ABOUT GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR

The international GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR Festival for audiovisual projections was launched in 2012 as part of the ‘Weimar Summer’ initiative. In the meantime, more than 50,000 visitors come to Weimar every year to experience the festival weekend. Optimally located in this city of poets, musicians and thinkers, as well as the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement, the festival has become an important cultural event for Thuringia.

Throughout, the festival is distinguished by the interplay of a broad range of artistic genres. The overall event of GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR encompasses the following programme items: the widely appreciated facade projections, the GENIUS LOCI LAB stage featuring up-and-coming artists, as well as music events and the light installations in public spaces. Numerous ancillary events, such as the GENIUS LOCI TALK and Side Installations and Performances, which delineate the festival route, all come together to bring about an international creative milieu in the Bauhaus city of Weimar. Thereby, the festival extends across the entire Weimar inner city, creating a unique festival atmosphere.

The GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR Festival is the realisation of a concept that is unique worldwide, combining digital technology with artistic expression and historical heritage. Still today, the festival is the only international platform with an emphasis on free artistic work in the field of videomapping, and is a vanguard for the associated technological developments.The festival is based on an international competition: every year, three facades are specially selected and an invitation to tender for production concepts is announced. Prizes totalling 20,000 euros are offered for the winning submissions. This highly endowed prize is testament to the profile of the festival and is an acknowledgment of the first-rate content that makes up the event.

The artistic concept of the festival is oriented around a synthesis of location and subject material. Through the technique of videomapping, GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR redefines historical buildings and renders history and architecture as tangible for visitors. Every year, three new buildings and structures in and around the city of Weimar are chosen to become a part of the competition and festival. The winning concept submissions, which must be in a medial narrative form, expressed at the highest technical level through the art of projection mapping, are developed and produced for one of the selected competition facades.

In just ten years, the event has achieved high national and international relevance in the field of videomapping and light festivals. The internationally acclaimed GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR competition, the curatorial work of the festival directors at worldwide videomapping festivals such as IMapp Bucharest, the Luminale in Frankfurt or the 1minute Projection Mapping in Tokyo, as well as the participation of a renowned specialist audience in GENIUS LOCI TALK, also count among the many successes.