The Indigo Festival 2025 will once again take place at Cukrarna from 8 to 10 October 2025. The tenth anniversary edition of the festival, entitled “Dark Mode”, explores topics related to uncertainty, information overload, and the everyday hardships of modern times. With musical performances, conversations, and lectures, the three-day program will connect diverse voices from the fields of contemporary art, design, philosophy, literature, and music. The INDIGO FESTIVAL 2025 – Dark mode boasts a compelling lineup of global thinkers and artists, including designer Slavimir Stojanović Futro, renowned philosopher Mladen Dolar, and electronic music pioneers Dopplereffekt. You can view the full three-day programme of lectures, talks, and music performances here.
DARK MODE: The World in a Time of Darkening – A Reflection by Blaž Peršin, Artistic Director of the Indigo Festival
Today, the phrase dark mode no longer refers to just a visual setting of a user interface. It is becoming a symbolic metaphor – a state of mind and the spirit of the times. If we transpose it into the context of contemporary society, dark mode represents the way we adapt to an increasingly bleak, uncertain, and digitally overloaded world.
The contemporary individual is constantly exposed to information overload, conflicts, and crises – war, climate change, political instability, and economic uncertainty. In this light, dark mode becomes a symbol of retreat, protection, and a search for relief. Just as a dark screen shields the eyes, we too seek ways to ease the pain and fatigue brought on by contemporary life. Darkness is becoming a means of survival.
When dark events – repression, fake news, exclusion – begin to feel commonplace, society shifts into a kind of normalised dark mode. The sense of shock is gone – replaced by fatigue and resignation. A bleak mode of functioning means that we are gradually accepting the dark layers of reality as the new norm.
Have we, as a society, adapted to the darkness to the point where it now feels ordinary? How many ethical compromises are we willing to make in the name of comfort, security, or the illusion of stability?
The use of the phrase dark mode allows us to reflect on our social and personal position – not only as individuals, but as a collective. Perhaps dark mode is just a temporary switch to a more endurable state. But there is a danger: that it becomes a lasting state of mind. And when darkness becomes the norm, we have to ask ourselves once more – what does light actually mean?
This year, Indigo Festival explores how we, as individuals and as a society, are responding to this darkening. Through lectures, talks, music performances, and DJ sets by local and international guests, we will open up a perspective that dark backgrounds reveal – not merely conceal.
Blaž Peršin, Artistic Director of the Indigo Festival
