Over four days, the performance programme of Conflux Festival 2025 invites artists to investigate how sound, light, and ritualistic practices intersect, shaping our experience of reality in a world increasingly dominated by technology. The programme features cutting-edge sound performances, live audiovisual acts, experimental music, and immersive experiences.
The performance category will kick off on Thursday with an opening event at Katoenhuis, where performances will take place within site-specific installations, which will enhance the environment for a dynamic fusion of art, technology, and ritual. On Friday and Saturday, the festival moves to the brutalist landmark Brutus, where the raw, industrial space becomes a stage for powerful performances that directly engage with the site and its architectural features. The performances at Brutus explore the intersection of a decaying industrial landscape and an evolving technological world, pushing the boundaries of sensory experience. On Sunday, the festival concludes with a selection of cinematic performances at Cinerama.
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The Conflux Festival will kick off on Thursday with several Opening Performances at Katoenhuis. These performances will take place within site-specific installations, which will enhance the environment for a dynamic fusion of art, technology, and ritual.
Aside from the opening on Thursday there will be daily performances at Katoenhuis, all free of charge. Check the timetable for the 'Rites of Decay Exhibition' for a daily overview of performances and their scheduled times.
The Opening Performances on Thursday 18 September consist of:
19:00: Ronald van der Meijs - Performance for What If Summer Rain Will Freeze
The site-specific installation explores the impact of consumerism and the depletion of natural resources and drinking water, driven by an extreme globalised economy. Rainwater collected in Rotterdam, containing microorganisms and dust particles from distant regions, is transformed into ice cubes through a mechanical production process, creating an ongoing yet unpredictable and contemplative sound composition. The artist will perform a daily electronic live set, incorporating the analogue sounds of the installation.
20:00: Toine Klaassen - Performance for The Real Things Tablet
The Real Things Tablet is a site- and context-specific performance installation by artist Toine Klaassen (also known as the Dutch Bushman). The Real Things Tablet serves as fertile ground for ritual performances that emerge from within it. Through the practice of imaginative ritual, the installation invites the embodiment of hybrid beings, metamorphoses into ‘Dutch Bushman avatars’.
21:00: Aimée Theriot - Performance for Sonance III
Mexican sound artist and musician Aimée Theriot (seen on photo) has created a new sound composition for Robbie Doorman's Sonance III installation. Theriot’s commissioned piece, inspired by the Conflux 2025 theme Rites of Decay, will be played at various times throughout the festival weekend. She will also perform live on the Sonance III installation as part of the Conflux opening programme at Katoenhuis on Thursday, 18 September.
Ronald van der Meijs
Ronald van der Meijs, born in Tilburg in 1966, is an Amsterdam-based artist known for his thought-provoking, site-specific installations and sculptures. He has exhibited across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with works featured at the Centraal Museum Utrecht, the Triennial New Media Art in Beijing, and the Land Art Biennial in Mongolia. He’s been recognised with the Haarlem Vishal Art Prize and short list nominations for the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica and the Witteveen & Bos Art and Technology Prize. His work explores the delicate balance between nature and technology, using unpredictable natural processes to control mechanical structures, creating sound compositions that are constantly evolving. At the core of his work lies a fundamental question: how do we relate to nature in an increasingly artificial world? Through exhibitions, interventions, and live performances, he amplifies the natural rhythms of his installations, blending organic acoustics with digital synthesis to create deep, immersive experiences. Ronald invites us to pause, listen, and reconsider our connection to the environment.
Toine Klaassen
Toine Klaassen, also known as the Dutch Bushman, presents his work in a wide variety of locations, both in the Netherlands and abroad, reaching diverse audiences depending on the context. In addition to If Paradise Is Half As Nice, for example, he has performed in public spaces in and around the centre of Eindhoven during the project We Are The Market at Onomatopee. He has also worked in institutions that attract a more traditional art audience, such as museums, as well as at festivals and in more ‘hybrid’ presentation spaces like WORM, Showroom MAMA, and TENT. He frequently engages with students at academies, secondary schools, and universities. His practice offers rich opportunities for shared discovery, experimentation, and exploration.
Aimée Theriot
Aimée Theriot is a musician, sound artist, and organizer based in Amsterdam. Her music draws from free improvisation, ambient, ASMR, and soundscape recordings, with a heavy dose of experimentation using live electronics, field recordings, e-cello, and voice. Her work has been presented at festivals and galleries internationally, and her music has been released on labels such as Sofa Music, Editions Verde, Unheard Records, and Relative Pitch Records amongst others. She co-founded and facilitates The Social Music Club; open improvisation and sound experimentation sessions for musicians and non-musicians alike.
Having played together in the past in different formations, bass clarinetist Bernat Boronat, cellist Lucija Gregov, violinist Christine Cornwell, and electro-acoustician Ruben Kotkamp will for the first time come together as a quartet for a special one-off performance during Rites of Decay. Rooted in improvisation, the group explores the contrast between the earthly and the transcendental, using each artist’s individual practice as a vehicle for friction and convergence.
Bernat Boronat – Clarinetist and improviser with roots in Valencia, now based in Rotterdam. Dedicated to exploring extended techniques and new sounds with the bass clarinet and beyond, he lets the instrument’s qualities unfold naturally. He also creates self-built instruments using tubes and resonators.
Christine Cornwell – Latin-American-British composer, performer, educator, and creative producer based in Rotterdam. Her work connects free improvisation and co-creation to (collaboratively) challenge hierarchies and boundaries between audience-performer-space.
Lucija Gregov – Cellist, improviser, and sound artist. In addition to the cello, she integrates analogue synths and field recordings, pushing the instrument’s boundaries through interdisciplinary collaborations. She has also curated sound-based events for labels such as Futura Resistenza and WORM (Rotterdam).
Ruben Kotkamp – Electro-acoustician whose work extends beyond sound into the lived experience of the spectator. Using deconstruction, confrontation, sabotage, and shifts between sensory deprivation and overstimulation, his work aims to resonate on a visceral level. Shown at Ars Electronica, Gaudeamus, Kunsthal Rotterdam, SOLU Gallery (Helsinki), Radiant Love (Berlin), and more.
Bernat Boronat
Bernat Boronat (Alzira-Valencia) is a clarinetist and improviser based in Rotterdam, with a dedicated focus on exploring extended techniques and new sounds within the bass clarinet and other non-conventional instruments. In his solo work, Bernat pays attention to the inherent qualities of the instrument, enabling them to unfold naturally through assistance rather than rigid control. His instrumental practice lies within the use of extended versions of his instruments (mainly with tubes and resonators) and the application and combination of extended techniques.
Christine Cornwell
Christine Cornwell is a Latin-American-British composer, performer, educator, and creative producer based in Rotterdam. Her work connects free improvisation and co-creation to (collaboratively) challenge hierarchies and boundaries between audience-performer-space. As a violinist, performer, and facilitator, her practice is centred around a fascination with what is brought into dialogue between a group and finding a way to share it. She engaged in co-composition artistic research and commissions with artist Adriana Minu (RO / UL) with Nadar Ensemble’s Summer School (BE); presented at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NL), Warsaw Autumn (PO), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), and De Singel Antwerpen (BE). With free improv as a language and starting point she regularly engages across genres/disciplines including working with inclusive Theater Babel, curating for Fem Fest at WORM and performing with artists such as Mabe Fratti.
Lucija Gregov
Lucija Gregov is a cellist, improviser, composer and programmer/curator. She has been developing projects and researching in the fields of classical music, electro acoustic music, improvisation, experimental music, radio and sound art. Through many interdisciplinary collaborations, Lucija seeks to push the boundaries of traditional cello playing which further extend her interpretation, technique and ideas. Her instrumental cello practice is a starting point of the sonic exploration through which over time she disintegrated traditional techniques in order to discover a more personal and sincere sound aesthetic.
Ruben Kotkamp
Ruben Kotkamp is a trans-disciplinary artist mainly concerned with reflecting the lived experience of the spectator. Through deconstruction, confrontation, sabotage, and sensory deprivation/overstimulation, he aims to create works the spectator can relate to on a visceral level. His work has been shown at BRUTUS (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Gaudeamus Festival (Utrecht, The Netherlands), the Finnish Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), Kunsthal (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Pornceptual (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), and SOLU Gallery (Helsinki, Finland), among other places and events.
