Globalization accelerates the opening of systems, the world explodes and implodes, and societies are reorganized. Spaces, people, technology, economies and ideologies are becoming flexible. In the process of opening systems, new sensibilities, entities, network nodes, cultural spaces and possibilities come into existence. “Open systems” is a current cultural process.

This sixth edition of our festival sees itself as a momentary image in this dynamic process which encompasses a dynamic relation of functioning systems, existing formations, available material and artistic personalities into. The fascination lies in the openness of the results to be expected: what encourages the birth of open systems? How do cultural and artistic developments come about?

Dialogue and innovation is the motto of this year’s festival. For that reason, the festival will feature almost exclusively world premiers, commissions and new formations of international artists. In accordance with the City of Essen’s application to be recommended as the European Cultural Capital in 2010 (“Europe lives in the Ruhr region”), we have initiated projects in cooperation with our partners “November Music” (from the Netherlands and Belgium) and “grenzgänger//tanz und neue musik” (from Cologne and Münster Germany), in which transnationality, networks, experiments and improvisations take on new form.

Additionally, the 2005 festival will also include both the school project “City – Country – River: New sounds from the Ems River Environment” and the “Composer Club Local” with composition students from the Folkwang Musikhochschule in Essen

From the encounter between various international artists and an audience prepared for dialogue, we expect an exciting four-day festival, rich in contrasts.

Karl-Heinz Blomann
Artistic director | open systems e.V.