This year the Impakt Festival will take place from 13 - 17 October at various locations in Utrecht.

With 'Matrix City' the Impakt Festival 2010 focuses on the future of the city. Urbanization seems to be an irreversible, self-propelling machine. At present, the majority of mankind lives in cities and has become permanently dependent on the networks forming the backbone of these mega-structures. At the current pace of world population growth, acceleration of the urbanization machine seems to be the only option. Indeed, the opposite – de-urbanization – hardly is feasible and also an inefficient, resource consuming alternative which is hardly sustainable.

But how does this view fit in with our image of the city as the generator of economic development, social welfare and individual satisfaction? Are we really closer to a utopian scenario in which people in cities can afford a maximum of play, and have minimal necessity for work as envisaged in radical future scenarios from the 60s and 70s? Or are we closer to darker scenarios according to which we – trapped in an all encompassing urban network – have become extremely vulnerable due to the absence of rural backup? Does the city as a concept have a “best before date”?

The Impakt Festival 2010 discusses bold ideas about our urban future, but also reveals the dilemmas connected to the urban ‘revolution’ and the alternative of virtual environments. ‘Matrix City’ is about progress and innovation, but also explores less rosy views on the future of urbanization.

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Matrix City, the main program of the Impakt Festival 2010 is curated by STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Dzokic and Marc Neelen, Rotterdam/Belgrade) & Kristian Lukic (Novi Sad).

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The Impakt Foundation focuses on presenting and stimulating innovative audiovisual arts in an interdisciplinary context. To this end Impakt organises the annual Impakt Festival and year-round Impakt Events; short projects centering a certain theme, movement, or artist. It also launches annual net.art projects on its webgallery Impakt Online (www.impaktonline.nl). Beside this, Impakt runs the production house and residency programme Impakt Works. Raising Impakt is the educational programme for schoolkids and students.

Source: http://www.impakt.nl/index.php/festival