Demdike Stare is one of the most influential acts in experimental and electronic music, consistently pushing the boundaries of sound design and live performance. Known for their deep archival explorations and mastery of sonic manipulation, the duo has long been a fixture in the global avant-garde music scene. First premiered for Berlin Atonal 2024, Demdike Stare's Baselines A/V Live is a bold audiovisual experience that revisits their celluloid roots with a fervently punk attitude toward both sound and visuals. This performance takes physical tape as a starting point, amplifying every blemish, every sign of patina, and every overlooked detail, transforming them into a visceral symphony of distortion and decay.
Through deep research and sonic excavation, Baselines re- contextualizes discarded cultural artifacts into a ferric oxide-soaked kaleidoscopic trip. A true masterclass in reimagining the past, the performance immerses the audience in an evolving language of light and shadow, texture and destruction. Baselines stands as a testament to the transformative power of collaboration between mediums, offering an uncompromising sensory journey into the depths of sound and image.
The A/V component of Baselines embraces imperfection, using decayed film textures, analog distortion, and cinematic fragments to craft an immersive, hypnotic environment. Drawing from the raw aesthetics of forgotten media, the visuals echo the duo’s sonic philosophy—celebrating the beauty of decay while forging new meanings from the past.
For Conflux Festival 2025, Ukrainian sound artist Khrystyna Kirik and Rotterdam-based visual artist Emma Milašiūtė will collaborate for the first time. They will present a new audiovisual performance based on the theme of Rites of Decay.
Khrystyna Kirik is a Ukrainian sound artist and experimental musician from Kyiv specializing in improvisational and performative audio work. She uses voice, found-object instruments, field recordings and electronics to create focused listening experiences. Her work explores sound as a way to sharpen perception and connect with the environment.
Emma Milašiūtė is a multimedia artist, audiovisual performer and a spatial designer. Through immersive experiences, Emma challenges sensory awareness and invites visitors on introspective journeys. Via her work featuring the interplay of light (negative) space and visuals she explores the momentary effects that environments have on human perception of self and others.
Khrystyna Kirik:
Trained as a jazz double bassist she gradually moved away from academic forms immersing herself in the worlds of improvisation, noise, field recordings and handmade instruments. She sees sound as a tool for sensing, a way of being present and a form of dialogue with the world.
Her practice explores the subtle nuances of sound and its ability to shift perception, draw attention to the body and open space for deep listening. She creates both live performances and sound installations that evoke states rather than structures — music that feels more like an atmosphere than a composition.
Khrystyna is the founder of several projects, including FREEBUTTREE (2020–2022), KK4TET (2019–2021), and Liniyï (2022–2023), each dedicated to different approaches to improvisation and sonic experimentation. Her path into instrument building has led her to host found-object workshops and residencies focused on hands-on exploration of sound.
Her work has been presented internationally, including at ∄ ("State of Latitude"), Time Based ("Sub-sur-face"), UH Festival ("Sonic Climates"), Cult Motiv ("A New Memory from the Future"), and Brave! Factory Festival ("Cube").
As a SHAPE+ artist (2024/2025), she has performed at Skanu Mežs White Nights (Riga), UH Fest (Budapest), OUT.RA (Barreiro), Sonica Presents (Glasgow), Mutant Radio (Tbilisi), Dampfzentrale (Bern), and Dim Zvuku (Lviv).
Emma Milašiūtė:
Emma Milašiūtė is a multimedia artist, audiovisual performer and a spatial designer. Through immersive experiences, Emma challenges sensory awareness and invites visitors on introspective journeys. Via her work featuring the interplay of light (negative) space and visuals she explores the momentary effects that environments have on human perception of self and others.
Her visual aesthetic can be recognised by abstract otherworldly tex- tures, specific and unusual colour combinations, dreamy feel, con- trasting details and dynamic movements resulting in capturing the essence of the moment.
She has provided visual content and VJ performances at festivals such as DGTL Amsterdam, ADE, Dekmantel, Lente Kabinet, Draaimolen, Dalma, Drift, STOOR & more. Furthermore, she has been working as an independent scenoghrapher and spatial designer since 2021 and has collaborated with organisers & venues like Weelde, Spielraum, Worm, FOMO Rotterdam, Cultuurpodium Perron, Poing Club & more. She has also worked with various exhibition spaces like Brutus Rotterdam, Maca Amsterdam, Mono Rotterdam & more.
In October 2024 Emma has lead a workshop held by ADE lab sharing her knowledge and experiences as a live visual artist in the electronic music scene.
Takkak Takkak is a new duo project by the Berlin-based Japanese screwball producer Shigeru Ishihara (aka Dj Scotch Egg, waqwaq kingdom, scotch rolex) and the Vilnius-based Indonesian junk multi-instrumentalist J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi (one half of Raja Kirik). Each artist is known and loved for their solo, idiosyncratic productions. Together they fuse their joyous and challenging sound worlds through a strong mutual interest in each other’s artistic expression.
Their namesake debut album, out 7 June 2024 on Nyege Nyege Tapes, is an impressive balancing act: Takkak Takkak navigate their cross-continental palette with not only knowledge and skill, but a refreshing level of humor. This makes their music as infectious as it is fearless – it’s experimental, sure, but Pribadi and Ishihara are having a blast, and they don’t care who knows.
Shigeru Ishihara began his musical trajectory in Tokyo under the name Shiez in 2000. He rose to breakcore fame after co-founding Brighton’s Wrong Music with Shitmat, and others. In addition to taking part in Drumeyes (with Eda from the Boredoms), Devilman (with Taigen Kawabe from Bo Ningen), WaqWaq Kingdom (with Kiki Hitomi), and playing bass in SeeFeel, he produces and performs with different MCs from all over the world, such as MC Yallah or Ethnique Punch, releases under the name of Scotch Rolex, and recently started a new collaboration with Shackleton. Shige also produces and performs Gameboy gabber as DJ Scotch Egg, and co-runs the label Small But Hard. In his own words, »[h]e is definitely not a DJ, he’s definitely not Scottish, and he’s probably not an Egg.«
The Bangkok-born and Java-raised Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi is an experimental music composer and instrument builder. He started his studies in Western classical music but soon moved back to his roots to explore the wisdom of Javanese folklore, completing a Masters in music composition at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Surakarta. Mo’ong has since been hacking his knowledge of traditional music with crunchy electronics and unique DIY junk instruments made from found objects and trash. He is one half of Raja Kirik together with musician/composer Yennu Ariendra aka Y-DRA, exploring the musical, cultural, and political aspects of Indonesian trance dances.
Especially for Conflux 2025, artists Mike Rijnierse, Rob Bothof, and Jimi Hellinga present a newly commissioned performance that reimagines their installation 'Piano / Forte' as a powerful, ritualistic experience. For this one-time occasion, the artists collaborate with a vocal ensemble led by Wouter Mol and Myra-Ida van der Veen.
'Piano / Forte' is a sound sculpture that explores the acoustic richness of the piano harp. In this performance, two pianos stripped of the keys and supporting parts, swing in the air like pendulums. The oscillating motion of the swinging pianos causes the strings to resonate, revealing the sonic body of the piano. During Conflux 'Piano / Forte' will be accompanied by the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy and electronics, performed by multi-instrumentalist Jimi Hellinga.
Inside the pianos, an accelerometer was installed to measure the variations in 3-axis positions, and translate the motion into sound frequencies via a custom made software. These frequencies are sent back into the pianos via electromagnets (transducers) attached to the harps. Instead of being hammered by keys, the sound is generated by vibrating directly on the piano’s body, adding to the multitude of resonances and reverberations.
'Piano / Forte' is a work by Mike Rijnierse and Rob Bothof.
Mike Rijnierse
Mike Rijnierse is an artist, inventor, curator and educator sculpting light and sound into spatial experience. Intrigued by our sensory structures, Rijnierse composes with and for the environment, creating spatial dialogues.
