Distortion 2010.

Copenhagen Distortion is Scandinavia's leading nightlife festival. This five-day festival offers 88 dance floors, including four huge block parties at different locations (warehouses, museums, sport halls, bridges, old breweries). Every day the festival is held in a different neighbourhood in Copenhagen, so Distortion moves through the different city districts, celebrating the city of Copenhagen.

The festival program is as eclectic as it gets - from formal dinner party events under a bridge, to skateboard contests through fire loops, jazz concerts and of course classic techno raves. The Distortion block parties take place in the streets, for free, while the sun sets, and the Distortion Club Clash program takes place during the night in spectacular Copenhagen locations, with overwhelming line-ups. A few names from the line-up: Simian Mobile Disco, Booka Shade, Kode 9, Len Faki, Gus Gus, the locals Who made Who and many other experimental-music-orientated artists.

Distortion was once an underground movement, but now, with their 10th anniversary, the festival has more than 40.000 visitors. "We make room for everyone - at least anyone who is good at having fun," says Distortion's Chef Orchestre and founder, Thomas Fleurquin. "Rock types, techno types, hip-hop types, hipster types, whatever types... we don't care where people come from, as long as they have balls and energy".

Distortion 2010
June 2nd - 6th 2010
Copenhagen

Written for BLEND.

Sziget Hippie Express.

Sziget Festival is one of the biggest festivals this summer, already excisting for almost 18 years now. And who hasn't heard of it? This years acts, already confirmed and sure to come to the island Óbudai in Budapest, are for example Faithless, Oi Va Voi, Vive La Fête, Iron Maiden, Danko Jones, Muse and many more.

Now restaurant and exhibition facility Canvas op de 7e has found a way to extend the festival. They found a way to let the festival begin 22 hours earlier and to offer you transport to Budapest: the Sziget Party Train Hippie Express. This train, like the name suggests, gives you the opportunity of entering Hungary while already partying.

The train leaves our country on August 8th from the railway stations Amsterdam CS, Utrecht CS, Rotterdam CS, Eindhoven CS and Venlo. One of the compartments of the train is completely tranformed into a club, where you can already adjust to the atmosphere of the festival.

Of course, a range of dj's will join the 22 hour long trip to entertain you and your fellow Sziget visitors. A few names of the line-up are Aardvarck, San Proper, Marvin Michel and last but not least, Baskerville, 3 FM's Serious Talent and also booked on Sziget Festival itself.

The trip costs about 300 euros but the ticket for the festival is included. For tickets, click here.

Written for BLEND.

Copenhagen Photo Festival.

This week the Copenhagen Photo Festival takes place in Denmark. The festival will present significant Danish and international contemporary photography in art institutions, galleries and urban space offering a wide range of contemporary photography, from art and fashion photography to documentary and photojournalism.

Copenhagen Photo Festival will present a day and night program offering exhibitions, workshops, artists talks and seminars, along with a private view program of satellite exhibitions. Day & Night is Copenhagen Photo Festival's main exhibition in the public space of Copenhagen inner city. The exhibition is produced by Copenhagen Photo Festival and will be presenting new contemporary art photography from the international scene. Day focuses on fact and fiction and Night focuses on nightlife and excesses. While Day takes place in broad daylight, Night comes alive at dusk by being projected onto storefront windows, buildings and screens throughout the city.

Copenhagen Photo Festival
May 12th - 20th 2010
Copenhagen

Written for BLEND.

Trailerpark Festival.

Trailerpark Festival 2010 is a three-day Copenhagen-based music and art festival organized by ArtRebels. It features more than a hundred people's collective creativity and presents it in a unique way to more than 5000 happy participants.

The festival's musical programm offers a combination of new and innovative bands, dj's and producers; mostly Danish, but also a range of artists from other countries. For example, the five-piece indie rock band The Kissaway Trail form Odense, Denmark. Or the also Danish Raz Ohara, with his soul, hiphop, electro and techhouse based music. And the young producer Eim Ick from Copenhagen, with his own minimal & techno sound. But also the electro pop trio We Have Band from the UK or the German new wave, indie & electro band Rework. Anyway, this festival has enough musical diversity to offer!



But not just music, also art is a great part of the festival: the art program is as vibrant and significant as the music. Trailerpark 2010 has a rather extraordinary artist line-up. Everything between the categories of installations, visuals, posters, performances to the actual decoration of the trailers and festival space is covered. The festival is a complete Trailerpark universe, where the play between genres will give birth to interesting new fusions of art, music and visuality.

