The Future of Festivals
»So all of these festivals that the film looks at, they are more or less – in my mind – run by people who come out of the late 80s and early 90s. The European techno scene. And that idea of music as a seismograph of societal change – that’s really important. So the film tries to look at – or prompt – each different festival – the organisers, the artists involved – to try and rethink it and go ‘Where are we? Are we succeeding at this?«
—Nathan Budzinski, The Future of Festivals
Lately, I’ve been writing quite a few articles for Seismograf – a journal for contemporary music and sound art. I’ve just submitted a piece on SØS Gunver Ryberg’s newest album, AFTRYK, which should be out next week. I’ll do my best to translate the Danish articles and bring them for you here. But for now, I’d like to share this longform interview I did with former contributor to The Wire Nathan Budzinski, about his film 9 Futures: Sounds Fragmenting and the current state of experimental electronic music festivals.
It’s all about what festivals actually are – why they exist, who creates them and for what reason. There’s a good bit of Jacques Attali’s Noise in there and we talk about how capitalist society needs these breaks from the boredom of everyday life. How you go to festivals to escape into an alternative space of dreams, insobriety and sound.
In any case, you can read The Future of Festivals here.