Rijnierse is constantly seeking new ways to present his work, whether in a designated space such as a gallery or museum, or in public spaces. The environment, context, and viewer often play a crucial role in the meaning his work acquires. In recent years, a focus has emerged on historical and media-archaeological layering in relation to new works. The works Rijnierse has developed in recent years involve in-depth research into the history and origins of art and technology.
Rob Bothof
Rob Bothof works as a creative coder, artist, inventor, engineer, educator and all round technical problem solver, covering an exciting blend of commercial, technical, artistic and non profit projects. His artistic work emerges where science and art collide, is primarily focused on new technology and encompasses a broad range of interests, such as machine interaction, instrument building, autonomous systems, video games, sound design, improvisation, animation and procedural generation.
Jimi Hellinga
Jimi Hellinga is a musician and audio engineer, playing various electronic instruments, hurdy gurdy and bagpipes.He has always been fascinated by drone sounds, modal melodies and the large variety of acoustic effects, both natural and artificial, shaping the emotional atmosphere of the listener. Jimi demonstrates his musical visions though several different projects ranging from medieval and folk music and abstract electronic noises.
Lea Bertucci is an experimental musician whose works revolve around electronic and spatial extensions of instrument and voice. In addition to her longstanding practice performing with woodwinds, she has created compositions for strings, brass, percussion and other instruments, often incorporating electronics and multichannel sound. With an ear toward site-responsiveness and acoustics, her work has expanded toward installation and non-linear presentations of her music, often staged in hyper-resonant spaces.
She has performed both within the US and internationally with presenters such as The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Metropolitan Museum, Blank Forms, Gagosian Gallery, Pioneer Works, The Kitchen, The Walker Museum, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Tempo Reale in Florence, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, Rewire Festival, Borderline Festival, and Unsound Festival Krakow. In 2018, she was awarded a Jfund for New Music grant from the American Composers’ Forum and a commission for a brass octet from the Levy Gorvy Gallery in New York. Lea has attended artist residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts and ISSUE Project Room. She has received commissions from the INA GRM in Paris, Quartetto Maurice in Turin, and ARS Nova Workshop in Philadelphia. She is a 2024 recipient of the Gigahertz Production Prize from the ZKM in Karlsruhe.
Berlin-based electronic musician and cellist Chloe Lula presents Oneiris, a live A/V show made in collaboration with visual artist Tim Novikov, a lighting designer and architect who has collaborated with artists like Bendik Giske and Caterina Barbieri. Oneiris, a full-length album out in November on Subtext Recordings, is composed of ambient electronics and hazy, live improvised cello. A play on the word “oneiric,” the album is a reference to dream states and an exploration of what exists beyond the periphery of the conscious mind and memory, nodding to minimalists and contemporary classical artists like Philip Glass, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Yair Elazar Glotman in its mood and texture. Novikov brings a tactile sense of place, real and imagined, to the piece as it gently unfolds, creating an all-encompassing experience unlike any he has executed before.
Chloe Lula is a Berlin-based electronic musician and cellist. Having studied the cello at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and attended music schools up until the age of 18, Chloe gave up her ultra-strict regime of classical training, instead immersing herself in community radio, experimental music and techno. Chloe has gone on to travel the world as a techno DJ and producer for the last five years, touring extensively around Europe, North and South America and Asia, as well as making appearances at festivals like Nuits Sonores, Dekmantel, Unsound, Wire and many more. Drawn to minimalism in all musical mediums, she has brought her sensibilities from the dance floor to bear on her recent return to her cello practice, inspired by the possibility of exploring approaches informed by electronic and electro acoustic music, and what these outlets can express in musical language that is uniquely her own. Her debut instrumental full-length and forthcoming AV show, Oneiris, will be out November 2024 on Subtext Recordings. She is also a resident and releasing artist on Tresor and has two forthcoming EPs on Blueprint and Falling Ethics.
Tym Novy, also known as Tim Novikov was born in Uzbekistan and raised in Siberia. Moved to Berlin in 2015 as a freelance artist after studying architecture in Samara and worked in Moscow as an architect. Through Urban Studies started an artistic project, to analyse and create sound and visual language systems of cities. Part of this project is dedicated to developing sound corridors and modern infrastructure for blind people. In 2017 started an urban project under the label -0 (Minus Null) about the environment and recycling plastic for the music and art industry. The main idea is to recycle plastic and produce vinyl records from it. As a visual artist works with light and analog visuals as well as generative digital graphics. Combines digital and analog mediums, and creates a tool to interact sound with light and objects. In 2017 founded a production studio called -0 (Minus Null, Uferhallen Berlin). In 2018 started to work as visual director with German contemporary orchestra “Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra”. Together with the orchestra developed project „Neue Orchesterformen“, that received a state grant to make a series of audiovisual concerts, one of which will be presented in Berghain.
MA is a sound and light performance by visual artist and performer Maxime Houot. A luminous, mechanical and futuristic choreography activated by a resonant, hypnotic composition, a ballet of controlled yet unpredictable spotlights.
With this monumental kinetic work, the artist invests the space in a singular way, offering a unique and subjective sensory experience: "Why not imagine MY representation. MY representation of a place, at a given moment. An arbitrary representation. Without this representation, there's nothing. A void. MY is my interface with the void. I act on it by perceiving it."
MA allows everyone to live momentarily in a timeless space, to form their own idea of the luminous world in which they are immersed, and to analyze its stimuli in an individual and personal way.
Maxime Houot is a part of the art lab based in Grenoble (France), Collectif Coin, which focuses on the production of both monumental shows and intimist installations. Committed to the production of trans-disciplinary work with particular focus on the digital arts, Collectif Coin works around the notions of body, sound and light.
To start the Closing Event of Conflux 2025 at Cinerama, we've selected a few experimental short films, each offering a unique approach to this year’s Rites of Decay theme. The programme will last about an hour and serves as the perfect warm-up for our final two performances of the year.
The Rites of Decay film programme consists of the following screenings:
Joost Rekveld - #37
Nicky Assmann & Rotor - Acorán
Esther Urlus - Elli
Matthew Biederman & Pierce Warnecke - A Quickie in the Bouncy House
Joost Rekveld - 37#
#37 (35mm scope, 31 min, 2009)
“Andronicos says that in a certain place in Spain one finds small, scattered stones which are polygonal and grow spontaneously. Some of them are white, others are like wax and pregnant of smaller stones similar to themselves. I kept one to verify this myself and it gave birth at my place, so the story is not a lie.”
Many pre-modern theories consider crystals as an intermediate form between the mineral, vegetative and animal kingdoms, an idea that acquires new resonances in the light of recent developments in the fields of artificial chemistry and artificial life. These new fields, with their hypothetical universes and ‘what-if’ scenarios, explore a kind of simulation that is far beyond the kind of photo-realistic simulations seen in many industrial computer animations. They have aspects in common with the way early abstract painters, filmmakers and light artists were developing a language to express hitherto unexpressable aspects of the universe through direct sensual experience.
Film #37 is part of an ongoing exploration of the propagation and diffraction of light through holes and grids. The inspiration for #37 came from the way crystallographers use X-ray to investigate the internal structure of crystals. This structure can be inferred from the interference patterns the X-ray waves produce after percolating through the symmetrical arrangement of molecules in the crystal. In 1984, X-ray diffraction made the discovery of so called ‘quasicrystals’ possible; the starting point of #37 were the computer simulations produced by scientists in order to understand such quasiperiodic structures.
During the making of this film, these ideas and tools led to the development of what could be called an ‘artificial physics’: a simulated universe with a variable number of dimensions, inhabited by particles that act on their neighbours and organize themselves into constellations with a varying level of symmetry. The images of the film are the simulated diffraction patterns produced by these constellations. I’ve started the very first work on this film in 2000, and in the past years this project has been the nucleus around which my interests in geometry, tesselations, complexity, self-organization and artificial life have crystallized.
