Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
[John Lennon, 1980]
The festival's motto of the upcoming fifteenth edition of shut up and listen! is Nothing is real, a quote from the Beatles song Strawberry fields forever. December 8th, 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s tragic death. Remembering his ideas and his life, we deal with visions and illusions, (mind) travels into the past and the future, reconstructed and unusual musical instruments, imaginative and inaudible sound worlds. Quite fittingly, the festival had to be postponed to June 2021, due to Covid-19 regulations.
During five days, the festival presents concerts and performances, presentations and conversations, as well as a reading and a film. The accompanying exhibition includes a sound installation, media art, another film as well as sculptures and a ‘carpeted carpet’. The last day includes a listening room and the traditional festival brunch, if permitted by the current COVID‑19 rules.