TodaysArt Festival 2019 - TodaysArt - Global platform for art, creativity and technology.

TodaysArt Festival 2019: Consciousness

The Hague, 19 – 22 September 2019

Ever since its inception 2005, TodaysArt has been transforming the festival landscape, creating new sensory experiences by putting forward immersive art, experimental music and the best club headliners. For its 15th anniversary edition, the festival set foot in the Hague, but in a world that is very different from where it all started. An edition featuring immersive experiences, new media installations and pioneering performances; an edition reflecting on the past 15 years, but also on the opportunities for humanity in our digital future. This was TodaysArt 2019: “CONSCIOUSNESS.”

For its 15th edition, TodaysArt invited a cast of artists closely connected to the festival’s history. This included various emerging pioneers, along with some of the most progressive artists and strains in art and music that are defining our culture today. The locations this year ranged from industrial heritage to a full-scale theatre, a club designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and legendary underground spaces for the club program.

Every year, the festival’s program is embedded in a larger narrative. With themes like ‘Leap Into The Void’, ‘Sea of Random Data’ and ‘Conflict’, past editions sketched a rather bleak digital future. Instead of spinning off into a dystopian spiral, however, the organization felt that this year’s theme should be multifaceted, reflecting on darkness and light, ecological vulnerability and resourceful regeneration. With the theme “Consciousness”, TodaysArt 2019 explored how awareness can give new meaning and relevance to the human mind in a digital world, and how art, philosophy, creativity and eventually consciousness will become crucial to humanity in our rapidly changing society. With this theme, dystopian scenarios about black boxes and Artificial Intelligence were left behind, moving the focus to the opportunities of digital technology instead.

Apart from the theme, the global network and international partnerships of TodaysArt were also reflected in the festival program. Artists from the Ugandese festival Nyege Nyege, emerging talent from the European platform SHAPE, and programs co-curated with We Are Europe partners Insomnia and Sónar are part of TodaysArt’s extending network.