Film credits:
images: Joost Rekveld
music: Yannis Kyriakides
production: Gerard Holthuis
Nicky Assmann & Rotor - Acorán
Video, experimental, 2021, Full HD, 1920x1080, 7'14"
The film 'Acorán' by visual artist Nicky Assmann and experimental sound collective Rotor shows a slow moving trajectory through the clouds of Mount Teide on the volcanic island of Tenerife. The continuous movement of the shot emphasizes the Sun, which becomes an important actor due to the infrared filter used during the recording of the footage. The disquieting soundscape that accompanies the film is the outcome of field recordings and electronic experiments composed especially for the film.
The title 'Acorán' originates from the now extinct language of the Guanches, the indigenous inhabitants of Tenerife, before being colonized by Spain centuries ago. Acorán refers to their ancient God who, according to legend, saves the Sun and brings back the light, after being imprisoned in the volcano that plunged the world into darkness.
During filming, the volcano on the neighboring island La Palma erupts, giving new life to this local saga.
The intense red image arising from the infrared filter used to film, shows a volcanic landscape that seems to be on fire and slowly disappears into a red void, unintentionally becoming a metaphor for the turbulent predicament in which the earth finds itself.
This film is made possible through Klankvorm with the generous support of Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Rotterdam , Droom en Daad Foundation and Mondriaan Fund.
Esther Urlus - Elli
16mm, 8 min, colour, optical sound, no dialog, 2015/16
Elli is filmed in a fixed camera position overlooking the sea. The changing reflection of the light on the water visualizes that time passes. It's a seascape totally indifferent to the violence that took place and its role it played in history. In this case at 8:25 am on 15 August 1940 when, near the small island of Tinos in Greece, an Italian torpedo boat attacked the Elli during peacetime. It got hit, caught fire and sank. It was the beginning of Greece's involvement in World War II.
Esther Urlus uses flicker effect to evoke an oppressive feeling, the opposite of the exhibited calmness of the sea. I interfered in the 24-images per second experience motion picture film is as strong sequential changes in the frames-per-second series can cause physical reactions and the beholder will sense seeing colours and shapes. In this case the shape of a frigate (Elli Cruiser), laying motionless in a bay at anchor, which only seems to appear as an afterimage in various coloured flicker sequences.
Sound by Matt Kemp
Filmed in Tinos, Greece, with the help of LabA Athens.
This film is supported by the City of Rotterdam
Matthew Biederman & Pierce Warnecke - A Quickie in the Bouncy House
The video is an AI assisted meditation on self-help through extreme sonic manipulation, in a semi-erotic plastic dreamscape of watered down and for profit thanatotherapy, where new age imagery devolves into Cronenberg-esque mutations, in complete contrast with the chaotic and unpredictable sonic experiments which may or may not be useful in your personal quest to embetter your True Self™.
The music is highly processed, with just a few audible artifacts left of the original code, drum kit and modular based sources, creating sounds that hopefully escape attempts at AI classification.
A Quickie in the Bouncy House, from the album "Sonopeutic Smooth Sailing" © 2023 raster – artistic platform
release date: january 2024 cat. no.: ext 014
Music by Pierce Warnecke
Video by Matthew Biederman
Produced by Raster-media
interpolate
• to fill up intermediate terms of a series according to the law of the series
• to estimate a value at a point intermediate between points of known value
• to alter or corrupt by inserting new or foreign matter
Living in the liminal space between the mind and mathematics, interpolate is a realtime audiovisual performance for the sensory system. Part meditation on color theory, part reflection on the processing imperfections of the brain, it is an encounter with the inner mind's ear and eye and its kaleidoscopic imagination. Interpositions of hues, lines, dots, and frequencies play against and with each other in metamorphosing sequences. Clashing and harmonizing rhythms and vibrations push and pull the sensations of density and sparseness, creating maximality from minimal means.
Eric Parren (NL/US) is an interdisciplinary artist operating out of Shanghai. His practice includes the combined use of new and traditional digital and analog media, through which he investigates our understanding of the ideas and technologies that shape the future. Eric's works are often visceral, sensory experiences exploring modes of perception and the physics of light and sound. Informed by a deep knowledge of the histories of media arts, electronic music composition, and expanded cinema, his work makes links between the past, the present, and what is to come. Eric is an Associate Arts Professor in Interactive Media Arts at NYU Shanghai where he conducts research and teaches courses on programming and electronics for artists, realtime audiovisual systems, kinetic art, light art, and sound art.
For Conflux Festival 2025, Iranian sound artist Farzané and New York-based visual artist and filmmaker Jennifer Reeves will collaborate for the first time. They will present a new audiovisual performance based on the theme of Rites of Decay.
Farzané (Farzaneh Nouri), an Iranian sound artist, creative coder, and researcher based in the Netherlands, works at the intersection of experimental music and computer science. Her ongoing practice-based research focuses on embodied knowledge in human-computer free improvisation. Embracing AI's fundamental otherness while establishing relational connections, her practice aims at creating conditions of genuine encounter and collaborative destabilization between the artist and the machine. This speculative approach moves beyond technological determinism and cultural essentialism, exploring how human and machine intelligences might co-evolve through creative tension and collaborative aesthetic discovery.
New York-based film artist Jennifer Reeves (b. 1971, Sri Lanka) has independently made 25+ film-works to date, from avant-garde shorts to multiple projection performances with live music, and experimental features. Reeves’ visceral 16mm film works immerse viewers in intricate, unfamiliar cinematic territory. They investigate themes of mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, and the beauty and decay of the natural world.
Farzané
Farzané (Farzaneh Nouri), an Iranian sound artist, creative coder, and researcher based in the Netherlands, works at the intersection of experimental music and computer science. Her ongoing practice-based research focuses on embodied knowledge in human-computer free improvisation. Embracing AI's fundamental otherness while establishing relational connections, her practice aims at creating conditions of genuine encounter and collaborative destabilization between the artist and the machine. This speculative approach moves beyond technological determinism and cultural essentialism, exploring how human and machine intelligences might co-evolve through creative tension and collaborative aesthetic discovery.
Jennifer Reeves
New York-based film artist Jennifer Reeves (b. 1971, Sri Lanka) has independently made 25+ film-works to date, from avant-garde shorts to multiple projection performances with live music, and experimental features. Reeves’ visceral 16mm film works immerse viewers in intricate, unfamiliar cinematic territory. They investigate themes of mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, and the beauty and decay of the natural world.
Reeves' single-channel version of her 2024 Dual Projection performance THE GLORIA OF YOUR IMAGINATION (98 min) premieres at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival. In October 2024, Reeves premiered the live dual-projection version of the project at the Pacific Film Archive. She also performed the work at Light Matter Film Festival, Science New Wave Festival, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. With support from residencies at Atelier 105 in Paris and Yaddo in New York, and co-Producer Randy Sterns, Reeves wrote, directed, edited and sound-designed this one-of-a-kind experimental documentary.
Reeves started making films in 1990. She continues to do her own writing, cinematography, editing, and sound design. Her subjective and personal films push the boundaries of film through optical-printing and direct-on-film techniques. Starting in 2003 Reeves has collaborated with celebrated composers/ performers, including Marc Ribot, Skúli Sverrisson, Elliott Sharp, Zeena Parkins, Anthony Burr and Eyvind Kang. As the daughter of a trumpeter, gravitating toward film and music collaborations was quite natural for Reeves. Her most ambitious film and music performance, the feature-length double-projection WHEN IT WAS BLUE (2008), premiered at Toronto International Film Festival with live music by composer/collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. Her multiple-projection films with live music have been performed internationally, from the Sydney Opera House and the Berlinale to RedCat in Los Angeles and the Wexner Center in Ohio.
At the core of Conflux Festival 2025’s exhibition is an exploration of decay as both a physical and symbolic force, with artists drawing on both new and old technologies to create works that embody the gradual erosion of form and meaning. Through the manipulation of sound, light, and repurposed objects, these artists evoke a sense of decay, whether through the disintegration of soundscapes or by creating ritualistic environments from discarded materials. In this way, the exhibition seeks to explore how rituals, both ancient and contemporary, are used to connect with the ever-decaying world around us.
