Electric Castle, like all festivals, had to cancel its 2020 edition. In 2021, it came back with a “Special” edition that took place in several venues in the city of Cluj-Napoca (capital of Transylvania), rather than on the usual grounds of the Bontida Castle.
We brought back the New Media program, distributed across the city in a variety of venues from indoor to outdoor.
Playmodes presented two installations, and indoor one (Espills) and an outdoor one (Beyond)
Robert Henke presented Phosphor, an installation that uses phosphorescent pigment, upon which a laser endlessly draws topographic patterns, algorithmically driven (and never repeating themselves).
Tundra presented Row, a holographic fan installation where the row of fans creates synchronized animation on the z-axis.
Vincent Houze presented an adapted version of his Fluid Structure, and interactive installation where visitors bodies serve as colliders for fluid like blobs. The installation was setup in a large room inside a communist era hotel.
The Bucharest based collective Radar presented a new piece based on the John Conway’s Game of Life
Italian artist collective Quiet Ensemble presented Unshaped, a large piece of semi-transparent material elevated in the air through motion sensor driven fans.
The city allowed us to use the facade of the public library as a canvas for an installation. We decide to leverage lighting and sound rather than projection, and gave the setup to a three local artist groups - Clar Obscura, Hybrid Labs and Pal. Each of them developed a sonic and light driven narrative that was in some cases performed live.