Berlin Atonal 25 is happy to announce the details for the art program taking place as part of the upcoming festival edition in August. Third Surface is the newest formal experiment from Berlin Atonal, following its successful Metabolic Rift and Universal Metabolism exhibitions.

It functions as a hybrid exhibition embedded within Berlin Atonal 25. Its format draws on the spirit of late-night venues from Weimar Berlin - spaces where the trauma of war and the shadow of fascism collided with the desire to gather, speak, and stay awake. These historical antecedents find their contemporary echo in a darkly furnished installation: a field of small tables, clustered chairs with a stage at its centre. The setting foregrounds social interaction and improvisation.

A shifting programme of performance, sound, moving image, textiles, sculpture and works on paper unfolds within this setting. The works act less as statements than as prompts - subtle cues directing the murmur of voices and the tone of exchange. Third Surface operates as a speculative model: a controlled experiment in how nightlife might be reimagined, namely, beyond Eurocentric templates, outside the logic of hedonism, apart from the language of retreat. It turns to the night not for escape, but for encounter. If club culture once opened temporary portals into alternate realities, what now remains of that promise? What could be built from its ruins?

At a time of escalating atomisation, in a world where complicity is ambient and mass suffering abstracted, Third Surface asks: what do we want from the night? Who do we want to speak to there? And how many of us are still listening?

Artworks by: Kristoffer Akselbo, Nino Bulling, Billy Bultheel, Roberto Cuoghi, Steinar Haga Kristensen, Tanja Al Kayyali, Bill Kouligas & Niklas Bildstein Zaar, Joanna Rajkowska, Mouneer Al Shaarani, Tot Onyx, Ran Zhang

Music from: Chuquimamani-Condori aka DJ E, John T. Gast, Gavsborg, Kat 7, Tóke & groundsound, Lechuga Zafiro & Verraco, DJ Marcelle, Moin, YHWH Nailgun, Richard Sides

plus video works by: Basma Al-Sharif, Ben Russell & Guillaume Cailleau, Kamal Al Jafari Noor Abed, Nelson Makengo

and a Listening Room with music from: Mohamed Bourouissa’s LILA, Cyprien Gaillard’s Retinal Rivalry, Jenna Sutela’s Pond Brain, Anne Imhof’s WYWG, Jeremy Shaw’s Phase Shifting Index

Festival passes and day tickets are now on sale, providing unrestricted access (subject to capacity) to all festival areas, including the Main Stage, Third Surface, Tresor, Globus, and OHM. More information on www.berlin-atonal.com. Final schedule information for all events released on 31. July.