Zurich Meets New York! #ZHNY

If you’re from Switzerland, you’ve probably heard of the festival  Zürich Meets New York: A Festival of Swiss Ingenuity, which will start tomorrow, May 16 and run through the 23^rd.  The festival highlights the contemporary relevance of visionary movements and ideas born in Zurich and their impact on American culture. Building on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Dada movement and Zurich’s role as a 21st-century hub for artistic and scientific innovation, the festival features 25 events at venues across the city, and is presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, the City of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich.

I’ve been lucky enough (I think) to be asked to be an official ambassadrice of the event.  And yes, there seems to be a female version of Ambassador; and being that it comes from the Consulate General’s offices here in New York and the current Ambassador is from the French speaking part of Switzerland I will not question it.  What that really means?  I’m not sure, but I have been Tweeting and liking and writing a bit about the festival and I must say, the 25 events sound amazing and I’m very curious as to the quality of content – and yes, you guessed it, I will be writing about it – less about the film events (they collide with ‘other’ commitments) but I am very excited about three events in particular I’ve signed up for: 

• How Black Holes Shape Our Universe
• Giants Are Small: Dada Bomb
• Big Data

If you read my blog regularly you’ll know that the last one makes me jump up and down in eager anticipation…  the “Dada Bomb” promises to be real happening along the lines of “immersive and transmedia” storytelling – in this case, it being Dada – I would venture to guess that we will be immersed and “transing” from one to another (whatever “one” and “another” will be) and it will be absurd – at least that’s what I’m hoping for.  The Black Holes are billed as cross-platform virtual experience and after all the virtual experiencing I’ve been doing during Tribeca’s Innovation week I’m very curious how it holds up.

Events are free and many sold out already – you HAVE to RSVP if you don’t want to be left at the door holding the short end of the stick….  So, do I tell you about the block busters?  Nope…. Go online – check it out – grab what’s left and I’m pretty sure you’ll love it – and do not forget to TELL ME ABOUT IT after (or better, during: #ZHNY)!

You’ll see me at the following events in addition to the three mentioned above:

• Collegium Novum Zurich – Live Music & Silent Films
• Klaus Lutz
• Dieter Meier: “Out of Chaos”
• The Fascinating World of Complex Systems

So, when we were sitting at the luncheon at the Swiss Ambassador’s residence (courtesy of my parent’s taxes), that introduced us to the festival as future ambassadrices my neighbor to the left turned to me  – after it was mentioned that (for an event or project, I don’t remember) the Hudson river was going to be compared to Zurich’s Limmat river – and quipped: “we might have a scalability issue here”…   Well, we shall see.

Don’t forget to Tweet and Share from the festival: #ZHNY!