ANNABELLE PLAYE & HUGO ARCIER & RIMA BEN BRAHIM + SPIME. IM

During L.E.V. Matadero, Nave 10 at Matadero Madrid will host four double sessions of live shows and audiovisual performances. On Saturday, September 20, the evening features Annabelle Playe & Hugo Arcier and the Italian collective SPIME.IM.

L.E.V. Matadero presents ARS NATURA, a creation by multidisciplinary artist Annabelle Playe in collaboration with Hugo Arcier. Together, they offer an immersive work that questions the boundaries between nature, architecture, science fiction, and sound.

In this piece, visual representations of natural landscapes and brutalist architecture place the viewer in an ambiguous world: Are we witnessing a simulation, a reconstruction of the past, or a vision of a post-anthropocene planet? This visual universe—marked by the absence of humans and animals—comes to life only through the presence of a solitary figure on stage, who activates the appearance and disappearance of images through sound.

The performer, human or cyborg, acts as an interface, a mirror, a questioning entity that reflects on our connection with the living. The piece offers a deeply contemplative experience—a total immersion in a powerful, wild, and sometimes unsettling nature—through a visual and sonic narrative that edges up against the limits of reality.

ANNABELLE PLAYE | Composition, live electronic music
HUGO ARCIER | Computer-generated 3D video, audio-reactive
RIMA BEN-BRAHIM | Lighting design
MARION ROBILLARD | Costume
FABIEN MINEZ | Sound engineering
FRANCK VIGROUX / MARC SIFFERT | Artistic contribution
Production: AnA Compagnie — Co-production: Opéra National de Montpellier, Théâtre Monsigny / Boulogne-sur-Mer — With financial support from DRAC Occitanie, SACEM, and SPEDIDAM

The Italian collective SPIME.IM, a global reference in digital art, arrives at L.E.V. Matadero 2025 with its live audiovisual creation GREY LINE—a powerful exploration of human experience in an age of information overload, climate crisis, and moral ambiguity.

For years, SPIME.IM has investigated the languages, aesthetics, and narratives born from the dominance of digital reality. Their work reconsiders identity, corporeality, and human perception through the lens of a world profoundly mediated by screens, algorithms, and fragmented discourse. With GREY LINE, they extend this conceptual line through a real-time audiovisual experience that combines overwhelming visual intensity with deeply reflective content.

The work’s central concept stems from the shades of the color grey, representing those emotional and political in-between zones that define our present. The piece navigates the shadows of contemporary life—climate change, information collapse, and the collective disorientation of a world that seems to have veered off course. Using digital techniques, the collective constructs an abstract and visceral narrative that gives sensory form to the avalanche of stimuli shaping our current reality.

Recommended minimum age: 16 years.