Festival Diary 2020
*Sadly, due to the ongoing Covid-19 global coronavirus pandemic AND Festival have been postponed.*
*However, Now Play This will be going ahead as a virtual festival – see details below*
By now you’re hopefully familiar with what we do here at NEoN digital arts festival, but where do we turn when we’re looking for inspiration?
Here are five festivals we’re particularly looking forward to in 2020.
Transmediale
28 January – 1 March 2020
Berlin, Germany
This long-running festival of art & digital culture marked its 30th anniversary in 2017. This year’s theme is End to End; inspired by the networks of the pre-internet age, it questions the limits of the internet as we commonly understand it. Curated by Kristoffer Gansing, it opens with a performance by artists Keiken and Blank & Jeron along with talks from artist-filmmakers Ursula Biemann, Ruini Shi, and Solveig Suess, as well as performances and DJs. There will be a large group exhibition entitled The Eternal Network at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a symposium at Volksbühne Berlin, a series of panels at Kunstquartier Bethanien and a lot more. Visit 2020.transmediale.de/festival-2020 to find out more.
LEAF – Limerick’s Electronic Arts Festival
5 – 8 March 2020
Limerick, Ireland
This year’s four-day festival will bring together researchers and artists working at the intersection of technology and artistic expression, led by Paul Boland and Joe Clarke. The keynote speaker for their Intersection symposium will be futurist Anne Lisa Kjaer and, as part of the festival, electronic artists will use light and digital projection to illuminate hidden corners and key landmarks in the city. For more information visit www.leaf061.com.
Now Play This – A Festival of Experimental Game Design
3-5 April 2020
Somerset House, London
Part of the London Games Festival, this year’s weekend of games and play will be based around the theme of ‘breaking point’ – from small scale pieces to entire installations. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival will be virtual this year. More details will be available soon so keep an eye on nowplaythis.net for further information about how you can experience the festival from your own home.
AND Festival 2020
14 to 17 May 2020
Merseyside and Cheshire, England
Emerging at unexpected locations across Merseyside and Cheshire, this festival of new cinema, digital culture and art will take to the water this year as it roams across the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey. There’ll be four days of site-specific installations from augmented reality seascapes to floating experiments. Consider singing up to andfestival.org.uk/signup for further programme announcements.
Vector Festival 2020
16 – 19 July 2020
Toronto, Canada
Co-curated by our own Martin Zeilinger (who curated our online exhibition last year) and Katie Micak, this annual media arts festival is deliberately inclusive of game-based digital art and this year poses the question: what comes after gamification? The flagship exhibition will last a bit longer than the main festival, ending on 22 August, while during the main four days there’ll be performances, site-specific works, and there may even be animated gifs on public screens across the city! Check out vectorfestival.org for more info.
And of course we’re looking forward to this year’s NEoN digital arts festival, which will be running this November!
