Annie De Vries

Anne de Vries stages an open-air event in the HardStyle (Techno) genre, a miniature happening resembling a kind of diorama, featuring a fully functional micro-stage complete with audio equipment and a light show. The typical acoustic and visual overload of the HardStyle genre – a combination of lyrics, electronic music, and images – inundates the audience with a multitude of stimuli. The artist, with this setup, is interested in exploring the influence of technology on the mass experience, drawing from philosophical texts related to recurring themes in this musical genre and contemporary club culture. In this work created for the ninth Berlin Biennale and presented for the first time in Italy, the artist aims to use the electronic dance format as a performative language within the structure of an outdoor festival/rave, an event beyond human scale projected into the ephemeral night. From an elevated perspective, one can observe the crowd from above, the audience in states of sensory overload, within an alternative experience of lights, masks, mutants, manipulated voices, and alien landscapes. The exhibition, following "After Club," is the second spotlight in the series of projects hosted by Colli independent art gallery, which will culminate in a catalog book titled "BULC," published by Viaindustriae Publishing with the COLLI publishing platform, to be presented at the conclusion of the cycle.