Hosted at Katoenhuis, the exhibition will run from Thursday afternoon, September 18th, to Sunday evening, September 21st. Visitors will encounter a series of experimental installations that embody the transformative power of decay, where technology, sound, and digital ceremony converge to offer new interpretations of the world’s constant evolution. This exhibition invites the audience to consider decay not merely as a process of loss, but as one of reconfiguration, where the broken and the discarded can offer new possibilities for meaning in our increasingly fragmented reality.
The exhibition at Katoenhuis is free of charge. Daily opening hours Conflux Exhibition:
Thursday 18 Sept. : 18:00 - 22:00
Friday 19 Sept. : 14:00 - 20:30
Saturday 20 Sept. : 14:00 - 20:30
Sunday 21 Sept. : 14:00 - 20:30
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Spectral Order is an installation that explores the relationship between order and structure through the use of innovative technology. The work employs a phosphorescent surface and a powerful laser capable of projecting up to 40,000 points per second. This laser is “fed” with the raw, abstract, and repetitive visual material of Dineke van Oosten, which continually balances between perfection and imperfection. With Spectral Order, Van Oosten takes an important new step in her artistic career: for the first time, she translates her signature black-and-white, graphically abstract visual language into a dynamic installation in which light, sound, and technology converge. The glitches between image and technique, the tension between analog and digital are magnified at the boundary where chance and control meet.
In this installation, invisible structures are made visible. The projections leave behind a kind of “ghost image” on the phosphorescent surface, images that are present, yet intangible. These fleeting apparitions reveal how structure can emerge from apparent randomness. The installation is in constant motion and invites the viewer to reflect on what is present, what disappears, and what lingers only as an impression. A specially created soundscape enhances this visual experience. Sensors capture the subtle sound of the moving laser and translate these micro-movements into a continuously shifting auditory landscape.
Spectral Order was developed through artistic research and a technical setup by Tim Vermeulen.
This project is a co-production between Conflux Festival and Schemerlicht. The premiere of Spectral Order will take place during Conflux Festival, from 18 to 21 September at Het Katoenhuis in Rotterdam. Afterwards, the installation will move to the outdoor festival Schemerlicht in Goffert Park, Nijmegen.
Dineke van Oosten is a visual artist, with a passion for perfection (and the lack of it), symmetry and repetition bordering on obsession. For her work she is constantly looking for new materials, techniques and instruments. Fascinated by errors, she directs minor faults and her strength lays in repetition.
“It becomes interesting when a composition starts to chafe, when it is not even or it doesn’t seem machine-like. While I'm working on an artwork, I know something is coming. A hiccup; of the material, the instrument or myself. That is also what I am looking for: controlled forcing of errors. Trying to perfect those mistakes is a never-ending investigation. Where coincidence and perfection meet, the tension arises in the image.”
Almost all of her artworks are an optical challenge, lines and figures that play with each other create a new pattern, snuggle up to the moiré effect, the optical distortion when two grids shift slightly in relation to each other. Somewhere between the work and the viewer an image is formed that changes with each view, like an extra dimension.
Everything Van Oosten makes is in series. This logically stems from her method of trial and error. In her search for the perfect image (with the perfect error) several works are created. The basis of the works is the same, the results of the actions that follow are always different. The material varies: screen printing, plaster, adhesive tape, pencil, stamps. "Material has certain qualities that I use, but also pull apart."
By creating the kinetic sound installation In Resonance, Puck Wacki explores the threshold between vibration and sound. Within this newly commissioned installation, physical vibrations are transformed into an immersive electronic soundscape. The piece consists of a series of strings, each individually set into motion by electromagnets, generating subtle yet complex tones. These vibrations are captured by magnetic pickups and translated into signals, which are then sonified through a spatial configuration of speakers that surround the visitor in an evolving field of sound.
At the core of the installation lies an algorithmic composition that animates each string independently. The generative nature of this compositional system creates shifting relationships between tones, sometimes converging into dense clusters of harmonics.
The result is a physical drone—a field of sustained resonance in which individual strings become indistinguishable and merge into a sonic continuum. Inspired by the works of Alvin Lucier and Alan Lamb, In Resonance situates itself within a lineage of experimental string instruments, drawing on traditions of electroacoustic music and sound sculpture, while offering a distinctly contemporary meditation on the materiality of sound.
Puck Wacki (b. 2002) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam (NL). Her artistic practice explores the perception of human-made constructs such as time, digital sound processes, and machinic systems. Through a research-driven approach, Wacki dissects and manipulates sonic technologies to unravel the systems that shape our lived experiences within the human environment.
Working at the intersection of sound and installation, she highlights the tension between the spiritual and the technical, revealing the poetic potential embedded in the continuous interaction between humans and machines.
Reflectie is an exploration of microprismatic foil and its relationship with light and movement. On one side of the room, four double pendulums swing around light sources in chaotic motion; on the other side, a large foil screen reflects the silhouettes of the spectators. Movement, position, light, and the foil together create an individual “painting” on the surface for each viewer.
Pelle Schilling crafts kinetic installations that reveal the poetic essence of physical phenomena. Through his immersive work, he orchestrates delicate dialogues between mechanical systems, sound, and spatial dynamics, inviting audiences into moments of pure sensorial revelation. At the heart of Schilling's practice lies a deep respect for the viewer’s autonomy in meaning-making. Rather than prescribing interpretations, he designs environments where significance arises organically through an intimate exchange between observer and artwork. His installations function as instruments that compose with natural forces and mechanical motion, creating spaces for direct experience and wonder, spaces where audiences are free to discover their own connections through unmediated, sensory engagement.
The site-specific installation, located in one of the cold storage rooms of Het Katoenhuis, an early example of globalism through its export of exotic fruits and vegetables, explores the impact of consumerism and the depletion of natural resources and drinking water, driven by an extreme globalised economy.
Rainwater collected in Rotterdam, containing microorganisms and dust particles from distant regions, is transformed into ice cubes through a mechanical production process. These frozen time capsules are expelled in a continuous cycle, creating an ongoing yet unpredictable and contemplative sound composition. The ice cubes complete their journey by melting at the feet of the audience, a transient ritual that leaves behind traces of our current global condition.
The artist will perform a daily electronic live set, incorporating the analogue sounds of the installation into a conceptual soundscape that reflects the essence of the work.
Ronald van der Meijs, born in Tilburg in 1966, is an Amsterdam-based artist known for his thought-provoking, site-specific installations and sculptures. He has exhibited across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with works featured at the Centraal Museum Utrecht, the Triennial New Media Art in Beijing, and the Land Art Biennial in Mongolia. He’s been recognised with the Haarlem Vishal Art Prize and short list nominations for the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica and the Witteveen & Bos Art and Technology Prize. His work explores the delicate balance between nature and technology, using unpredictable natural processes to control mechanical structures, creating sound compositions that are constantly evolving. At the core of his work lies a fundamental question: how do we relate to nature in an increasingly artificial world? Through exhibitions, interventions, and live performances, he amplifies the natural rhythms of his installations, blending organic acoustics with digital synthesis to create deep, immersive experiences. Ronald invites us to pause, listen, and reconsider our connection to the environment.
The Real Things Tablet is a site- and context-specific performance installation by artist Toine Klaassen (also known as the Dutch Bushman). During Conflux 2025, he will transform one of the large floor spaces of the Katoenhuis into what he calls The Real Things Tablet.
You are invited to wander through a kind of circuit board, a vast, floor-spanning composition. Toine Klaassen constructs this landscape from industrial debris and discarded materials: used food packaging, egg cartons, broken car mirrors, worn-out garden chair cushions, cracked reflectors, rusty nails, abandoned sleeping bags left by the homeless on the city’s fringes, tanned leather from old couches, and outdated mobile phones.
These are blended with elements from nature: herbs, seeds, branches, charcoal, coal, bones, rabbit droppings, hair, nails, and small animal bodies preserved in reused glass food jars.
The Real Things Tablet serves as fertile ground for ritual performances that emerge from within it. Through the practice of imaginative ritual, the installation invites the embodiment of hybrid beings, metamorphoses into ‘Dutch Bushman avatars’.
A local-nature-native vision from ‘the bush’, now rooted in Rotterdam and placed within a global context. The idea: if the brain is given enough real nourishment to catalyse the imagination, no drugs, nor help from AI, are needed to reinvent our minds; only healthy influences and deep presence.
