ROBODONIEN LEUCHTET

Performance · Paka the Uncredible

An interactive kinetic sculpture made of steel, fire, and light! Elsie is a large-scale, handmade animatronic dragon made from found objects and recycled technology. Her flowing, organic lines meet industrial materials, creating a fascinating tension between nature and machine. She awakens in a play of technology and myth, as if she herself were dreaming, and her movements carry the rhythm of a living being. 
 

Paka is a unique interdisciplinary artist who creates spectacular and engrossing theatrical performance from a mix of mechanical sculpture, digital media, spectacular effects, bizarre characters, circus and puppetry. He, has worked extensively in the UK and internationally; both collaborating and producing his own solo work since 1985.

www.firemedusa.com

Installation, Fire Pyromancer · Eddie Egal

The “Office for Burning Matters” of self-proclaimed pyromaniac Eddie Egal is dedicated to fire installations and constantly experiments with new ways of presenting fire.

This year, Eddie Egal's interactive fire finger and burning fountain will be on display at Odonien. There are several small fire installations... Some of them deal with the elemental opposites of fire and water, while others paint highly flamboyant images in the night sky above Odonien.

www.pyromancer.eu

Art, Installation, Fire · Odo Rumpf

Since the early 1990s, he has been creating monumental sculptures, kinetic objects, and room installations from industrial found objects, blending steel, recycled materials, and modernity into idiosyncratic works of art. With his visionary project “Freistaat Odonien” (Free State of Odonien), he has created an open studio and cultural space on a vacant lot in Cologne that functions as a living work of art in its own right. There, he uses light, fire, water, and wild plants to create installations that are intuitive, playful, and yet deeply symbolic, expressing Rumpf's very personal interplay of technology, nature, and imagination. His works invite wonder, engagement, and dialogue between past and future, scrap metal and poetry.

www.odorumpf.de

Interactive installation · Uli Ris

An optical art and light project that transforms feelings and thoughts into glowing words. It originated from the moment when the words “I NEED LOVE” lit up in my garden in Ibiza, a call to the universe that was heard. From this experience grew the idea of an interactive light object that combines communication, emotion, and energy. This work is being shown for the third time in its form and effect at a festival (Fusion, Garbicz). A dialogue of light, space, and resonance.

Installation, Art · Jim Whiting

He is a British artist and engineer best known for his kinetic sculptures and mechanical installations. His works combine art, technology, and movement in a unique way and often explore the relationship between humans and machines. Whiting gained international recognition in the 1980s, among other things for his moving figures in Herbie Hancock's music video “Rockit.” In his installations, which often appear grotesque, humorous, and poetic at the same time, he brings body parts, everyday objects, and machines to life, creating fascinating, often slightly eerie scenes.

Performance · Electric Circus

The Glowing Pickle Bar is an electro-mechanical miniature theater. A small café populated by characters made of motors and electronics who live out their own stories. The audience accompanies them in groups of ten and experiences a six-and-a-half-minute performance up close. Sounds and movements are created live, creating an unusually intimate atmosphere, a true non-virtual reality. Around the café, playful machines and kinetic objects invite visitors to marvel and discover.

Behind the project is Electric Circus, the artist duo Mirjam Langemeijer and Fred Abels, who combine puppetry with modern technology and animatronics.

www.electriccircus.nl

Performance  ·  Axel Pulgar

THE SCHRANK is a hybrid audiovisual system combining modular synthesis, algorithmic structures, and real-time visuals.
It generates musical and non-musical sounds through interaction and feedback, becoming a living extension of the artist’s body and mind.
Within its algorithms, the artificial and the spiritual converge into a single aesthetic organism.

Axel Pulgar is a sound and media artist working at the intersection of experimental music, live performance, and real-time visuals.
His work blends analog and digital instruments, audiovisual synthesis, and physical presence into immersive, emotionally charged experiences.
At the core of his practice is THE SCHRANK, a self-built audiovisual synthesizer that acts as both instrument and extension of his body.

www.axelpulgar.com

Rostgaard describes his works as retrofuturistic light and sound installations.

For this year's Robodonien, you are invited to the post-apocalyptic nuclear bar. In an atmosphere where Mad Max would feel right at home, rusty swill, pus punch, plutonium, and other delicacies are served, while the narcissistic talking nuclear reactor accompanies you through the evening.

Open every day after dark.

Interactive Installation · Paco Croket 

A piece of advanced Alien technology has been found! Its a kind of portal, not in space or time, but across parallel dimensions. It’s a mirror - it shows a reflection of ourselves in a different organic composition. It constantly evolves, moving across universes and endless possibilities of lifeforms. There are never ending versions of our alien counterparts. What do you still see of yourself in it?

Paco Croket – an artist redefining spaces through immersive, interactive light installations. Guided by vivid dreams and a deep connection to his inner child, he merges cutting-edge technology with carefully chosen materials to craft captivating sculptures and atmospheric environments.
His works invite playfulness, introspection, and shared experiences, bridging art and technology in a way that sparks wonder and connection.

www.croketlight.art

Performance · Twisted Fairground

At Robodonia this year, you can experience HOSPITAL DEL INFIERNO—an interactive hospital from the 1900s where the audience becomes part of a live operation performed by a notorious doctor and encounters “Archie,” a macabre, moving, screaming automaton!

With their explosive and unique show creations, Twisted Fairground has been touring Europe for over ten years as part of various festivals and events. In the style of a fairground attraction from around 1900, they create crazy and interactive shows: “Come hither and enter the automated, theatrical world of Twisted Fairground!”

www.twistedfairground.com

Installation, Light & Art 

Iridescent light objects meet mechanically enhanced holograms, fractals that renew themselves in real time, projections, and optical illusions that transcend the boundaries of space and transport visitors into unexpected aesthetic experiences. Accompanied by music from Audio Bizarro.

