The KIKK Festival has become a fixture both in Belgium and in the international digital arts scene.
From 23 to 26 October, its immersive 14th edition will once again take over the city of Namur.
The programme features “robot” musicians playing the organ of the Saint-Loup Church, along with 30 immersive and striking installations, transforming the Walloon capital into one vast exhibition.
For the first time in its history, KIKK will combine music with technology. The onomatopoeia ‘Boom Boom Tchak’ refers to our heartbeat and runs like a common thread through the programme.
A spokesman for the organisers told Together: “It is an ideal introduction to digital art for the general public, and for families in particular.
“This edition invites you to listen as much as to look: wind, birds, motors, bass guitars.Namur will become a resonant chamber where art reflects the bustle of life,” explained Marie du Chastel, artistic director of the KIKK Festival.
This year, the art trail has been expandsed: new public artworks commissioned by KIKK feature among some thirty visual and sound installations across the city.
From 16 October, Studio Interva — a collective led by Yannick Jacquet — will install a large-scale audiovisual structure on Place Maurice Servais (supported by Imaginaires Publics, FWB, ST’ART and WBI). In the evening, the colourful work transforms into an animated carousel with a 360° soundtrack and projections by Rocio Alvarez.
Zimoun, the renowned sound and immersive artist, is another highlight of the programme. His work takes over the vast glass hall of the Institut Saint-Louis, an impressive venue with superb acoustics.
The Swiss artist employs hundreds of motors to set a wall of cardboard boxes in motion: a mechanical, hypnotic ensemble of rhythm, friction and organised chaos. This raw, almost organic experience engages all the senses.
Also present is French artist Alexis Choplain who will present Hydroscope, commissioned by the Interstice Festival on the occasion of Caen’s thousandth anniversary.
The spokesman added, “People can expect an almost magical staging of water through light and sound, constructed with stroboscopic frequencies and motion illusions.”
The creations of Japanese artist So Kanno promise to leave no one untouched while Chirping Machines are robots hidden in the garden of the Museum of Decorative Arts, reproducing acoustic sounds of nature. A symphony of frictional sounds imitates crickets, birds and frogs with astonishing realism, in an installation where technology meets poetry.
Lasermice Dyad is, says the organiser, a swarm of robotic mice equipped with lasers that generate light and sound stimuli.
“The result is a captivating sound-and-light spectacle,” said the event spokesman.
Also Chinese artist Ban Lei offers a participatory installation of 153 ‘bird-sculpture whistles’ that the public can play. “Ban Lei will be present throughout the four days of the festival to coordinate and animate these collective scenes, transforming the auditorium into a shared instrument,”said the spokesman.