Toine Klaassen, also known as the Dutch Bushman, presents his work in a wide variety of locations, both in the Netherlands and abroad, reaching diverse audiences depending on the context. In addition to If Paradise Is Half As Nice, for example, he has performed in public spaces in and around the centre of Eindhoven during the project We Are The Market at Onomatopee. He has also worked in institutions that attract a more traditional art audience, such as museums, as well as at festivals and in more ‘hybrid’ presentation spaces like WORM, Showroom MAMA, and TENT. He frequently engages with students at academies, secondary schools, and universities. His practice offers rich opportunities for shared discovery, experimentation, and exploration.
State of Latitude (2024) is an audiovisual installation that reflects on the war’s silent impact on Ukraine’s landscapes. Built in four chapters, it listens to places where biodiversity once flourished and now faces occupation, pressure or irreversible damage.
Fragmented voice and textures intertwine with archival images and ecological records, turning data into sound and vision that shift between documentation and dream. The work asks how destruction becomes part of the environment’s fragile continuity. Rather than offering resolution, the piece opens space for sensing the vulnerability of nature and the urgency of collective care.
State of Latitude is a four-chapter audiovisual installation by Ukrainian artist Khrystyna Kirik, created in collaboration with u2203 studio. Developed during the ∄’s Echoes of the Earth residency in Kyiv, this work serves as environmental testimony, documenting the devastating impact of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s southern and eastern landscapes.
The installation explores four distinct ecological environments, each representing a unique aspect of vulnerability and destruction:
Sviati Hory in the Donetsk Region: Chalk fields of pure white now scarred by fortifications and bunkers, where invasive species have displaced unique native vegetation, creating uniform landscapes that have lost their natural uniqueness.
Sivash Island in the Kherson Region: Here, natural fires give life to rare species and bring tulips into massive bloom. This paradox — beauty born from burning — turns the landscape into a painful metaphor of war: red fields rising after fire, life persisting where destruction has passed. Now this land lies in occupation.
Velykyi Chapelsky Pod in the Kherson Region: a vast bowl-shaped depression, approximately 4 by 6 kilometers in size, that serves as a biodiversity hotspot. It is home to unique species found nowhere else in the world, but this ecosystem is now under double threat — from agricultural expansion and from remaining under occupation within the Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve.
Kamianska Sich in the Kherson Region: This petrophytic steppe, covering an area of 12 261 hectares, has been scarred by mining and shelling. Deep craters cut through its loose soil, wildlife has been lost, and the earth itself remains poisoned by heavy metals that stay long after the explosion.
The composition builds on fragmented, processed voice, weaving in the traditional Ukrainian song ‘Ой, Боже, Боже, з такою годиною…’ from the 1996 Hilka collective’s Songs of the Ukrainian Steppes II. Once sung freely across the steppe, this melody now returns as a haunting echo, woven with electronic textures and environmental sounds — a reflection of how both the land and its voices have been transformed.
Developed by Myk Rudik from u2203 studio led by Alen Hast, the visual layer grows from real artefacts — archival photographs and ecological data collected in the field — and transforms them into shifting, dreamlike landscapes. These images carry the weight of documentation while dissolving into metaphor: fragile terrains that flicker between evidence and memory, destruction and renewal, silence and bloom.
State of Latitude reveals the magnitude and wide scale of destruction while addressing the defenselessness of natural landscapes against aggressive intervention. The work connects this devastation to the broader history of traumatized and exploited lands, emphasizing the urgent need for expansive thinking and cooperation to restore and protect the environment.
All ecological data was collected through interviews with ecologist Anna Kuzemko (Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) about her expeditions to these regions in 2022–2024, including field journals, photographs, and species records.
Khrystyna Kirik is a Ukrainian artist and experimental musician from Kyiv specializing in improvisational and performative audio work. She uses voice, found-object instruments, field recordings and electronics to create focused listening experiences. Her work explores sound as a way to sharpen perception and connect with the environment.
In his new installation, the audience is invited to experience an assembly of sculptures that together compose a spacious sonic landscape. Moving away from conventional loudspeakers and optimal sound reference, the sculptures themselves are built as instruments, and they carry the sound in their materiality and shapes. The often invisibilized technical basis of a sound installation—wires, speakers, amplifiers—is now an integral part of the artistic expression.
For Conflux, other artists were invited to contribute to the installation with sound compositions and live performances. The guest musicians are challenged to rethink their understanding of sound and space. Their compositions play throughout the exhibition, creating an alternating ambiance.
'Chorale v.1' by cAimée Theriot
'See If See If See Thee' by Jilles van Kleef
Aimée Theriot and Jilles van Kleef will also both perform live on the Sonance III installation.
Aimée Theriot will perform as part of the Conflux Opening Performances at Katoenhuis on Thursday, 18 September at 21:00.
Jilles van Kleef will perform on the final day of the exhibition at Katoenhuis on Sunday, 21 September at 18:00.
Chorale v.1
Composition for Sonance III
Aimée Theriot
Chorale v.1 is rooted in the tradition of vocal choral music, built around the natural harmonic frequencies of the metal sculptures in Sonance III. As sound sustains and decays, it opens a space shaped by ghostly, lingering resonance. A rhythmic passage emerges, nodding to the trance-like states often evoked by ritual music across cultures. From Islamic nasheeds and Christian hymns to protest chants and healing ceremonies, ritual music has long bridged the spiritual and the communal, serving a purpose beyond entertainment by anchoring collective experiences through sound. Through these cyclical and harmonic structures, Chorale v.1 gestures toward a pursuit of meaning and grounding that unfolds through sound and listening.
The final moments of the composition feature a sample recorded during a pro-Palestine demonstration at Amsterdam Centraal Station, where hundreds gathered in a public ritual of collective noise-making to appeal for the defence of life in times of decay and destruction.
Robbie Doorman
Robbie Doorman is a sculptor and sound artist whose work explores the role of music and ritual in society. He investigates both the heritage and the future of musical traditions through sound, focusing on the full cycle of music, from the craftsmanship of instrument-making to the experience of listening. The materiality of his sculptures and the acoustic properties of the spaces they inhabit are integral to his practice. His ongoing installations Sonance and Klankkleur evolve with each exhibition, offering a new resonance each time they're presented.
Aimée Theriot
Aimée Theriot is a musician, sound artist, and organizer based in Amsterdam. Her music draws from free improvisation, ambient, ASMR, and soundscape recordings, with a heavy dose of experimentation using live electronics, field recordings, e-cello, and voice. Her work has been presented at festivals and galleries internationally, and her music has been released on labels such as Sofa Music, Editions Verde, Unheard Records, and Relative Pitch Records amongst others. She co-founded and facilitates The Social Music Club; open improvisation and sound experimentation sessions for musicians and non-musicians alike.
Jilles van Kleef
Jilles van Kleef is an Amsterdam based musician and artist. Their composition See If See If See Thee featuring electric guitar and electronics is specifically made for Sonance III.
Warning: contains explicit graphic images depicting religious devotees in trance-like states, tongue slashing, partial skinning, impaling through cheeks and ears.
Under the umbrella of Rites of Decay and in homage to Peter Christopherson of the influential band Coil and his diverse body of work, Conflux Festival is presenting the video Forms Grow Rampant as an installation within its exhibition. Despite an extensive search, we were unable to trace active rights holders and the distribution ceased to exist, as the film appears to be sold out and out of official circulation. The work is currently available on YouTube, which led us to include it within this exhibition. If you wish to discuss its presentation, please contact us via our website.
The Threshold HouseBoys Choir was a project by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson. Operating out of Bangkok, Thailand, the Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV founding member started this audio and visual endeavour after Coil’s conclusion.
Despite the name, it was a solo project relying heavily on computer generated vocals. The name was derived from a play on words, combining the terms houseboy, house of boys, boys' choir, and Threshold House, which was Coil’s own label. "Form Grows Rampant" is the soundtrack of a film shot by Christopherson (a video capture at the GinJae Vegetarian Festival in the south of Thailand) and his first major musical project since the tragic death of John Balance and Coil’s subsequent demise.
