Line-up complete, arts and discourse details revealed

In a few weeks, the Elevate Festival for music, arts, and political discourse will open its doors in Graz. Countless concerts, art events, and conferences will take place across five consecutive days in and around the Schlossberg. People from all over the world have been coming together for years to exchange ideas, dance, marvel and forge plans for future-oriented projects for a few days in the heart of Europe. The centrepiece of the festival is still its versatile music programme, which combines modern music on eight stages at the interfaces of techno-hedonism, free jazz, avant-garde rock, and new music - the complete music line-up is out now!

New confirmations:
Astrid Sonne / Attila & Goldberg / Catta / Citizens / Ewa Justka / GIK Ensemble / Grrrls DJ Crew / IILW / Ikonika / Inou Ki Endo / Kajkyt / Keith Fullerton Whitman / Kode9 x Koji Morimoto / Konx om Pax / Lotte Anker / Matej Bunderla / Moska / Nazar / Okzharp & Manthe Ribane / Polyxene / Scratchclart & Lady Lykez / Shannen SP / Stroblazilla / Sun People / The Striggles / ZØTSCH

One specific point of emphasis in the discourse programme is on activists who are committed to important socio-political issues in the spotlight of the public. The star guest of this year's festival is Pamela Anderson, an actress and model, who has long been active as an animal rights activist. Her socio-political activism in recent years has attracted a lot of attention. She will report on her experiences at the Elevate opening at the Orpheum. Other international activists at the festival are Nnimmo Bassey from Nigeria, environmentalist, and poet, winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize "Right Livelihood Award", and Srećko Horvat, Croatian philosopher and democracy activist at DiEM25.

The individual programme days in the Forum Stadtpark are thematically wide-ranging: the festival theme of truth in the spectrum of media, language, and journalism as well as science, technology and art will be debated over the first two days. Facts about right-wing extremism, terrorism and the shredding of files by state actors are the central themes on Elevate Saturday. Finally, on Sunday, the topics of migration and the climate crisis will be merged and discussed together.

Participants (as of 21.02.2019):

Deena Abdelwahed / Pamela Anderson / Roxana Baldrich / Nnimmo Bassey / Siegfried Beer / Jean-Frédéric Berthelot / Wolfgang Bogensberger / Anuška Delić / Marko Dinic / Doro Blancke / Lisa Blanning / Cornelia Böhnisch / Mathias Bröckers / Alba G. Corral / Judith Denkmayr / Xenia Ermoshina / Eva Fischer / Lee Gamble / Claudia Garád / Clara Ginther / Mathis Hampel / Julia Herrnböck / Srećko Horvat / InterACT / Mira Kapfinger / Gottfried Kirchengast / Ulla Kramar-Schmid / Gregor Ladenhauf / Thomas Lohninger / Laurie Love* / Amanda Machin / Erich Moechel / Jan Moláček / Thomas Moser / Katharina Nocun / Andreas Peham / Peter Pilz / Paul Poet / Anneliese Rohrer / Stefan Schartlmüller / Ingrid Skjoldvær / Florian Skrabal / Jan Skudlarek / Peter Strasser / Alexander Unzicker / Thomas Waitz / Gaby Weber* / Laura Wiesböck / Barbara Wimmer / and many more..

*via video stream
 

In 2019, the art section of the Elevate Festival will be dominated by the "Creative Europe Culture" project Re-Imagine Europe and a newly strengthened partnership with the Institute for Art in Public Space of Universalmuseum Joanneum. For this 15th anniversary edition, two interdisciplinary art productions in public space can thus be realized: "Liquid Truth" by the Berlin interaction studio schnellebuntebilder in collaboration with the design duo Knoth & Renner and Elevate Arts curator Berit Gilma and the multi-day art action "playy.club" by the interdisciplinary art collective kleft. For the festival's own residency, an international open call was published for the first time. The Elevate team selected the concept idea "Human Nature" by British filmmaker and visual artist Jeremy Carne from a large number of submissions.

Interactive happenings on Saturday at Orpheum Extra: In cooperation with the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics at the Kunstuni Graz, students present multimedia sound installations that encourage visitors to participate and try them out.