With the support of Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias, the festival will host a four-day line-up in different spaces of the town, including local, national and international artists, featuring live shows and audiovisual performances.
After revealing the line-up of live shows and audiovisual and performative installations, now the festival announces the rest of activities for its 18th year: four experiences around extended realities.
In synergy with the Arenas Movedizas project, in a collaboration with RIT (Realities in Transition), at Escuela de Comercio the festival will showcase the virtual reality experiences Red Tail by Taiwanese director Fish Wang, and Uncanny Alley by South African director Rick Treweek; the augmented reality experience Slow Walker by Swedish artist Peder Bjurman; and the youth workshop Metaverses and musical creation with PatchXR.
The line-up of live shows at Teatro de la Laboral, Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies, and Nave de LABoral is formed by Aïsha Devi, Martin Messier, Evian Christ, Myriam Bleau & Nien Tzu Weng, Noémi Büchi, RRUCCULLA, SYNSPECIES, Sin Maldita & Lei, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Cachito Turulo, Riccardo Giovinetto, Jacques, Puce Mary, LCY, Bromo, and Kessell&Kerqus.
Among this year’s highlights are the shows in the stage boxes of the city’s two main theaters, as the performative AV installation by Romeo Castellucci at Teatro de la Laboral, The Third Reich, and the multichannel installation Distrust Everything by artist Lorem at Teatro Jovellanos.
The festival will end on Sunday 5 May at Jardín Botánico Atlántico, with live shows by Scanner and Sophia Loizou which will be enjoyed through wireless headphones, courtesy of Fundación EDP.
The line-up also includes an audiovisual installation about our relationship with light, at Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, created by Guillaume Mamin.
Day tickets and full festival tickets available for sale here
L.E.V. Festival (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual) celebrates its 18th year in Gijón from May 1 to 5. With the support of Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias, the festival has come 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 will take 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.
This last part of the programme is now presented, in synergy with Arenas Movedizas, a project about experiments in audiovisual culture, by initiative of Gijón/Xixón Youth Department of Gijón’s Town Council and FIUM collective, in collaboration with RIT (Realities in Transition), and the strategic support of General Direction of Innovation, dependent on the Deputy Mayor’s Office and the Department of Economics, Employment, Tourism and Innovation of Gijón’s Town Council. From 25 April to 19 May, Escuela de Comercio will host different activities, including two virtual reality experiences, an augmented reality experience and a workshop for young people to explore music creation in the Metaverse.
From May 2 to 5 at Escuela de Comercio, with free access, we will be able to enjoy two surprising virtual reality experiences, as innovative in format as in narrative language.
First, the virtual reality movie Red Tail, inspired in the homonymous comic by his Taiwanese director Fish Wang, winner of the Cristal Award 2023 for the best VR project at Annecy Festival. The story starts in a train station floating on a cloud. A mysterious red fishtail catches the attention of a child, who chases it to discover magical words, strange creatures and, finally, a knight who seems to know his secrets and sorrows better than him. This fascinating journey is a poetic metaphor about childhood memories and the pain related to growing up, and invites the audience to feel and accept it as something inherent to our vital experience, something that we need to turn into a better version of ourselves.
Secondly, the virtual reality experience Uncanny Alley by South African director Rick Treweek, winner at Raindance Festival, in the section Best Immersive World 2022. This work explores the current state of the Metaverse from a small corner of it, hosted in the VRChat universe, a virtual and social environment constantly expanding, boosted by a community which creates and shares virtual worlds, avatars and interactive experiences since 2015. From this platform, Uncanny Alley deals with different topics and concepts of the Metaverse based on the real world, drawing upon the communities which are building the foundations of the open Metaverse. During the experience, the user follows Gh0st, Glitch, and other Metazins. Gh0st has disappeared while he was working on systems to cross over worlds. We must follow the clues and revelations of this immersive universe until the fourth wall of the Metaverse falls down in a surprising way, in order to reveal a glimpse of the open Metaverse.
