Hyperreality 2025, documented by zweikommasieben

In 2024, zweikommasieben dissolved its fixed publishing schedule of producing two issues of zweikommasieben per year—a shift that felt meaningful and opened up new possibilities. Inspired by this new flexibility, the team embraced a freer editorial direction. While they remain committed to documenting contemporary music and sound, they chose to readjust their focus: first zooming in on specific artists, practices, and initiatives in the field, and from there, opening up again. This approach led zweikommasieben to Hyperreality Festival in Vienna, in May 2025. The core team brought together a group of contributors, chosen for their perspectives and expertise, to create a publication with, for, about, around, during, after, and in relation to the festival for experimental and electronic music. The content of this magazine, from the texts to the photography, was produced on-site over the course of two days or, in some instances, as a reflection on the event. The festival marked a moment in time, a shared reality, and a point of departure for their endeavor. The magazine brings together conversations with artists conducted before or after their performances at the festival, from rapper and producer Cities Aviv to Mamba Negra-affiliated performance collective Teto Preto to Vienna-based painter and performer Evelyn Plaschg. Alongside these conversations, the magazine gathers personal memories of the festival area of the Otto-Wagner-Areal shared by staff members and visitors, photographic portraits, and on-the-ground impressions captured by various local photographers. It also features a visual essay by artist Marina Sula who looked closely at the festival site and an essay by academic researcher and interdisciplinary artist David J. Cross that explores the philosophical idea of hyperreality and its role in contemporary music culture. The magazine follows the rhythm of the team’s own experience of the festival: it opens with the graphics created ahead of the event and closes with an editorial, which was written at the very end of the process, thus serving as an epilogue. The resulting publication is an original and a copy alike. It represents the festival, but isn’t the festival. It follows the chronology of the festival, but not its immediacy. By providing a printed account, this edition of zweikommasieben searches for ways to capture the reality of chance encounters, profound feelings, sensorial awareness, and formed memories, which yet remain inevitably subjective and unique to everyone involved. In this, zweikommasieben and Hyperreality share a kinship in their interests and modes of operation. The two projects found each other in their ambition to highlight culture and create impact from the fringes.