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The
INOTA coal-fired thermal plant, built in the 1950s during the
Communist era and once one of the country's largest industrial
sites, was shut down in 2001.
The four-day INOTA festival that launched on Thursday has
gathered dozens of artists, including Berlin-based pianist,
composer and producer Nils Frahm, whose sonic alchemy of
experimental textures and atmospheric electronica capture the
site's ambiance.
Hilda Carlsson, 33, said she and her friends travelled from
Sweden largely to see Frahm at the INOTA festival. They want to
take a guided tour of the vast 225,000-square-metre
(56-acre)site lit up by mappings and light installations over
four days.
"It is so fascinating with these kind of structures, and I think
even more in a way (for) our generation, which isn't like the
industrial workers (used to be as) now there are robots for
everything," Carlsson said.
"It is also a sense of history that you can touch on."
The turbine hall, cooling towers and enormous heating room with
its winding stairs and pipes have inspired visual artists from
Hungary and abroad.
Among the leading musical acts are British electronic music
producer Daniel Avery, the electronic duo Overmono also from the
United Kingdom and the British-German post-punk band Lebanon
Hanover.
The INOTA plant featured in the epic 2017 American dystopian
movie "Blade Runner 2049", starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison
Ford, which was partly filmed in Hungary.
But the plant has stood idle since 2001. Hungarian visual artist
Daniel Besnyo, who conceptualized the festival, hopes that will
change now, with the musical and visual acts bringing new life
to the place.
"In the long term, a very important aim of the festival is that
this power plant ... could be re-used culturally, reinterpreted,
and even host some kind of continuous cultural presence," Besnyo
told Reuters.
Hungarian student Akos Marencsak, 21, said using the site as a
powerhouse of music and arts was a great idea.
"The ambience, the feeling, what's inside these walls," he said,
when asked what made the place special for him.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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