Augmented Reality experience
Slow Walker by Peder Bjurman
From May 2 to 19, the festival will show the augmented reality experience Slow Walker, created by the Swedish artist, director, and writer Peder Bjurman. It features a microscopic tardigrade, visible through the screen of a mobile device, which shows as a gigantic animal that takes the public space at Plaza del Parchís in Gijón, next to Escuela de Comercio.
A tardigrade is a highly resilient living organism, able to endure vacuum extreme temperatures, radiation and even the conditions in space. However, it is very sensitive to global warming. This fascinating, colossal, but also ephemeral creature, is shown in this experience as a mystic, symbolic being, floating between life and death, as a gigantic AR geolocalized sculpture which moves slowly around town, grazing and interacting with the audience when it gets close. The experience has a soundtrack created by Abul Mogard, and a voiceover which immerses the user into the experience.
Youth workshop
Metaverses and musical creation with PatchXR
Besides, in L.E.V. Festival and Arenas Movedizas 2024, from April 25 to 27, there will be a workshop about Metaverses and musical creation with PatchXR, for teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, where they will discover the creative possibilities in virtual environments. Specifically, musical creation in virtual reality. The attendees will use PatchWorld, an unprecedented tool created by the international studio PatchXR, co-founded by Mélodie Mousset and Eduardo Fouilloux, which can be used to build totally immersive musical worlds for the metaverse.
During three sessions of three hours, the attendees will learn the basics of this tool, as well as concepts related to electronic and contemporary music; in a useful and playful way, the endless possibilities of the tool will be explored: from creating new music instruments to synthesizing and sequencing electronic sounds, creating avatars or making loops with musical structures, recording them on video with a friendly and interactive interface and Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets. Register on this link to attend.
L.E.V. Festival 2024
1 – 5 May | Gijón
www.levfestival.com
@levfestival #LEVFestival
An initiative by L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual)
Supported by Gijón’s Town Council and the Principality of Asturias
A project funded by INAEM, Ministry of Culture and Sports, and European Union-Next Generation EU
Driven by: Fundación EDP
Partners: Divertia, Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura, Cultural, Youth and Museums Department, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Québec Office in Barcelona, Dirección General de Innovación con dependencia de la Vicealcaldía y Concejalía de Economía, Empleo, Turismo e Innovación del Ayuntamiento de Gijón, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Madrid, RIT (Realities In Transition), EFFEA (European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists), Arenas Movedizas, Conseyu de Mocedá de Xixón, Radio 3, OCIMAG, CLOT Magazine.
Spaces: Teatro Jovellanos, Teatro de la Laboral, Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies, Escuela de Comercio, and Jardín Botánico Atlántico.
Graphic design: Pasajero37 | Motion Design: Lateralideas
LINE UP
Aïsha Devi _Ch/Np Houndstooth
Bromo CRISPR the pattern of life _Es Oigovisiones (World Premiere)
Cachito Turulo _Es Humo Internacional
Dengue Dengue Dengue _Pe
Evian Christ Revanchist Live _Uk Warp
Jacques Videochose _Fr Recherche & Développement
Kessell & Kerqus _Es Detroit Underground / Granulart (World Premiere)
LCY Live av_Uk (World Premiere)
Martin Messier 1 drop 1000 years. INSCAPE Edition 14 lieux
Myriam Bleau & Nien Tzu Weng Second Self _Ca/Tw (World Premiere)
Noémi Büchi Does it still matter _Ch -Ous
Puce Mary _Dk Pan
Riccardo Giovinetto F E M I N A E X T E N D E D _It
RRUCCULLA Sound Sketches _Es Lapsus
Scanner How to make art from life (with the help of a few ghosts) _Uk Alltagsmusik
Sin Maldita & Lei Aelcrush av _De/Fr Hyperdub, Unguarded
Sophia Loizou Vesta _Uk Houndstooth
SYNSPECIES Asbu _Es/Si (World Premiere)
__PERFORMATIVE AND AV INSTALLATIONS
Guillaume Marmin Oh Lord _Fr
Lorem Distrust Everything _It
Romeo Castellucci & Scott Gibbons The Third Reich _It/Usa
__VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERIENCES
Fish Wang Red Tail_TW
Rick Treweek Uncanny Alley _ZA
Peder Bjurman Slow Walker _SE
