Every year, FIBER Festival does something the rest of the city’s cultural calendar rarely manages: it makes you feel like the future is being assembled in real time, right in front of you, across a handful of venues, over four days in late May.
Now in its eleventh year, what started in the basement of the now-defunct Trouw Amsterdam has grown into one of the most genuinely curious festivals in Europe. Not the biggest, not the loudest, but consistently one of the most necessary.
This year’s theme is Fragile Forces. It is a deliberately contradictory phrase, and an honest one. Fragility, FIBER seems to be arguing, is not the opposite of power. It is a form of it. The programme, which runs from May 28th to 31st across venues including TILLATEC, Orgelpark, de Brakke Grond, and murmur, takes that idea seriously across performances, a two-day symposium, and an exhibition opening May 22nd at de Brakke Grond that runs until June 20th. The question threaded through all of it: what can we hear, see, and feel differently when we stop treating softness as a liability?
It is also, perhaps not coincidentally, a festival that arrives at a moment when the internet, attention economy, and the politics of digital life are very much up for discussion. Several of this year’s artists and speakers are working directly with those questions, which makes FIBER feel less like a music festival and more like a conversation that happens to have a very good soundtrack.
How it works
FIBER runs across four interconnected parts, each worth knowing about before you plan your visit.
The Exhibition, Fragile Resonances and Fragile Terrains, opens on May 22nd at de Brakke Grond, a full week before the festival itself, and runs partially until June 20th. Two interconnected chapters under one roof: one exploring sound art and ways of listening, the other looking at the vibrancy of matter. Featuring works by Aldo Brinkhoff, Anaïs Lossouarn, Mariska de Groot, Robin Koek and Jean-Emmanuel Rosnet, and others.
The Symposium runs across Friday May 29th and Saturday May 30th at de Brakke Grond. Spread over two days, it brings together adventurous thinkers, makers, and anyone looking for ways to engage with urgent topics in today’s culture and society. Artist talks, discussions, and critical reflections rooted in artistic creation and research. More on the highlights below.
The Performances and Club Programme runs Thursday May 28th through Sunday May 31st across various Amsterdam venues including de Brakke Grond, Orgelpark, TILLATEC, and murmur.
Beyond that, there is a Workshops and Professional Programme running alongside the symposium for those working in the arts, creative industries, and academic and cultural research. From networking drinks to focused sessions, it provides space to meet, exchange, and go deeper into the festival theme.
We scoured the extensive lineup, weighed up the old favourites against the names we had never encountered before, and landed on a handful of acts that sparked our curiosity. Here are our picks.
Exhibition opening: Fragile Resonances and Fragile Terrains
Thursday May 22nd, 19:00, de Brakke Grond
Go to the opening. The work of Anaïs Lossouarn and Mariska de Groot alone is worth the trip, both are artists whose installation work we have been following closely. The exhibition stays up until June 20th so there will be time to return, but opening nights have a particular energy and make a great chance to meet new people.
Concert: Whatever the Weather (Loraine James) and Bapari
Thursday May 28th, de Brakke Grond, 20:30
Personal favourite, full stop. Under her ambient-adjacent alias Whatever the Weather, Loraine James steps away from percussive club music and into something considerably more interior. Following the release of Whatever the Weather II, her return to FIBER promises textural, impressionistic sound explorations that feel genuinely rare on a festival stage. Opening the evening is Bapari, the Haitian-American artist whose production work has been moving through underground club circles for a while now. You may have heard their fingerprints on the title track of FKA Twigs’ Grammy-winning Eusexua.
Symposium Day 1: Below the Surface – Fragile and vulnerable ways of producing powerful electronic music
Friday May 29th, de Brakke Grond, 11:30, curated with Resident Advisor
A panel conversation with Trois-Quarts Taxi System, Woody92, and LNR (Biodegradable Soundsystems) moderated by Chloe Lula from RA, on fragile and vulnerable ways of producing powerful electronic music. In the post-COVID era, demand for hard music grew exponentially. At the same time, a completely different current was pulling listeners inward toward psychedelic electronica, powerful ambient, and glitchy organic rhythms. This session sits right in that tension. Worth setting an alarm/skipping work for.
Concert: Kara-Lis Coverdale and Anushka Chkheidze
Friday May 29th, Orgelpark Amsterdam, 20:15
The Orgelpark is already one of Amsterdam’s most beautiful venues. Kara-Lis Coverdale performing there is a combination that makes you feel very lucky to be in this city. She moves fluidly across acoustic and electronic domains, building immersive environments shaped by memory and timbre in a practice widely recognised for its emotional depth. Add in Anushka Chkheidze’s specially adapted Intricate Pipes, which extends a MIDI organ into an evolving electronic system bridging the avant-garde, contemporary classical, and IDM realms, and this is the Friday night for anyone who wants to feel something in their chest.
Symposium Day 2: Platforms Full Hate and Desire
Saturday May 30th, de Brakke Grond, 15:40
The session opens with Mindy Seu, whose research into the sexual histories of the internet and cyberfeminism is foundational for anyone thinking seriously about how technology has shaped our most intimate lives. How has technology been shaped by sexuality, and how has it shaped us back? From warfare propaganda and the algorithmic favouring of extreme-right ideologies to tradwife and manosphere influencers exploiting the vulnerability of young men and teenagers, the current state of the internet is not a neutral one. Understanding how we got here requires going back through its histories, the ones that rarely get told.
The session closes with a lecture by Geert Lovink in relation to his latest book Platform Brutality. Social media no longer just distracts, it wounds and breaks things. How do we leave, and what do we build instead? One of the most important conversations happening right now, and FIBER is giving it a proper stage.
Performances and Club Night 2 co-hosted by Minimal Collective
Saturday May 30th, TILLATEC, 20:00 to 08:00
11 hours across three rooms, and the lineup has absolutely no business being this good. Slowfoam opens in tranquil frequencies before the night accelerates through AV shows from Montreal trio mesocosm and CORIN, performances by Charlène Dannancier and eobee, and then a full club night powered by Formella, Batu, gyrofield and Simo Cell, and NVST. Club scenography by Tharim Cornelisse and Annelieke Rovers means the space itself will be worth paying attention to.
The second room, Switch, is hosted by Minimal Collective with Polar Inertia live, Brent Jacko and Okgwa, and Emily Jeanne guiding the early hours.
This is the night so clear your Sunday.
Abdullah Miniawy Trio and KUNTARI
Sunday May 31st at BIMHUIS
The closing night of FIBER takes place at the Bimhuis. Abdullah Miniawy Trio brings a muted intensity, exploring Egyptian vocal traditions at the intersection of baroque counterpoint, extended brass techniques, and electronic music. One of the most singular live experiences you will find anywhere right now. Interview with Abdullah coming very soon on doubleamagazine.com.
Alongside them, KUNTARI, the duo of Tesla Manaf and Rio Abror, whose self-described genre is primal-core. Percussive guitar, roto-toms, field recordings, and vocals, with elements of sludge metal, noise, and post-hardcore rubbing up against folk music and jazz. Born from a desire to break with conventional structures and genuinely difficult to describe in the best possible way.
