Open Call for Dystopie 2020 Sound Art Festival Berlin

June 17, 2020

Dystopie Berlin-Brazil, a sound art festival, is back again this year in Berlin after its grand premiere success: Dystopie Berlin-Istanbul. The Dystopie Festival aims to assemble sound art from a plethora of different worldly cultures centralized around the theme of dystopia. The festival hosts a variety of different guests, speakers and artists showcasing their sound installations. The exhibited artwork is meant to reflect on the social and political aspects that characterize a dystopia and its usage as a warning tool for the contemporary. Given our current situation of increased authoritarianism, looming environmental catastrophe, heightened surveillance and the recent corona pandemic, Dystopie-Festival becomes a salient outlet for today’s distress.

This open call invites sound artists from Brazil and Europe to submit new or existing works that deal with the topic of “dystopia” in the broadest sense. To apply one must fill in the online application form as well as send the jury a CV and portfolio with 3 recent works as PDFs. Transportation, travel (encouraged to be climate-friendly) and accommodation costs, as well as an artist fee for the artworks produced, will be covered by the festival.

The festival takes place between October 16th to November 1st, 2020 with two exhibition locations in Berlin. The main exhibition will be held at the Alte Münze, a hot spot for Berlin’s cultural events, fully utilizing its industrial cellars and vaults of different sizes to host sound works. Additionally, the Errant Sound gallery space will also hold sound installations with the path between both physical sites, along the banks of the Spree further yielding an exhibition of art to the public.

As this edition of the festival seeks to build cooperation with the Brazilian sound art scene, Dystopie-Festival is planned to continue in Brazil 2021, giving selected works produced for Berlin 2020 the opportunity to also be showcased in a Brazilian context.