'With a mixed constellation of Copenhagens finest and international friends we aim for an expression that is bright, carnevalistic, colourful and a bit crazy, at the same time as it has something dark, edgy, playful and humorous to it. The general feel will be something like one big innovative playground. A place where creative energy will mobilize to break down the barriers between established and underground, Danish and Nordic, and in the end between artist and the audience.' thus the Trailerpark website promises.

Well, most of the line-up isn't published yet, but will be in the upcoming weeks. Tickets for the festival are only 300 DDK, which is just about 40 euro for the whole weekend!

Trailerpark Festival
30th, 31st July & 1st August 2010
Copenhagen

An impression of Trailerpark Festival 2008:

TRAILER PARK FESTIVAL 2008 from ArtRebels on Vimeo.

Written for BLEND.

Graphic Design Festival.

From the 8th to 30rd of May 2010 the second edition of the Graphic Design Festival Breda (GDFB) will take place. GDFB is a biannual festival on graphic design. The festival shows the current developments of this kind of design and a large part of it is on display in public spaces.

The festival is surprising for the public and professionals by showing the communicative powers of graphic design within our daily visual culture. Talented designers connect graphic design, technology, social context and the individual (the consumer) in their work.

The festival is not only meant for designers, but is also aiming for a broader public. In three weeks GDFB will reach the audience with presentations in the public space, thus stimulating thought about personal connection to visual culture. Also, the festival offers the professional audience insight in contemporary developments in the craft with exhibitions, lectures and workshops.



In 2010, the theme of the festival is 'decoding'. Todays digitial as well as realistic surroundings consist mainly of codes. Examples are language, barcodes, login codes, scripts, postal codes and telephone numbers. During GDFB, you can see how designers take information, images and interaction to hack, remix, sample, blend and code. Different workshops, exhibitions, lectures and presentations will have you experience how we handle images in our daily environment.

Want to know what else the festival has to offer? Watch the programm here.

Graphic Design Festival Breda
May 8th - May 30rd
Breda

GDFB 2010 leader from GDFB.tv on Vimeo.

Off Centre Festival.

Amsterdam is the proud owner of a new born festival, called Off Centre which will be held May 26th until 29th in the Melkweg Amsterdam. The festival is orientated on the wide variety of electronic music and other art-forms in Amsterdam. Off Centre sets innovative electronic music first and unites musicians from several genres. Several names from the line-up are: James Holden, Gui Boratto, Kode 9, Dopplereffekt, The Field, Mala, King Midas Sound and Efdemin.

It's a unique concept since it's the only festival which focusses on the cross over between beats, techno, dubstep, live electronica and art. During the festival the Melkweg will be filled with different artists daily who are working with electronic music in an innovative way.

There will be artists who focus especially on the deeper, melodic sound of techno and electronica such as Border Community front-man James Holden, Gui Boratto and producer The Field.

Dupstep is getting more popular every day so this genre will be highlighted by artists like Kode9, Mala and King Midas Sound, and for the electronica sound artists such as Gold Panda, Mount Kimbie and Kelpe are booked. Representing the Dutch electronic music world are Quince (special set), Delta Funktionen, Applescal and Funckarma.

Besides that the Melkweg will accomodate for other art forms such as the exposition Anharmonium and two performances combined with modern dance, media-art and music: Còncau II from Roser López Espinosa en Isalien from Jérôme Meyer & Isabelle Chaffaud.

Off Centre Festival
26th till 29th may 2010
Melkweg , Amsterdam

Written for BLEND.

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.

Glasgow International Festival brings the art of local and international artists to Glasgow for a stimulating two-week burst of exhibitions across the city, starting on the 16th of April until May 3rd 2010.

Visual art happens all year round in Glasgow but for two weeks every two years, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art puts it firmly in the spotlight. From artists’ studios through to major museums and a vast range of venues new and old, the festival is the perfect moment to get to know more about contemporary art and how and where it takes place in Glasgow.

The festival gives special attention to Susan Philipsz this year, who is interested in the way sound revives memory. Susan Philipsz has been commissioned by GI to create a new, site-specific outdoor sound work on the banks of the River Clyde. This work will be on display for the duration of the festival. The opening of the festival will be by filmmaker Douglas Gordon with a new video-installation: 24 Hours Psycho. During these two weeks there will be much more work to see from other artists like David Shirgley, Kevin Atherton, Kate DavisLila de Magalhaes.
and
Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art
April 16th - May 3rd 2010
Glasgow

Written for BLEND.

