NEW NOW — Hypernatural Forces

Hypernatural Forces
Returning in 2023 for its second edition, the festival will take place from the 1st of June till the 6th of August under the title “Hypernatural Forces”, focusing on the forces that drive and design nature and the digital. As in 2021, Jasmin Grimm serves as the festival’s Artistic Director.

The festival consists of various formats that take place between June and August. Over a period of ten weeks, the exhibition in the Mixing Plant will feature works by international and national artists. Amidst the fascinating architecture of the Mixing Plant, visitors can immerse themselves in immersive installations and video works and moving art around the festival theme „Hypernatural Forces“.

Opening Week
The NEW NOW Festival will kick off on the 4th of June 2023. Visitors can expect a variety of accompanying events, with the ceremonial opening of the NEW NOW exhibition on June 1st. Monom Studios’ four-dimensional installation will transform the Salt store into a hypernatural sound environment. At the Immersive Sound Night on the evening of the 1st of June, international artists will present their audiovisual performances in fascinating industrial architecture. The NEW NOW conference on June 2nd will explore how digitalisation is changing our understanding of nature, while unique prototypes can be experienced in the ThinkHalle on the 3rd and 4th of June. Explore the opening programme.

Exhibition
02.06. – 06.08.2023 / Mixing Plant
We live in a time of hypernature. Technical knowledge and organic life are merging in new ways. Boundaries between reality and simulation are blurring. New dependencies and symbioses are appearing. Nature itself becoming art. Over a period of nine weeks, the exhibition „Hypernatural Forces“ will show artistic positions around the theme of hypernature in the Mixing Plant from the 1st of June till the 6th of August 2023.

Visitors enter the territory of a roaming robot pack. Listen to the beguiling song of invasive plants. Or wander through deserted landscapes of electronic waste and organic fiction. At Zollverein, they can experience how artificial intelligence (re-)interprets the site — once the largest colliery in the world — and generates new worlds from it.

Residency Programme
01.11.2022 – 31.05.2023
Developed especially for the exhibition, all the artworks in the Mixing Plant are world premieres. As part of the NEW NOW residency, seven artists were invited to develop projects for “Hypernatural Forces”. Over a period of seven months, they intensively researched, investigated, and engaged with the locale and history of the Zollverein World Heritage Site and the architecture of the Mixing Plant. In addition to the resident artists, other artists have also been invited to show new works.

Immersive Sound Night
01.06.2023, 21 – 24 Uhr / Mixing Plant
The „Immersive Sound Night” will take place on the 1st of June during the inaugural evening. Renowned international artists are invited to perform experimental electronic sounds and visuals in the Mixing Plant — offering an immersive audiovisual experience in a unique industrial setting. The Immersive Sound Nights are realised in collaboration with MUTEK Montreal, a festival for electronic music and the digital arts.

Conference
02.06.2023, 10 – 22 Uhr / Salt Store
A conference on Hypernatural Forces will take place on the 2nd of June as a discursive element of NEW NOW. For a whole day we will discuss and experience how digitalisation is changing our understanding of nature. To this end, international and local artists will be in conversation with scientists, activists and all other interested parties at Zollverein.

Is the digital a hypernatural force? How are digital technologies changing our understanding of nature? And what are the ecological effects of digitalisation? These questions are at the centre of the NEW NOW conference. Because our view of nature today is shaped by digital technologies. Without computer models knowledge about the climate crisis would be limited. And with the help of artificial intelligence biological organisms can be recombined and speculative worlds created. Concurrently, digital technologies are increasingly criticised for their role in destroying ecosystems and exacerbating the climate crisis.

ThinkHalle
03.06. – 04.06.2023 / Mixing Plant
An interdisciplinary melting pot — a place for showing, for informal exchange, but also a testing ground, a shared workbench and a hub — the ThinkHalle is for everyone who enjoys experimentation.

During the opening weekend, from the 3rd till the 4th of June, tech-savvy artists, creative makers and tinkerers will move into the foyer of the mixing plant and bring unique prototypes with them. Following the festival theme “Hypernatural Forces”, they will explore and develop cross-border journeys between speculation and function, technology and material, the now and the near future, in dialogue with the visitors. From real-time simulations of planetary infrastructures to birdsong, from plasma sculptures to prostheses that bridge the gap between humans and bats — the pool of ideas is well filled. Everyone is invited to participate, talk, think or even just to watch. We are looking forward to works by: Marine Lemarié and Nicolas Stephan, Leon Eckard, Fara Peluso and Kat Austen, Charlotte Triebus and many more.

Satellites
01.06. – 06.08. / Various locations in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region
Leaving the expanse of Zollverein for the first time thanks to its Satellites, NEW NOW 2023 invites you to various events in the Ruhr region and beyond. Throughout the duration of the festival, local initiatives, venues, collectives and institutions will open their doors to the public where they will show artistic work, research and projects close to their hearts. The Satellite events invite you to see new works in an intimate atmosphere, take part in workshops, exchange ideas, or simply take a look behind the scenes. We are looking forward to unexpected encounters in special places, including among others: the WHY NOT? collective, synthetic sound experiments at the Georgel Gelsenkirchen, artistic research with the Theater im Depot Dortmund and multi-sensory states of emergency with the Ruhrgebieterinnen in cooperation with MIREVI Düsseldorf.