Qualia combines different new-media practices and perspectives, rethinking how realtime simulations can intersect with live music performance. The result guides the audience on a pilgrimage into the inner world of an organism, an agent revealing its hidden systems, symbols and hierarchies raising the question: what is it like? The characteristics of mental states are often described to carry an explanatory gap in which we struggle to tell about experiences to others. This ontological shock cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any means other than direct experience. Simulating empathy in this, is an attempt to directly understand and relate to the qualia of another's experience, bridging the gap between multiple, separate inner worlds.
Moshe Linke is an artist and experimental game developer who utilizes real-time media and game engines as a medium. His primary interests include architecture as a guiding principle for level design, solipsism, sonder, isolation and the ongoing importance of personal, author game... Read More →
Wednesday May 13, 2026 20:30 - 21:30 CEST Kuppelhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Are you folk or vampire? A live concert by electronic composer Bjørn Svin. Based on his music for the game Real Vampires and 500 years of authentic accounts of vampirism, the work unfolds as an immersive musical and visual narrative, drawing on the game’s elements and reshaping them into a new sonic experience. The music moves between day and night, carrying shifts in mood, tension and perspective. The audience is invited into selected moments, entering the Real Vampires universe through simple, shared choices. A first public showing of an evolving format where music, story and play meet. History is moving!
Content warning Real Vampires concert contains depictions of historical burial rituals, including exhumation of bodies, decapitation, and references to disease and death. Some scenes include exposed male genitalia derived from old medical illustrations and historical sources connected to burial practice. All visuals are presented in a stylized, cartoony cut-out aesthetic rather than graphic realism.
Real Vampires addresses themes of moral panic, social exclusion, and collective violence in historical contexts. While the tone includes dark humor, the subject matter may be sensitive for players affected by themes of death, persecution, nudity, or ritual violence.