ANTI LUMEN · Timon Alex Gerald and Carsten

lightcraft · Silvan Catterfeld explores the interfaces between inner and outer visual experiences in his holograms, projections, and light objects · Viale is a visual artist whose works transform materials and symbols into poetic spaces of resistance and self-positioning between intimacy and political structuring · Uli Schulz, In addition to his machine art and poster printing, Schulz worked throughout his life in the spirit of Joseph Beuys, creating social sculptures.

Installation, Fire · Jan Rieve

Fire has fascinated observers for thousands of years. Here, the campfire is combined with the fireplace and the fire barrel, mixed with the movement and play of light created by the power of the rising heat.

Interactive Exhibit · Effektschmiede

We reach out to the lightning and stand under high voltage. Adrenaline rushes through our veins. An old yellow telephone booth has been transformed into a bright cobalt blue art object, a symbol of the connection between history and modernity. Inside, a Tesla coil generates fascinating electrical discharges, protected by a Faraday cage. With chain gloves, the energies can be playfully controlled and experienced. This work combines upcycling, technology, and aesthetics to create a unique experiential space.

Installation Video, Sound  · KAL’IOPE

Walden is a young interdisciplinary art intervention that focuses on the resilience of natural and man-made structures and the artistic exploration of ecological change. In and around the “stranded” shipwreck in Odonien, an immersive cosmos of exhibition, spatial installation, and soundscape is created. A miniature world of local found objects meets a transparent Plexiglas plane on which autonomous robots project video sequences of their surroundings into dancing choreographies of light, shadow, and spatial sound, presenting an evolving, traveling ecosystem that leaves traces and forms new narratives.

FRANK RÖTTGEN/ sonicmatters.de & SCARLETT SCHAUERTE/ scarlett-schauerte.de

Installation, Art & Light · subvision

This is a light installation about protection, community, and fragility. Amidst global tensions and shifts in values, an unstable light space is created in which projections, reflections, and shadows are constantly changing. The work invites us to oscillate between reality and dream, between reflection and retreat. In interaction with the graffiti and tags of the location, a dialogue emerges between past, present, and perception. As in Plato's allegory of the cave, the installation questions what we see and what we believe we see.

Interactive Installation 

The laser tunnel creates a walk-in space made of light – a magical experience of color, fog, and movement. Its three-dimensional form captivates visitors and allows them to become part of the light. Whether at festivals, city celebrations, or light festivals, the laser tunnel leaves a lasting impression. Depending on the size, high-end lasers and fog technology are used, which are of course tested and operated safely.

www.lasertunnel.de

Lili Voigt

Volt Bot Wall – Medialoop. Mechanical and technoid beings emerge from a wall made of metal and scrap fragments, interact briefly, and then retreat back behind the wall.

Performance, Music · Yann Keller

The bowed steel bass. The structural discovery of music and material are connected in a broader sense to the improvisational idea of free jazz: forms, functions, sound sequences, and soundscapes arise along the way and are implemented both spontaneously and according to plan.

Installation, Light · Dennislav

A hovering tetrahedron redraws monumentality through absence. Its faces are imaginary—traced only by luminous edges. Suspended by helium, it moves with the night breeze. Inside, a thin membrane captures fog so light itself becomes volume. It is both colossal in presence and pocket-sized when folded.

November 8

We are Optimal. You are Optimal.
With this friendly mantra, the four stormy visionaries welcome their attentive audience. Sure. The brothers Wahrscheinlich&Automatik, who grew up in tranquil Morkepütz, decided in August 2024 to continue their musical mission with an analog band lineup. So far, the result sounds raw, direct, light, angry, hearty, and full-bodied. Somewhere between earthy pop hammer and twisted garage dada.
The common thread: With heart. Without filters. The intention: Tender question marks above heads, shining eyes, and dancing hips. Sure.

@optimal_dada

November 9

Copenhagen-based artist Alice Rose is known for her hypnotic and highly modern music, which captures the essence of both the old and new worlds. Her performances, magnificent voice, and ability to juggle samplers, computers, harmonicas, and more. All of this is reflected in a mishmash of electro-folk paired with trip-hop, pop, and dancefloor.

www.alicerosemusic.com

November 14

German-language punk rock meets post-rock and pop, honest, direct, and full of energy. Twin sisters Nessie, also known as the guitarist for Farin Urlaub Racing Team, and Billie are back, accompanied by their favorite drummer Markus Junker. After a creative break, they have reunited to tear up the clubs with their uncompromising sound and infectious enthusiasm. Live, they deliver a rousing set: loud, passionate, idiosyncratic, and always with a wink. Not Without My Sister provide the soundtrack for anyone who isn't interested in pigeonholing but is keen on honest music.

@nichtohnemeineschwester

November 15

Since the early 1990s, Adaptatsiya has stood for uncompromising punk from Kazakhstan—loud, direct, and full of attitude. From small clubs and improvised recordings, the band has grown into a group that is now at home on international stages. Their songs combine raw energy with poetic lyrics about freedom, war, and survival. Between punk, rock, and social rebellion, Adaptatsiya remains a voice against indifference and oppression.

www.ermen.antimusic.ru

November 16

Fajadja is a bass-heavy band with influences from funk, hip-hop, disco, reggae, and ska. Founded in 2016, it consists of musicians from all over the world, each bringing the musical roots of their country with them. The band met in Amsterdam's thriving music scene and shares a vision of creating a new party atmosphere. The band has already played at some of the most famous venues in Amsterdam and beyond!

@fajadja