival of Visual Electronics and Immersive Experiences
From 24 to 27 september 2020
Vortex: different venues at Matadero Madrid (Nave 0, Nave 16, workshop) and Cineteca Madrid Film Archive (Plató and Archive Rooms)
Augmented City: different spaces in Matadero and other places in the city of Madrid.

Additional information

• Matadero Madrid | Myriam González | comunicacion@mataderomadrid.org | m. 689 023 578
• L.E.V. | Pilar Rodríguez | prensa@levfestival.com | m. 628 942 699

Tickets
On sale from 15 september at www.levfestival.com and www.mataderomadrid.org

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