Press release: Fourth FIBER Festival presents new narratives in digital culture

Prima Materia: Alchemical thinking and making in art, design and music

FIBER just released the Early Bird presale for the 2017 FIBER Festival. The fourth edition of the festival takes place from May 11th to May 14th in Amsterdam and presents new voices in art, design and music, who experiment with digital technologies. The FIBER team retrieved its inspiration by fascinating over connections between todays experimental art and a renewed interest in the ancient field of alchemy. Through an extensive program of conference talks, a public exhibition, AV performances, and live electronic music, the festival explores the theme Prima Materia; alchemical thinking and making in art, design and music.

FIBER Festival

FIBER Festival attracts over 50 participating speakers and artists, 2500 visitors and a wide selection of local companies and organizations, who will connect in the city of Amsterdam to create a dense program of audiovisual performances, live/DJ sets, installations, conference talks and labs. FIBER connects with both a local and international audience of young, professional creators and enthusiasts who are operating at the frontiers of digital technology, to create or consume immersive and mind-bending experiences.

Through the lens of cutting-edge artistic works, FIBER explores the impact of technology on culture, society and nature. The festival gathers artists, thinkers and an adventurous crowd to experience new narratives that give insight to complex topics like artificial intelligence, bots, digital production techniques, hybrid materials and questions how technology can influence the future.

Festival Theme 2017

The theme Prima Materia allows FIBER to connect the work of today’s artists, designers and musicians to a renewed interest in the old field of alchemy. Back in the day alchemists speculatively worked with matter to understand the design of the universe. Their main focus was reaching the mythical Prima Materia, the metaphysical matter that would connect everything in the cosmos.

For a long time alchemy was considered a mystical pseudoscience, but it now becomes unmistakably clear that it is a precursor for contemporary science and the development of our knowledge about matter. FIBER points out extraordinary similarities between the work of alchemists and the modern interdisciplinary artists, designers, programmers and engineers. Prima Materia explores their search in hybrid materials, data, alternative instruments, magical thinking and artificial life like bots and machine learning. Through the theme Prima Materia FIBER presents new narratives and irrational ratios between man, machine and nature.

Program

The Early Bird passe-partout provides the full FIBER experience: an extensive two-day program of conference talks, a public exhibition, two nights of AV performances and live electronic music. The exhibition, organized together with the Looiersgracht 60, carries the same name Prima Materia and will be opened on Thursday evening May 12. The 2-day conference, the meeting place for genre-breaking makers, researchers and an adventurous audience, will start Friday morning at The Brakke Grond location. At night the Brakke Grond will transform into a magical concert hall where the FIBER public can wander through a setting of AV installations, live music performances and Dj-sets. The FIBER audience will spend Saturday night at the new club Shelter where they’ll be immersed in a series of live performances and a spherical club night with a special scenography and alchemic sounds from today’s club culture. We’ll close the festival weekender Sunday night with a special evening program.

New! FIBER LABS hosted by Refik Anadol and Motion Bank & De Brakke Grond

FIBER is bringing something new to the table: The FIBER LABS. Throughout the history of alchemy, the laboratory played a pivotal role in the creation of new knowledge. In these often hidden spaces of creation a wide variety of skills and disciplines met and merged. Substances, gasses, light and fire were mixed together to uncover the sublime Prima Materia. This year’s festival LAB program provides a unique space for interdisciplinary makers and thinkers to meet each other, mix and experiment together on unexpected outcomes: prototypes, new aesthetics and connected knowledge. The open call for the first two LABS starts today. Media artist and architect Refik Anadol will host our first two-day Lab and he will work together with the participants on concepts for unique site-specific data sculptures that have an intelligence, memory and culture. For the second Lab FIBER and de Brakke Grond will invite the Choreographic Coding Lab. A travelling programme by Motion Bank (The Forsythe Company) where participants from the world of dance, choreography, creative coding and media art will work together for 5 days on new ways to document dance with the use of code, digital media and hard/software.

Applications are open! More info about the FIBER LABS: www.fiberfestival.nl

FIBER program

Festival data May, 11 - 14 2017

• Conference: Friday 12/5 & Saturday 13/05 – De Brakke Grond
• Concert Evening 1: Friday 12/5 – De Brakke Grond
• Concert Evening 2 + Club Night: Saturday 13/5 – Shelter
• Closing Evening: Sunday 14/05 – location tbc
• Exhibition: Friday 12/5 – Sunday 21/5 – Looiersgracht 60
• Exhibition Opening: Thursday 11/05 – Looiersgracht 60 (evening)
• Lab programme: see below

Looiersgracht 60

De Brakke Grond

Shelter

*The exhibition is complimentary and can be visited from May 12 to May 21.

For more information: www.fiberfestival.nl

The full line-up will be released the beginning of March.

Tickets

There’s only a limited amount of Early Bird passe-partouts available. They give a 20% discount compared to a regular passe-partout.

Tickets can only be purchased online and through this link: https://fiberfestival.eventbrite.nl

Confirmed Partners

Funding Partners: FIBER is kindly sponsored by

• Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie
• Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst
• VSB
• Fonds21
• Fonds Podiumkunsten
• Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
• Goethe Instituut Nederland
• Het Nieuwe Instituut

Creative Partners: Location and Program partners

• De Brakke Grond (NL)
• Shelter (NL)
• Looiersgracht 60 (NL)
• University of Utrecht (NL)
• Bartlett School of Architecture (UK)
• LIMA (NL)
• ICK (NL)
• UCLA (US)
• RIAT (AT)

Note for the editorial team (not for publication):

FIBER images are obtained through this link

The FIBER logo can be downloaded here

Credits festival image: Soap & Milk - Christian Mio Loclair

For more information please contact:
Sandra van Beers, Marketing & Communications / sandra@fiber-space.nl / +31(0)646220363

Jarl Schulp, Directeur / jarl@fiber-space.nl / +31(0)641235624

Over FIBER

FIBER is an Amsterdam based interdisciplinary organization, that presents new developments in audiovisual art, digital culture and the experimental and deeper corners of electronic music. The team works year round with a vibrant network of artists, designers, researchers and developers, who aspire to introduce mind bending experiences to a broad audience. Special attention goes out to the support of up and coming talents across numerous creative disciplines.

Next to small-scale events and exhibitions, the team organizes the recurring FIBER Festival, Coded Matter(s) series, the FIBER podcast en Studio Visits in Amsterdam, which brings together a diverse crowd of new talent, established artists and curious visitors. FIBER aims to explore hybrid forms of art, the power of media- and network technology, and encourages an exchange of views between the makers and their audience.