• L.E.V. Matadero, Festival of Visual Electronica and Extended Realities, will take place between 18 and 22 September, in different spaces of Matadero Madrid (Spain)
• The festival provides an all-round, contemporary and experimental view of electronic sound creations, audiovisual and scenic creations, digital art, and extended realities
• This year’s line-up is formed by a series of diverse projects: live shows, performances and audiovisual installations, exhibitions, interactive virtual and augmented reality experiences, and showcases and meetings with artists 
• The line-up of extended realities, in a collaboration with Realities in Transition, will include three long interactive experiences of virtual reality at Central de Diseño, created by key international names such as Hsin-Chien Huang & Jean Michel Jarre, Kevin Mack and Darren Emerson, plus the augmented reality experience Slow Walker by Peder Bjurman at Plaza Matadero
• Also in a collaboration with RiT, the festival hosts a hackaton to create 3D avatars run by prestigious creator Rick Treweek (MetaRick), and project showcases by some of the artists in this year’s line-up
• Tickets for virtual reality experiences are available at www.levfestival.com  

Throughout the years, L.E.V. Matadero has established itself as one of the one most essential events in the city to discover the current state of digital and electronic creativity, through a extensive line-up of musical and staging projects, audiovisual installations and extended reality experiences such as virtual and augmented reality. Focusing on experimentation, the festival will reunite renowned national and international creators with emerging artists to showcase the creative possibilities of the latest developments in technological tools, and to reflect on their impact in contemporary culture and society. This year’s festival stands out by providing an all-round-view of this artistic field, through a wide series of diverse projects which will be shown at different spaces at Matadero Madrid throughout five days.

In a collaboration with Realities in Transition, L.E.V. Matadero will show long, interactive pieces of virtual reality, which will allow the audience to immerse in new virtual worlds and to endlessly experiment the new artistic possibilities of this digital media. Vortex section will be formed by three 35-minute pieces which will be held at Central de Diseño. 

Award-winning Taiwanese artist Hsin-Chien Huang will be accompanied by legendary electronic musician and composer Jean Michel Jarre to showcase The Eye and I, a collaborative piece to explore the notion of social surveillance, its influence and presence throughout history using a critical point of view, from the panopticon pavilion of a prison. Namuanki, by the Oscar-winner and pioneer in digital art and VR, Kevin Mack, will take the user to a searchable aquatic oasis made of labyrinthine geological structures, strange forms of living and subterranean caves, a transcendental experience of awe, mystery and imagination, in the format of a guided visit for groups. Finally, the interactive, virtual documentary In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats by Darren Emerson will take the visitor to a first-person time travel back to the epicenter of the turbulent, late-eighties rave culture in the UK.

This year, Ciudad Aumentada section will bring a experience of augmented reality to L.E.V. Matadero which explores the new narratives emerging in this field of artistic creation. After being shown at L.E.V. Festival in Gijón, the Slow Walker project by Peder Bjurman will arrive at Plaza Matadero to tell the story of a tardigrade, a micro-organism highly resistant to environmental hazards, which turns into a gigantic, mystical being which can be viewed through the screen of our smartphone, flying over the open space in the center of contemporary creations, with a voiceover and a soundtrack created by Abul Mogard.

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 will include the hackaton Avatar VR Sculpting managed by Rick Treweek, also known as MetaRick. Supported by the European project Realities in Transition and Medialab Matadero, the creator of the awarded immersive universe Uncanny Alley will guide various sessions from September 19 to 22, in a hybrid format from the Metaverse, explaining different VR Sculpting techniques to build avatars. Registration is open here.

To complete the sixth year of the festival XR line-up, there will be a series of panels and project showcases by some of the artists taking part in the festival, such as Hsin-Chien Huang, MetaRick and Alice Bucknell, which will reflect on how virtual environments can help us imagine and build a better future.

Organized by: Matadero Madrid
Curated by: L.E.V. Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual
In a collaboration with: Nave 10, Medialab Matadero, Cineteca Madrid, Centro de residencias artísticas
Featuring: Central de Diseño, MAD Madrid Artes Digitales
Supported by: Ministerio de Cultura de Taiwán, Oficina Económica y Cultural de Taipéi en España, Fundación Suiza para la Cultura Pro Helvetia, Centro Checho Madrid, RIT (Realities in Transition)
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
Associated media: Radio 3, OCI Magazine, Clot Magazine
Visual identity: SHOEG
Music: AXONTORR (Mastered by Ryan Schwabe)