Openless Festival in Berlin Redefines Music Festival Format

The first and only edition of Openless, the new off project of Berlin Atonal, took place from August 23 to 25, 2024, at Kraftwerk in Berlin. The festival challenged traditional music festival formats by emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches, site-specific performances, and political engagement with themes like ecology, colonialism, identity, and cultural conflicts. The lineup included artists such as Nkisi, Chris Watson and Izabela Dluzyk (with their piece "Białowieża"), Lee Gamble, Canzonieri (Emiliano Maggi and Cosimo Damiano with Lord Spikeheart and Lara Damaso), Demdike Stare, Forensis (Forensic Architecture) with Bill Kouligas of PAN, and the family of Doudou N’diaye Rose. The festival encouraged fluid use of space, allowing audiences to sit, lie down, or meditate, fostering a more private and less constrictive relationship with music. Openless aimed to test new ideas for festival formats, promoting a different way of understanding and interacting with space, and positioning Berlin as a resistant voice against mainstream music commercialization.