Between man and machine, reality and fiction, sound and silence

Artificial intelligence is no longer a topic for the future − it influences our everyday lives, our communication and our creative practice. The buzzwords of recent years − AI, sensor technology, robotics − have become more concrete, but with them the debate is also growing: Who controls the algorithms? What does authorship mean in the age of machine creativity? And what remains of the human when machines imitate and help shape our language, our music and our art?

BLAUES RAUSCHEN 2025 takes up these questions and introduces them into artistic practice. While some celebrate the fact that machines are composing, improvising and interacting more and more autonomously, there is no lack of critical reflection: Who benefits, who loses? While AI-generated music is opening up new worlds, artists are increasingly focusing on the physical, analog moment. Vinyl records are not only symbols of retro hype, but also stand for a tactile, conscious experience beyond the algorithmic stream.

However, this artistic exploration does not take place in a vacuum. Our time is characterized by contradictions: Technological euphoria meets social insecurity The crises are global − climate change, wars, financial cuts, social divisions − and yet they can be felt locally. Culture is not unaffected either: Public funding is being cut, the freedom of artistic experimentation is under pressure. At the same time, new spaces for resistance and visions are emerging − whether in the club spaces of the Ruhr area or in digital utopias.

The festival is taking place in seven cities this year: Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne and Mülheim. We are delighted to welcome Duisburg and Mülheim as cooperation partners for the first time this year! As at all festival locations, sound spaces are created here in which analog and digital, human and machine meet − places of fusion, but also of friction and reflection.

The program selection reflects these tensions: Performances explore the interplay between human creativity and artificial intelligence, hybrid installations merge virtual and physical spaces, and live coding concerts turn software into an instrument. At the same time, improvised soundscapes, experimental instruments and interactive formats focus on an anti-digital sensuality. Two lecture talks accompany the program − one dedicated to sonic fiction, the other to artistic working methods with AI. The theme of the annual Open Call was Data Ethics and Creative Practice − A Critical Workshop: in a three-day workshop, artists from different disciplines developed a 20-minute program item for the last day of the festival.

BLAUES RAUSCHEN remains a place of experimentation. A place where visitors are challenged to engage with the digital transformation not just as consumers, but as co-creators. A place where art is not just an image, but a space of possibility.

Karl-Heinz Blomann
Artistic Director