Swedish Festival Conceives “IVF Stage” to Play Headliners’ Music for Unfertilized Embryos
Prospective attendees of Sweden's Way Out West Festival, in the form of sperm and eggs, will soon be incubated to the sounds of its headliners, including Fred again… and Peggy Gou.
That's according to the festival's organizers, who this week announced the creation of a new stage in collaboration with renowned designer Love Hultén. They are planning to activate the miniature stage, dubbed "Future Fan Stage," at Eliva, an IVF clinic in Stockholm.
Complete with colorful (albeit gentle) visuals, the fully functional stage will be "injecting" live recordings of music by the festival's headliners into unfertilized embryo samples "before they even develop into fetuses," per a blog post shared by Way Out West. The festival cited recent studies showing that "music improves the fertilization rate during an IVF process."
[embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=UkdMtj9108s[/embed]The innovative installation takes the scientific effects of music quite literally. Hultén expressed excitement for the intricate layers of the stage's design, saying he was "all in" after the festival approved him.
"The Future Fan Stage was already an amazing concept in theory and had a lot of interesting design aspects," the Swedish audiovisual artist said. "Combining elements from the lab world with music stage visuals was challenging and fun."
"With this cheeky and wonderful idea, we will get future fans hooked on our festival with great live music, even before they’ve come into being," added Way Out West Project Manager Kimmie Winroth. "And if we’re lucky, even contribute to welcoming them into existence."
For those who have surpassed their cellular form of life, this year's Way Out West Festival returns to Gothenburg's Slottsskogen park from August 8-10. Passes can be purchased here.
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