Dear festival visitors,

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the “Blaues Rauschen” festival, which explores in an innovative way the interfaces between man and machine, between electronic sound worlds and sensual experiences. This year’s edition of the festival once again focuses on the interplay of digital possibilities and “handmade” art: The program explores the intersections and tensions between the digital and the analog, making the often abstract artistic approaches tangible to all the senses through live formats on the festival stages. With its experimental approach, “Blaue Rauschen” covers no less than five cities in the Ruhr region and is thus an ideal example of the vibrant ecosystem of current art forms that we as a state want to strengthen in the region with the “Neue Künste Ruhr” program.

With the New Arts Ruhr, we are promoting not only the digital arts but also other innovative and young art forms such as electronic music, urban arts and the new circus. The “Blaues Rauschen” festival is now making its fifth contribution to providing a stage for this field of art. With the experimental and urban formats, the Ruhr region has the chance to establish itself as a metropolis of the arts and to offer artists an attractive field of experimentation for original forms of expression.

I wish the association “open systems e.V.” a successful festival, the artists the response they deserve, and all visitors a lot of fun. Let yourself be inspired!