Pressinformation Version 01.04.2025 / Subject to changes Krems/Austria 02.05. bis 04.05 & 09.05. bis 11.05.2025
donaufestival 2025 02.-04.05. and 09.-11.05. | Krems an der Donau Music, performance, art, film, and discourse. Under the guidance of artistic director Thomas Edlinger since 2017, donaufestival presents audacious aesthetics and vibes in current contemporary art. This year, a programme of around 55 events will take place on two spring weekends (Friday to Sunday) at various locations in Krems.
Confusion Is Next Confusion Is Next is the title of a song by Sonic Youth from 1983. In 2025, the 20th year of donaufestival in its present form, paranoia, suspicion, outrage, and disinformation jungles thrive in the Need for Chaos. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not just disruptive troublemakers who want to provide a postliberal response to the alleged rule of wokeness. Europe is being declared the enemy, US democracy is threatening to turn into an imperial presidency. The assessment of the situation in the Middle East divides the political camps and artistic milieus. In Germany, Carolin Amlinger and Oliver Nachtwey have identified a "libertarian authoritarianism" that has been able to thrive on the feeling of "violated freedom". This gives rise to cross-fronts between alternative and right-wing state allergists, flexible fascisms and sometimes curious attributions of opposition. Is this age of „Confusionism“(Philippe Corcuff) also following subversive plans in Europe and what part do inflammatory algorithms play in this? In the documentary Schwester Courage by Kollektiv ZUGANG at this edition of donaufestival, a demonstration against coronavirus measures in Berlin is pitted against a counter-demo. The counterdemo chants: “You’re marching with Nazis!” Outraged demonstrators reply: “You’re the Nazis!“ Nothing is right, anything goes. Are we slowly going mad, and what’s up with the others? Markus Metz and Georg Seeßlen react to these questions with a multimedia show about the fabrication of rightwing political paranoia by „stupid machines“. In this nebulous state, artists too have turned to tactics of irritation: Göksu Kunak’s installation at Kunsthalle Krems exposes the political-mafioso entanglements in Turkey in 1996, which continue to have an impact today. God’s Entertainment summons a dubious doppelganger of the Danube. Theatre and opera director Magda Szpecht presents possibilities of cyberactivism against Putin. In a stirring video opera, Ayla Pierrot Arendt investigates the tenuous fragility of peace in Georgia. The Brazilian Original Bomber Crew translates urban experiences of violence into a performative invasion – using fire and skateboards. Eman Hussein transforms construction work into a sweat-inducing choreography. El Conde de Torrefiel uses biographical fragments and flashbacks from a speculative future to associate the possible with the real. As part of a cooperation with Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Deva Schubert combines bodily fluids, sounds and whispering protests in a sound installation and accompanying choreography. Jeremy Deller smuggles a disturbing statement by author Primo Levi about our present times into the urban fabric. People Like Us drive 1001 images through our heads. In the midst of Krems’s pedestrian zone Regina José Galindo confronts the new militarism with the only appropriate direction of movement: backwards.
NÖ Festival und Kino GmbH, Minoritenplatz 5, 3500 Krems an der Donau