The music is a suite of lengthy dense atmospherics that combine shuddering electronics with sampled vocals, eerie digitalia, buried melodies and sinister undercurrents hinting at a gleaming heart of darkness, with a joyful melodic progression that sounds positively triumphant towards the end of the album. It's both Coil-esque and quite different, and is undoubtedly the worthy successor of the essential project that Christopherson created with his partner John Balance.
First released in small quantities in 2007 as a mixed CD/DVD set, this is the first time it is released on vinyl, CD, and digital. This reissue has been mastered from original files by Sidney Claire Meyer at former Deutsche Grammophon studios Emil Berliner in Berlin, using the half speed mastering process, and pressed on heavy vinyl at 45 RPM. Limited Edition of 1000. Printed on inside out on heavy 350g cardboard. Gatefold sleeve features stills from the movie in chronological order.
For the second time, Conflux Festival 2025 partners with Perron to immerse the audience in the nocturnal rituals of contemporary club culture through a Saturday night programme. This event reimagines the club as a modern urban ceremony, where the boundaries between self and surroundings dissolve, and music becomes a medium for collective transcendence within the decaying landscape of the digital age.
The Conflux Club Night will transform Perron into a dynamic space of connection, transformation, and sonic exploration. It will feature performances by internationally renowned artists who blend otherworldly soundscapes with intricate rhythmic structures.
More than just a party, the night becomes a ritualistic gathering that unites people through the transformative power of sound. Amidst the fragmentation and isolation of a technology-driven world, it offers space for shared expression, where sound, light, and movement converge to form new rituals and connections. By bringing people together in a moment of ecstatic unity, the event reflects how contemporary nightlife, in its raw and unfiltered form, can embody the theme Rites of Decay, offering a counterpoint to the complexities and disintegration of our digital reality.
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Marijn S is a Dutch producer and DJ who showcases the organic age of dance with radiant breaks, gritty, icy soundscapes and hauntingly beautiful textures. She began her musical journey as part of the record label and podcast series Kulture Lab, contributing on several VA releases. Shortly after, she released her debut EP on the Berlin-based label Spray, followed by several solo EPs on Amsterdam's Polychrome Audio, Milan’s BSR and Hong Kong's Transarctica.
In her DJ sets, she masterfully fuses diverse sounds, moving from the subtle build of 'soft rave' slow burners to the high-energy pulse of break-driven rhythms. The brain eagerly races to keep pace with what the ears perceive, as deep, dark strains of dub, breakbeat, electro, and drum & bass shift and transform, drawing the listener into hypnotic and immersive atmospheres. She’s played notable gigs such as De School, Garage Noord, Dekmantel Festival, La Cheetah (Glasgow) and participated in events like Ilian Tape’s Amsterdam takeover at the Melkweg and two BSR label showcases in Italy.
Never content to sit still in the expected, k means likes to throw you in at the deep end. having honed their skill over hours of on-air experimentation for Noods Radio and Rinse FM, k means has settled on a style spun more from texture and mood than any specific tempo or genre. As a resident at Bristol’s mind-expanding Psychotherapy Sessions, their commitment to the fringes is borne out in an omnivorous appetite for sound, an exploratory approach that sees the selector navigating the wildest terrain and loosest vibes while maintaining a laser focus on the dance floor, spinning you out only to snap you back in.
From tunnelling wormholes in many of the most beloved venues across the UK, from The Trinity Centre and Strange Brew in Bristol to Ormside Projects, Venue MOT and FOLD in London, as well as SOUP and The White Hotel in Manchester, to rearranging the insides of some of the best clubs in the world, like Fabric, OHM and De School, k means proves that no room or stage is too big or small to thoroughly trip out.
Between closing Unsound and Timedance’s seven-year anniversary and making vital appearances at Intonal, Dimensions Festival and Cosmic Roots they demonstrate the ability to hold crowds at a constant simmer, burbling between unease and release, throbbing tension and low-slung sleaze, finding delicate balance between the dark, the disorientating, the steamy and the sweat-slicked.
Nazar's musical world centres around the extreme violence, injustice and omnipresence of a repressive state during and after the 27-year Angolan civil war, while exploring hope, resilience and pride in a country torn apart by conflict.
After the civil war ended in 2002 Nazar who was raised in Belgium returned to Angola. It was at this point he began music production , making his own unique take on Angola’s Kuduro music. Nazar inverts Kuduro, weaving war sounds like guns cocking and airstrike swooshes, lacing cold synths with cascading percussion and swells of noise. His lyrics focus on massacres and violence, chanting and taunts against the dictatorship. Nazar calls this ‘Rough Kuduro,’ a term he coined through a hashtag on his SoundCloud page.
On weaponising the genre Nazar states “since people can’t really criticise on the streets, they do it on the internet and through their art...I couldn’t express my frustrations with what I was seeing on a daily basis and translate that uglier side, the existing Kuduro was too upbeat.”
Nazar is an Angolan producer and dj who grew up in Belgium until his late teens, when he returned after the civil war and is now based in Europe. Nazar coined the term 'rough kuduro' on his SoundCloud page, as an interpretation of the Angolan music and dance style, ‘weaponising’ it on his first EP 'Enclave' released in late 2018, translating the normally upbeat style to expose the uglier side of what he saw in Angola.
On his first album 'Guerrilla' Nazar uses rough kuduro to sensitively examine and digitalise his family’s collective memory and country's past, threading together oral histories, political realities and most significantly re-imaginings of direct horrors. Every track on Guerrilla documents his personal story of the war and its aftermath in countless people's lives in a detailed and episodic manner.
Nazar’s second album, 'Demilitarize' (also on Hyperdub) follows his remarkable 2020 debut Guerrilla, which was released just as Covid started to lock down the world. That first album reprocessed kuduro music from Angola with rough textures, field recordings and media clips, re-telling Nazar's personal story of the civil war that exiled his family in Europe, while his father, a rebel General, fought a losing battle in the jungle back home.
Chloe Lula is a resident DJ at Tresor. She's played at Berghain, Boiler Room, Movement Detroit, and countless clubs, festivals and parties across Asia, Europe, and, North and South America, becoming known for atmospheric sets that dig deep into the niche recesses of techno. She has released on Tresor Records, Blueprint and P.E.A.R.L’s label Falling Ethics alongside Oscar Mulero. She will release an album on MORD this November. As a composer, she has released on James Ginzburg’s vaunted experimental label Subtext and written scores for theater and TV shows. Always in pursuit of honing her craft, Chloe has become an exciting, in-demand artist who’s set apart for creating a focused, introspective musical vocabulary that is uniquely her own.
Raised in San Francisco and based in Berlin, DJ and composer Chloe Lula was originally trained as a classical cellist. She left the conservatory at 18 when she discovered electronic music, moving to Berlin shortly thereafter to immerse herself in the city’s techno scene. The confluence of these worlds has forged her textural approach to techno and inspired her to return to her instrument. Today, she uses the cello to write full-length ambient, electroacoustic live shows as well as deconstructed tones and timbres that help form the unique character of her releases for the dance floor.
A permanent fixture in the underground, I-F a.k.a Beverly Hills 808303, has long made people move with his unmistakably unique taste in records. Forged in the squats and pirate radio stations of The Hague during the early '90s, his influence on electronic music is that rare thing - both foundational and ongoing. He's a musical shape-shifter with no allegiance to era or genre and has spent decades defining and defying dancefloors.
His DJ sets are fierce and unpredictable. Electric journeys full of risk, soul and story. Whether on festival stages like Dekmantel, Draaimolen and Lowlands, or deep in the smoke-filled sanctuaries of Berghain | Panorama Bar, Tresor or Bassiani, he plays for the heads, the freaks, the late-night wanderers, and has done it everywhere. For I-F, boundaries do not exist. He is as likely to drop a disco anthem as he is to revive an obscure cassette relic, but always guided by feel, not fashion, and drawn from a lifetime of knowledge.
With his Beverly Hills 808303 project, he dives deep into a world of distorted acid sounds, bringing machine music alive with every squelch and groove. And with Panama Racing Club, his physical space in The Hague, he builds communities across generations and formats by streaming sets, hosting events and keeping the scene as vibrant as ever.
