Kontraste presents cutting-edge sonic and audiovisual experiments, contemporary music and related art forms in a thematic, historical and interdisciplinary context. The comprehensive programme offers a unique festival experience with unconventional concerts, live performances, installations, lectures, screenings and presentations that explore a broad range of fields and practices. Kontraste benefits from its special regional setting and location, and presents a strong international line-up. The festival highlights the characteristics of its main venue, the medieval church, Minoritenkirche Krems.
We took some time thinking about this, but the conclusion seems unavoidable: even though this year has not yet drawn to close, we would like to declare the Kontraste Festival in Krems as far and away the best festival of 2012.
- Ge Huismans (Gonzo (Circus), 6 November 2012)
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The theme of the 2012 Kontraste festival, which was held from Friday 12 to Sunday 14 October, was
Electric Shadows. The curatorial team wanted the festival to be 'a journey through the electromagnetic spectrum’. This was achieved by linear programming (films and lectures during the day, music and projections during live performances in the evenings, all neatly combined and sequenced with sufficient time between events), with the opportunity to participate in several soundwalks during the festival. The installations were accessible throughout the festival period.
During the festival the local Kunsthalle exhibited a retrospective of Francis Picabia, the French (Cubist, Dadaist and Surrealist) painter, poet and typographer. The thirteenth-century Minorite church, once part of a monastery, was secularised in the eighteenth century, and since 1992 has been a place where sound art is exhibited (Klangraum Krems). An adjoining building was converted into the Kunstraum Stein exhibition space.