Imagine Film Festival.

Voor wie gister mijn blog over de Film Biennale aansprak, zal vandaag ook oor hebben naar deze post. In april zal namelijk ook een ander Film Festival plaatsvinden: namelijk het Imagine Film Festival. Genoeg keus dus! Maar deze voorstellingen zullen misschien wel een ander filmpubliek trekken. Dit festival is voornamelijk weggelegd voor ieder die van films in de genres fantasy, sciencefiction, horror, thriller en animatie houdt. Films waarin de verbeelding aan de macht is.

Imagine zal een breed scala aan voorstellingen laten zien; denk hierbij aan artistieke hoogstandjes, maar ook makkelijk-weg-te-kijken-films (om het zo te noemen), low-budget of juist high-tech films. Naast de voorstellingen informeert Imagine de bezoeker ook over de achtergronden van het filmmaken door middel van gratis toegankelijke masterclasses, symposia en interviews.

Imagine - 26th Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival
14 t/m 24 april 2010
Filmtheater Kriterion

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Melt!.

Ben jij een van de velen die helaas geen Lowlands kaartje heeft weten te bemachtigen en wil jij dit jaar toch echt niet de dixi's, in elkaar gezakte tentjes en de geur van drie dagen niet douchen missen? Oke, dit laatste misschien wel, maar wat dacht je van al die vette bands en gruwelijke dj-sets? Dan moet je het misschien niet altijd binnen onze grenzen zoeken. Onze oosterburen in Duitsland bijvoorbeeld kunnen er namelijk ook wat van. Een festival dat dat Lowlandsgevoel zeker - en naar mijn idee nog beter - weet te benaderen is Melt!.

Dit underground elektronisch muziekfestival in Oost-Duitsland bevindt zich in het adembenemende Ferropolis "City of Steel"; een voormalige baggerplaats waar vijf grote baggeraars het decor vormen voor een spectaculair festival. Te midden van dit decor kun je genieten van een zeer vernieuwende en vooruitstrevende line-up, waar Melt! dan ook bekend om staat. Kortgeleden zijn de eerste namen al bekend gemaakt. Enkele namen zijn o.a. Massive Attack, The XX, Pantha Du Prince, Booka Shade, Modeselektor, maar ook onze eigen Nederlandse Joris Voorn.

Verder komen de prijzen ook niet aan het Lowlandstarief. Vanaf 108,40 euro ben je al verzekerd van een ticket voor een heel weekend inclusief camping en parkeerplaats. Er worden zelfs complete busreizen vanaf Nederland inclusief ticket aangeboden. Dus genoeg reden om Lowlands voor een jaartje over te slaan en eens te kijken wat er voorbij onze grenzen aangeboden wordt!

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Source on ice.

Kan jij ook nooit wachten tot het festivalseizoen eindelijk weer begint? Lekker overdag feesten in de buitenlucht en vanaf 1 uur ‘s middags – gewoon omdat het mag - met een alcoholische versnapering beginnen? Nou daar hebben de mannen van Source iets op gevonden: een heus winterfestival! Georganiseerd op zaterdag 27 februari aanstaande van 13.00-23.00. Denk hierbij aan twee area's met fijne elektronische muziek, een veelvoud aan acts, visuele & beeldende kunst, literatuur en sport & spel. Krijg je even genoeg van al deze activiteiten? Dan kom je toch even bij met een heerlijk kopje erwtensoep of een mok warme chocolademelk!

Dit jaar hebben de Source-mannen gekozen voor een thema met een Russisch tintje, zoals de flyer ook al deels verklapt, en daarom wordt het Paperdome terrein in Utrecht getransformeerd om je voor een dag in de Russische sferen te begeven. De line-up bestaat uit: Supermayer, Rick Wade, Lindstrom, San Proper & Tom Trago, Melon, Rednose Distrikt Jackmate & Pitto, Steffen Bennemann en Bert de Rooij & Dollkraut. Verder wordt de aankleding gedaan door kunstenaarscollectief Bier en Brood, is er een speels programma van Live Build, doet Hard Hoofd een literaire bijdrage en alsof dat nog niet genoeg is: nog meer kunst, mode, fotografie, videokunst... you name it!

Voor meer informatie: www.sourcefestival.nl

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