SHINY TOYS is a festival for time-based experimental culture in the Ruhr region. It combines experimental music, performance, light art and expanded cinema to create an interdisciplinary panopticon of the avant-garde art scene. Local and international musicians and artists are invited to animate, play with and transform the beat and rhythm of our time with their performances, installations and audiovisual concerts. In doing so, they experiment at the interfaces of analog and digital technologies and explore their principles of representation. Among them are:

Felix Kubin / and the Mineral Orchestra

Kubin's music is imbued with an enthusiasm for discordant pop, industrial noise and the avant-garde music of the 20th century. Since 1998 he has released a number of albums with different conceptual approaches and played at over 100 electronic music festivals, including Sonar, Transmediale, Unsound, Performa, Wien Modern, Présences Électroniques and Ars Electronica. In 2010 he appeared on the cover of the British music magazine WIRE. He likes to move between high and pop culture, clubs and concert halls, as he is primarily interested in shifting contexts and expectations.

Tomoko Sauvage / Waterbowls

Sauvage is a Paris-based Japanese composer and artist best known for her long-standing musical and performative practice with her self-developed instruments made of water, ceramics and electronics. Her work focuses on the tactile materiality of vibrating objects and the use of chance as a compositional method. Sauvage has performed at the Barbican Centre, Palais de Tokyo, MaerzMusik, Musée d'art moderne de Paris, Manifesta 13, Roskilde Festival and RIBOCA, among others. Her installation and video works have been presented by the Sharjah Art Foundation, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and the Maison Tavel, among others.

Tintin Patrone & Song-Yi / THIS IS SPARTA!

At the center of the performance is a dialogue between a musician and a small electric wheelchair - at once an autonomous kinetic performer and an extension of the body. Shifting between music, choreography and robotics, the project - presented with the support of Vienna-based Korean-German performance artist and dancer Susanne Songi Griem - explores the interfaces between therapy and pop culture.

Tintin Patrone is a German-Filipino sound and performance artist. She is fascinated by exploring the connections between music, art, sound and experimental forms of expression. Her artistic work revolves around sound as a cultural system and the way in which personal and social relationships are established through it. By engaging with robots and artificial intelligence in her artistic practice, Tintin Patrone challenges established notions of human subjectivity and physical presence. As a musician, she has performed at festivals such as Skaņu Mežs (LV), Intonal (SE), Meakusma (BE), Unsafe&Sound (AT) and Lacking Sound Fest (TW). She specializes in minimalist sound works and drone-based solo performances, characterized by studies in microtonality and interspecific communication. With the trombone as her main instrument, complemented by modulation devices, she carefully shapes long-lasting soundscapes that invite contemplative listening.

Further event dates: www.shinytoys.eu

A cooperation between Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Theater an der Ruhr, Makroscope e.V. and mex - intermediale und experimentelle Musikprojekte Dortmund.

Funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia as part of the New Arts Ruhr funding program.