Still elusive. Still uncompromising. Still ahead. I-F / Beverly Hills 808303 continues to build the future.
At Conflux 2025, the conference at Katoenhuis responds to this year’s theme, Rites of Decay, by exploring how rituals transform in a present marked by fragmentation, obsolescence, and cultural erosion. Bringing together academic speakers and artist talks, the conference examines how rituals, as multisensorial experiences, can act as counterpoints to a fragmenting world increasingly dominated by acceleration and consumption.
The programme features contributions from Simon Gusman and Michael van Hoogenhuyze, alongside artist talks by Khrystyna Kirik, Jennifer Reeves, and Ronald van der Meijs. Together, they reflect on practices of decay and renewal across contemporary art, music, and theory, inviting the audience to reconsider ritual as a tool for navigating the unstable landscapes of our technological and social present.
The conference will be moderated by Eric Parren and is accessible with either a conference ticket or a passe-partout.
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Michael van Hoogenhuyze is a emeritus professor for art history and art theory at the ArtScience Interfaculty at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague.
Having studied Art History at Leiden University, he has since worked as an art historian and art history teacher. Involved in the art education, he started teaching sculpture and painting at the Academy; then New Theory at the department of Sonology. At the Interfaculty he teached different subjects concerning the Theory of Art, and contributes to collective projects with art historical analyses of the research themes. In 1985, together with Peter Koopmans, he published Inleiding tot de Kunstgeografie (introduction to art geography), their ideas of an alternative approach to art history. In 2004, he was assigned a lectorate on the research area Art as a Source of Knowledge. He then, interviewed former students of the Royal Academy of Art to investigated the different stages of the academy’s history of curriculum innovation in the 20th century.
Since then Michael van Hoogenhuyze worked on multiple books including 'Van muzisch spel naar muzisch denken', 'Dick Raaymakers: A Monograph' and 'Mythologie van de Schepping'.
New York-based film artist Jennifer Reeves (b. 1971, Sri Lanka)will talk about her work during the 2025 conference at Katoenhuis. She has independently made 25+ film-works to date, from avant-garde shorts to multiple projection performances with live music, and experimental features. Reeves’ visceral 16mm film works immerse viewers in intricate, unfamiliar cinematic territory. They investigate themes of mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, and the beauty and decay of the natural world.
Reeves' single-channel version of her 2024 Dual Projection performance THE GLORIA OF YOUR IMAGINATION (98 min) premieres at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival. In October 2024, Reeves premiered the live dual-projection version of the project at the Pacific Film Archive. She also performed the work at Light Matter Film Festival, Science New Wave Festival, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. With support from residencies at Atelier 105 in Paris and Yaddo in New York, and co-Producer Randy Sterns, Reeves wrote, directed, edited and sound-designed this one-of-a-kind experimental documentary. Reeves has two long-form film projects well underway. Her YANQUIS GO SOUTH, an experimental feature focused on revolutionary Celia Sanchez was supported by a Princess Grace Awards Special Project grant. Flying Islands of the Night, is a dual-projection work about islands of the world, lively creatures of the sea and sky, and the wildlife of the mind. The work was inspired by the play with the same name, written by her great, great uncle, the poet James Whitcomb Riley.
Since 1992, Reeves’ acclaimed work has been screened extensively, from the Berlinale, Curtas Vila do Conde, Sundance and Science New Wave Film Festivals, to the Museum of Modern Art and numerous art cinemas and universities worldwide. Reeves started making films in 1990, and has been doing her own writing, cinematography, editing and sound design ever since. Her works expand the boundaries of cinematic expression through optical-printing and direct-on-film techniques. For many of her projects, Reeves has collaborated with celebrated composers including Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp and Zeena Parkins. Her feature-length 16mm dual-projection WHEN IT WAS BLUE was performed live with composer, performer Skúli Sverrisson, at venues including Toronto International Film Festival, the Sydney Opera House, Berlinale, and RedCat in Los Angeles.
Reeves started making films in 1990. She continues to do her own writing, cinematography, editing, and sound design. Her subjective and personal films push the boundaries of film through optical-printing and direct-on-film techniques. Starting in 2003 Reeves has collaborated with celebrated composers/ performers, including Marc Ribot, Skúli Sverrisson, Elliott Sharp, Zeena Parkins, Anthony Burr and Eyvind Kang. As the daughter of a trumpeter, gravitating toward film and music collaborations was quite natural for Reeves. Her most ambitious film and music performance, the feature-length double-projection WHEN IT WAS BLUE (2008), premiered at Toronto International Film Festival with live music by composer/collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. Her multiple-projection films with live music have been performed internationally, from the Sydney Opera House and the Berlinale to RedCat in Los Angeles and the Wexner Center in Ohio.
Reeves has taught film and animation courses at The Cooper Union School of Art since 2005.
Dr. Simon Gusman is a philosopher fascinated by the existential dimension of contemporary cultural phenomena. As Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Utrecht University, he explores how our obsessions, such as the search for authenticity and the way we navigate the digital world, shape the way we live and think. He is the co-author of 'Avonturen bestaan niet' (2018), a critique of our craving for adventure, and 'Diep van buiten' (2022), a novel exploration of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy.
During the 2025 edition of the Conflux Festival conference, Ronald van der Meijs, an artist who challenges the way we perceive nature in a world dominated by technology, will provide deeper insights into his projects.
Ronald van der Meijs, born in Tilburg in 1966, is an Amsterdam-based artist known for his thought-provoking, site-specific installations. His work explores the delicate balance between nature and technology, using unpredictable natural processes to control mechanical structures, creating sound compositions that are constantly evolving.
A cum laude graduate of the AKV|St. Joost Academy of Fine Arts, Ronald has exhibited across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with works featured at the Centraal Museum Utrecht, the Triennial New Media Art in Beijing, and the Land Art Biennial in Mongolia. He’s been recognized with the Haarlem Vishal Art Prize and nominations for the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica and the Witteveen & Bos Art and Technology Prize.
His installations don’t just exist in galleries, they often take shape in public spaces, including a striking sculptural commission for Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. But what truly sets his work apart is his approach to sound. Through live performances, he amplifies the natural rhythms of his sculptures, blending organic acoustics with digital synthesis to create deep, immersive experiences.
At the core of his work lies a fundamental question: how do we relate to nature in an increasingly artificial world? Through exhibitions, interventions, and performances, Ronald invites us to pause, listen, and reconsider our connection to the environment.
During the conference Khrystyna Kirik will elaborate on her body of work.
Khrystyna Kirik is a Ukrainian sound artist and experimental musician from Kyiv specializing in improvisational and performative audio work. She uses voice, found-object instruments, field recordings and electronics to create focused listening experiences. Her work explores sound as a way to sharpen perception and connect with the environment.
Trained as a jazz double bassist she gradually moved away from academic forms
immersing herself in the worlds of improvisation, noise, field recordings and handmade instruments. She sees sound as a tool for sensing, a way of being present and a form of dialogue with the world.
Her practice explores the subtle nuances of sound and its ability to shift perception, draw attention to the body and open space for deep listening. She creates both live performances and sound installations that evoke states rather than structures — music that feels more like an atmosphere than a composition.
Khrystyna is the founder of several projects, including FREEBUTTREE (2020–2022),
KK4TET (2019–2021), and Liniyï (2022–2023), each dedicated to different approaches to improvisation and sonic experimentation. Her path into instrument building has led her to host found-object workshops and residencies focused on hands-on exploration of sound.
Her work has been presented internationally, including at ∄ ("State of Latitude"), Time Based ("Sub-sur-face"), UH Festival ("Sonic Climates"), Cult Motiv ("A New Memory from the Future"), and Brave! Factory Festival ("Cube").
As a SHAPE+ artist (2024/2025), she has performed at Skanu Mežs White Nights (Riga), UH Fest (Budapest), OUT.RA (Barreiro), Sonica Presents (Glasgow), Mutant Radio (Tbilisi), Dampfzentrale (Bern), and Dim Zvuku (Lviv).