Dear festival visitors,

for the sixth time, the BLAUES RAUSCHEN festival invites you to experience electronic music and sound composition, light and video art, dance and performances. The entire spectrum of digital and analog means and possibilities will be explored.

With its innovative concept and high artistic standards, the festival has once again impressed the jury of “Neue Künste Ruhr”. And that’s not all – the festival has also grown in terms of space: this year the compositions and performances will not only be presented at the established locations in Essen, Dortmund, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen and Herne, but, for the first time, also in Witten.

The dense program attracts artists and many curious visitors from far beyond the borders of the host cities. The focus of this edition is once again on artistic experimentation and innovation. The festival offers a wide range of opportunities to encounter contemporary forms of artistic expression and to engage critically with them. This is what makes BLAUES RAUSCHEN so special within the cultural landscape of the region and has also made a name for itself beyond the Ruhr area.

With its special profile, the festival fits in perfectly with the New Arts Ruhr program. Since 2020, the state funding program has been helping to support young art forms in the Ruhr region – such as electronic music culture, digital arts, urban arts and new circus – and to offer artists attractive working conditions in the region. Our aim is to strengthen the vibrancy and artistic diversity of the region, provide impetus for experimentation and thus inspire new target groups for culture that cannot be reached with conventional formats. These impulses thus make a significant contribution to supporting the positive development of the Ruhr region.

With this in mind, I wish the association “open systems e.V.” a successful festival, the participating artists a well-deserved response and all visitors many discoveries at the sixth edition of BLAUES RAUSCHEN!