MADEIRADIG FESTIVAL
Digital arts, music, and natural beauty in one place...
We brought an audience with a curious and open mind together with the avant-garde elite and created a unique event on an actual paradise island.
Electronic music can mean many things to different people; from the dunce dunc’ing of hardcore techno clubs, to downbeat trip hop made famous by Bristol in the 1990’s, to what sounds like the theme-song-to-a-cartoon-of-the-future French electronica... However, whether your tastes lie more with Tiesto, Daft Punk or something else, it could be argued that the nowhere else could electronic music expand your mind than at the island paradise of Madeira during the MADEIRADIG Festival.
MADEIRADIG was created in 2004 in order to fill a gap in Madeira’s cultural events in the field of multimedia and digital arts. Since then, the festival has brought a number of international top level artists from music, film, video, computer art and photography to Madeira. It has also motivated Madeiran artists to create new works in these fields. It was not until 2008 however that Berlin native and Design Hotels employee Michael Rosen became involved in the event and overhauled all aspects of the festival from its online presence and social media, to the accommodations offered, to the line-up itself. His main accomplishment, which has since become the mainstay of the festival, was establishing the international scope in terms of both guests as well as artists.
These days, digital culture enthusiasts can experience what could be considered the pinnacle of intellectual digital culture in the comfort of the contemporary Estalagem da Ponta do Sol hotel overlooking the dramatic mountains of the island (the festival’s website describes them as “a mix of Swiss Alps with the countryside of England”) and the craggy coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
While the artists themselves operate and are successful in a much more niche corner of the electronic music world, the line-up features an all star list of heavyweight international digital artists and musicians even including individuals like the legendary Lee Ranaldo from the band Sonic Youth. Other artists in the last three years include modern composers like Alva Noto, Ben Frost, Murcof, and Tim Hecker. And while the format of the festival is closer to an international conference than a regular music festival (there are only 2 performances daily, with parties only occurring on the opening and closing nights, and attendance is limited to only 180 people) nobody attending would claim there was not enough stimulation between the performances, interactive workshops, eating, nature hikes and lounging in the hotel’s pool terrace.
Moving forward MADEIRADIG will continue to evolve with a strict motto of quality over quantity while Rosen will grow his involvement in the industry as well as the region giving support to an up-and-coming music and visual art festival on the mainland of Portugal in Braga called SEMIBREVE. Additionally, he is very involved with launching a new eco-focused festival in Potsdam, Germany just outside of Berlin called Tree Festival.
