At the mention of utopias in the 20th century we immediately hear music. From protest songs to revolutionary choruses, from psychedelic sound orgies to booming techno beats, from piano melodies to national hymns, music is a faithful companion of every vision of the future. Whether it’s the ideal of a classless and genderless society, the demand to eradicate private property, the dream of love, peace and unity, the idea of a critical hedonism, the promise of freedom and happiness or just the hope of a better life, music brings people together and mobilises the masses, imagining a better place and another life. Music is realised utopia, when just for the length of a record groove.

In this spirit, the performance programme is devoted not only to appraising those old blueprints for a new world that have turned into sound (and image), but also collective production and reception, the future of the planet and the history of former future technologies, the feasibility of utopias and their mythology, musical understanding among peoples and, not least of all, pleasure, if desired free of utopia.