2024 has passed in the blink of an eye, and, like every year, look back at everything we’ve accomplished this year. This year has been full of shared moments that have let us keep exploring the endless possibilities and ideas of the artistic and technological avant-garde. It has been one of the most fruitful years yet, allowing us to complete unique projects on both a national and international scale, and to venture into the virtual world.
Here are some of the key moments that have shaped our path:
We began the year in Mieres, alongside the Town Council’s Cultural Department, with the second exhibition curated by L.E.V. for Pozu Santa Bárbara: Visual Bird Sounds. An project through which the Australian artist Andy Thomas filled this former Asturian mining pit, reconverted into a center of art experiences in 2021, with visual interpretations of bird sounds from around the world.
Soon after, we were putting the finishing touches on the 18th L.E.V. Festival in Gijón, held from May 1st to 5th.
With the support of Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias, the festival came of age, turning the Asturian town into a point of reference to discover the most unorthodox side of electronic sound experimentation and contemporary audiovisual, scenic and digital creation. With five days of line-up, a day more than in previous years, this year’s festival took place in several spaces around the town, making a special emphasis on audiovisual performances and music live shows, plus audiovisual and performative installations, and experiences around extended realities.
Among the live performances, located in Teatro de la Laboral, Nave de LABoral Centro de Arte, and Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies, a total of five world premieres by artists that L.E.V. has been following for years, such as the Quebec digital artist Myriam Bleau, together with the Taiwanese-Canadian choreographer Nien Tzu Weng, following a residency supported by the Québec Office in Barcelona, Teatro de la Laboral, and El Palacio. Artistic residencies and cultural action; and creative duos Synspecies and Bromo, as well as festival newcomers LCY and Kessell&Kerqus. Audiences also enjoyed live performances of the latest audiovisual projects by renowned creators such as Martin Messier, as well as the most recent albums by essential artists in the international electronic music scene, including Death is Home by Aïsha Devi, Revanchist by Evian Christ or Does It Still Matter by Noémi Büchi. The live acts were completed with Sin Maldita&Lei,Dengue Dengue Dengue; Riccardo Giovinnetto, Jacques,Puce Mary and some of the best up-and-coming local and national artists, such as RRUCCULLA and Cachito Turulo.
Some of the highlights of this year were showcased at the stage boxes of Gijón’s two main theaters. Teatro de la Laboral hosted the AV performance installation The Third Reich, created by Romeo Castellucci, a leading figure in contemporary theater, featuring a soundscape composed by the experimental electroacoustic musician Scott Gibbons. And Teatro Jovellanos showed the multi-channel installation Distrust Everything by Italian artist Lorem, that delves into the relationship between the human unconscious and algorithms. Furthermore, as a concluding event for this year, L.E.V Festival recovered the space at Laguna Boreal in Jardín Botánico Atlántico, a collaboration with Fundación EDP, for two live shows of immersive soundscapes to experience with wireless headphones, created by British artists Scanner and Sophia Loizu.
The lineup was complete with Guillaume Marminen‘s audiovisual installation, Oh Lord, at Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, thanks to the Municipal Foundation of Culture, Education and Universidad Popular de Gijón/Xixón. We also had extended reality activities thanks to the Arenas Movedizas project, with the Youth Department of Gijón/Xixón’s Town Council and FIUM collective, in a collaboration with RIT (Realities in Transition), featuring two VR experiences at the School of Commerce and the AR experience Slow Walker in Plaza del Parchís.
On the 23rd of May, we launched a new exhibition at Pozu Santa Bárbara: Onírica, an audiovisual installation by the Italian art studio fuse*. Using algorithms, the installation turned thousands of people’s dreams into moving pictures using AI, making us think about the connection between humans and machines, and tools and creators. The exhibition used the entire space of the former Compressor Room of the Pozu and included, in addition to the immersive installation, exclusive elements never before exhibited in the project, such as a series of engravings on plexiglass and an interactive screen where visitors could explore the dream databases on which the work is based.
At the beginning of July, we fully immersed ourselves in the most creative and diverse side of extended realities, alongside European artists and studios that are breaking all the molds in this realm of digital creation, with the celebration of BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY, a virtual event presented by Realities in Transition and livestreamed from L.E.V. and iMAL, with support from the Principality of Asturias.
The L.E.V. streamingPARTY began with an intervention by LaTurbo Avedon, a digital and virtual artist who reflected, from her existence as an avatar, on the deep creative bonds established between people and machines. Over the two days of the program, multiple presentations were held, varying in format and content, that brought us closer to the work of studios such as Liveforvr!, SpacePopular, Deletere or ArsGames, transporting us to those places where the most groundbreaking XR ideas and projects are born today. We also got to hear from Jordan Mountamani, of the Astrea distributor, and we conducted guided tours of various virtual platforms and environments, from VRChat to Overte, fromMinecraft to Club Cooee, where immersive pieces such as Uncanny Alley or Namuanki were collectively shared, as well as audiovisual performances curated by NeuroDungeon. All the contents from this event are available in our Vimeo channel.
