About 250 local and international artists will take over venues across Melbourne this August for Now or Never, which returns for its fourth edition from Wednesday, August 19 to Sunday, August 30. Concrete Playground counts more than 150 events, including over 20 premiere works and festival exclusives.
This year’s theme is “A Whole New World.” The festival says it will look at cultural shifts driven by immersive technologies, AI and digital storytelling, and blur the line between installation, performance, reality and imagination.
At the Royal Exhibition Building, SOMNIA is an overnight sleep concert of ambient music shaped live by American composer William Basinski and Norwegian saxophonist and performance artist Bendik Giske. Elsewhere in the building, Philip Glass: In the Upper Room features Orchestra Victoria, with piano etudes from Japanese pianist Maki Namekawa. The Breath Haus x Now or Never brings David and Daniel Wilfred of the Narrm-based ensemble Hand to Earth, who lead a live breathwork and sound bath ritual.
After dark at the Town Hall
Melbourne Town Hall gets three late-night shows built on club sounds and electronic music.
Friday, August 28 belongs to Chuleo Club, a femme-led Latinx collective that Concrete Playground says shapes one of Melbourne’s best underground dance floors. Expect neo-perreo, house and techno from A.Chal (Peru/USA), Slim Soledad (Brazil/Berlin), LIZZ (Chile) and Dinamarca (Sweden/Chile), with club founder Zalina. The next night, Detroit techno act Octave One plays with Sleep D x Hybrid Man, JNETT and Baby G.
On Sunday, Australian audio-visual artist Robin Fox sets rhythm and lasers to a synchronised choreography, with a rare appearance by post-punk trio MY DISCO. Jeho Yun and Kyoungjin So open the night with KNOCK, a mix of traditional Korean percussion, lasers and electronic sound.
Talks, light and games
American designer and researcher Mindy Seu presents A Sexual History of the Internet in the Reading Room at State Library Victoria. Part lecture, part participatory project, it has the audience read citations aloud together from a shared script. At Melbourne Recital Centre, DJ Derrick Gee records a live edition of his Radio Hour podcast, with Julia Jacklin among the guests.
Several large light installations along the Yarra, known as Birrarung, are free. They include Multimmersion 浸 漬 的 ( ) 線 Upside Down V2, a laser installation by Taiwan’s Aka Chang, and The Falls Before Us by local artist Emily Parsons-Lord, in which Southbank’s Evan Walker Bridge disappears into mist.
The festival’s ongoing collaboration with ACMI continues with Feng Mengbo’s videogame installation Long March: Restart, a side-scrolling game that recasts the history of modern China. Returning favorites include the XR collaboration with MIFF, Library Up Late at State Library Victoria, Friday Night Social at Science Gallery Melbourne and Queer PowerPoint at Fed Square.
