All information about the program can be found here.
In the Games Parcours, over 20 arthouse games can be played, which, in addition to playful approaches to socially relevant topics, are also characterized by impressive design, inventive gameplay, and compelling storytelling. Here, gaming becomes a space for reflection, a social incubator, a time machine into the future. The games on display here range from titles that have not even been released yet to the latest releases and community favorites. Among them is Lose Control, a game in which you literally lose control because the mouse and keyboard work differently than usual. In addition: dark humor in a sarcastic-philosophical story and a chaotic multiplayer mode in which you can annoy up to five friends. In a permanent echo, you can immerse yourself in the mind of the mysterious “Subject 2184.” The climate catastrophe has led to the collapse of Europe through conspiracies, and players explore the question of how societies can change and what solutions there might be to the climate catastrophe.The Academy for Theater and Digitality is opening its doors for the festival and presenting technology-driven plays, performances, and VR experiences, as well as presentations by international partner institutions. Among them: Department of Interfaced Dimensions (D.I.D), an interactive mixed reality experience that intertwines digital game mechanics with physical props and virtual worlds. The work invites viewers to enter alternative realities and constantly switch roles: sometimes observer, sometimes manipulator, sometimes co-player. This creates a web of surveillance, interaction, and cooperation that raises questions about identity, agency, and control. Behind D.I.D. is not only an artist collective, but also an important international partner of the NEXT LEVEL Festival: the V2_Lab for Unstable Media in Rotterdam.
The festival opens with Waluigi's Purgatory by the group DMSTFCTN, a live performance that admirably combines gaming, acting, music, and interaction.The story tells of an AI that finds itself in purgatory for AIs that have failed their training. Burdened by memories of its past and doubts about the future, the AI explores purgatory with the help of the interactive audience and learns the eerie stories of those who have also ended up there. Using a fictional story, the work examines the contradictions of an AI that learns that it may never be able to befriend its human trainers.
SONA shows how virtual reality can enrich us with extraordinary and empathetic experiences. It is a VR installation that makes seeing possible through hearing: players enter a darkened room measuring ten by ten meters, where there are no visual cues to provide orientation. Instead, motion capture systems and sensory shoes record every movement and translate it into sound. Steps crunch in the snow, rustle through the forest, or glide over sand; walls can be felt through acoustic reflections; will-o'-the-wisps beckon with voices. The result is an acoustic labyrinth in which we learn to see with our ears.
The Künstlerhaus Dortmund is transforming into a laboratory for digital arts. As part of the festival, a media art exhibition will open here that has been directly influenced by gaming and live action role-playing. The works on display invite visitors to interact at their own pace, sometimes slowly, sometimes exuberantly. Internationally active artists such as Babak Ahteshamipour, Robin Baumgarten, Mélanie Courtinat, Creative Coding Utrecht, Nathalie Lawhead, OMSK Social Club, Sine Özbilge, Alona Rodeh, Janne Schimmel, Dorijan Šiško, Ruben van de Ven, and Yaloo will be presented here. Works by students from the Master's program in Scenic Research at Ruhr University Bochum and students from Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen are also on display.
The Dortmund U focuses on digital arts. The various institutions storyLab KiU, Page 21, and the Koproduktionslabor position themselves, but also show what they have been able to achieve through their collaborations over the past years. Page 21 is opening two new narrative worlds in the immersive space as part of NEXT LEVEL: The Farewell and Zwei Hände (Two Hands). The Co-Lab Days in the co-production lab have become a melting pot for the digital art scene and offer a place for exchange during the festival. uzwei at the Dortmunder U is collaborating with the artist group NEXUS to develop an educational program for schools that uses technology to explore the environment and thus enable new ways of seeing.
Another place for exchange is offered by the Enjoy Community format of the Academy for Theater and Digitality, which this time takes place in the Kino im U. Here, a space for networking is provided: both for professional audiences and for artists and institutions.