We spent all summer getting ready for the 6th L.E.V. Matadero in Madrid. From the 18th to the 22nd of September, the new Festival of Visual Electronics and Extended Realities was a huge hit and really consolidated the festival as a go-to event in Spain for sound, visuals, and digital art experimentation.
Organized by Matadero Madrid, the center of contemporary creations of Madrid City Council’s Department of Culture, Tourism, and Sports, curated by L.E.V. and with the collaboration of various institutions and spaces within Matadero Madrid, the festival kicked off in the newly inaugurated Nave 10 Matadero, reviving one of the most surprising proposals from the Asturian edition: the performative video installation The Third Reich by Romeo Castellucci and Scott Gibbons. This space also hosted three double sessions of concerts and audiovisual performances featuring the powerful stage presence and originality of artists such as Keeley Forsyth, NAH, Moritz Simon Geist, Axontorr, Plus44Kaligula, Horma and Azael Ferrer.
Extended realities were once again a major focus of L.E.V. Matadero. Within its VORTEX section, the festival showcased three interactive, long-duration virtual reality pieces at Central de Diseño, allowing audiences to explore the boundless artistic potential of virtual reality, with The Eye and I, by Hsin-Chien Huang & Jean Michel Jarre; In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, by Darren Emerson; and Namuanki, by Kevin Mack. In the Ciudad Aumentada section, the festival brought the captivating tardigrade of the Slow Walker experience, created by the Swedish artist Peder Bjurman, to Plaza Matadero. Supported by the Ministry of Culture’s public aids to promote the video game and podcast fields, plus other forms of digital creation, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, and financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU
Another highlight of this edition was a circuit of four free-access audiovisual installations, including the world premiere of Immersion. Extended version by British artist Robbie Cooper at Cineteca’s Sala Plató; the Save the Planet installation by INITI Playground in Nave Una; The Alluvials project by Alice Bucknell at MAD Madrid Artes Digitales; and the Alcove LTD installation by Swiss art studio Encor, located at Plaza Matadero.
Supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Matadero Madrid’s Nave 0 showcased a new exhibition titled PIXEL GODS as part of the festival. Taiwán digital. Showcasing the diverse and mature creative scene in Taiwan, this exhibition explores a new way of looking at a more updated definition of the basic element of digital image: The exhibition was open until October 13th.
In order to dig deeper in cutting-edge tools which allow creators to build virtual words, and to do it in a practical way, L.E.V. Matadero also had an Avatar VR Sculpting HACKATHON, run by Rick Treweek aka MetaRick, with support from the European project Realities in Transition and Medialab Matadero. Plus, there were talks and presentations by some of the artists involved in the program, such as Hsin-Chien Huang, MetaRick and Alice Bucknell.
Following the success of its presentation at L.E.V. Matadero, L.E.V. Matadero, L.E.V. and the Mieres City Council brought the Alcove LTD installation to the public spaces of this city throughout the month of October. A creation by Encor, this light and sound experience transformed Mieres’ Parque Aníbal Vázquez into a place of interaction and discovery, directly engaging with its visitors, just as it did at L.E.V. Matadero. It was very special to observe how the project interacted with its surroundings in various ways and to enjoy the full potential of the work, which is different in every place.
As the last exhibition of the year at Pozu Santa Bárbara, on October 30, we are inaugurating Se está mejor en casa que en ningún sitio (“There’s No Place Like Home”), showcasing four key works by the French artist Jeanne Susplugas to immerse us in her introspective universe with surrealist tones, as critical as it is poetic, combining multiple sculptural installations, video, and a virtual reality experience. Supported again by the Mieres City Council, this exhibition explores the concept of ‘home’ as a symbolic space where personal intimacy intersects with contemporary social pressures. The exhibition will be on view until January 7th.
In addition to all of the above, at L.E.V. we have continued to collaborate in the programming of local and national projects such as the LINK festival or La Noche Blanca de Oviedo, we have once again worked alongside the Matadero Madrid’s Artistic Residencies Center to further promote the talent of sound creators through their public calls. We are also expanding our field of action beyond our borders in collaboration with the Realities in Transition community, where we are involved not only in the organization of BetaCamp XR streamingPARTY, but also in the celebration of an in-person XR Camp in early November in the city of Marseille.
Each project in 2024 has been a chance to connect with our audience and work with artists we truly admire, an opportunity to explore and reflect on new forms of artistic expression and their potential to impact the complex world we inhabit. We are deeply grateful for the support and affection we have received, which have made this journey possible.
As we conclude this year, we eagerly anticipate what 2025 will hold, as we prepare new projects and experiences with the hope of continuing to amaze and inspire you.
Happy 2025 from all the L.E.V. team!
