Going into the opening night of UNFURL, we knew that it would be a ‘concert of ecstatic ritual music and hypnotic live sets’ — visions swirled of dancefloor ecstasy, transcendence through music, and sounds without words to describe them.

Serwah Attafuah and Soft Centre’s Apotheosis explores the intersection of live motion-captured performance and a virtual world in a brilliant, clubby, life-affirming ensemble piece for solo dancer, her several avatars, a DJ and a roving camera.

Soft Centre is a grand festival, and stands on its own among Sydney’s party landscape. For a one day festival it’s almost overwhelming in its scale and effect, with its highly sensory art works, immersive performances from DJs and musicians slinging powerful imagery, and avant guard, grandiose stage design making.

SUPERMODEL is a bit of a tongue in cheek word. Initially it brings to mind, you know, these impossible angel bodies walking down runways. But also, for me, it brings to mind this hyper object, or like an AI singularity moment. Something severe and mega and beyond comprehension.

The producers of Soft Centre succeeded not only in presenting an impeccably organised electronic music festival that reached locals but also got people out of the inner city to Sydney’s South West, building a little temporary world where things could actually be better for everyone, if only for a little while.

One of the unofficial secrets behind the successful formula for this festival is its founders commitment to programming in a non-hierarchical fashion. An awareness that all artists are equal and an almost open dissing of the concept of hosting main headliners; means the time-slot chronology for seeing certain artists just doesn’t exist. Leaving the emphasis instead on exposing the audience to previously undiscovered artists.

Dark Mofo’s iconography – religious symbolism, plumes of fire and smoke, lasers and endless electronic drones – means commentators jump on terms such as “post-apocalyptic” and “dystopic” to describe the festival. But Night Mass this year could more accurately be described as “pre-utopic”. The world is still filled with oppression and segregation, but the programming presented what’s possible when we create room for self-expression and embrace the diverse world around us. Through exposure to the artists booked by UXS and Soft Centre you get to step into someone else’s world, and for a moment become part of it – and if you’re willing, maybe you never have to leave.

ULTRAVIRUS is a many-headed Hydra. Thorsten Hertog (aka Thick Owens), co-founder alongside Ella Parkes-Talbot, describes ULTRAVIRUS as “a content aggregator, net label, ongoing party series and fashion brand”. Another way of explaining ULTRAVIRUS is that it is a representation – or an exaggeration – of cybercultures. It feeds off soul-sucking consumerism, the vapid irony of contemporary youth culture, exemplified in meme culture, and the non-linear consumption of music and narratives in an internet era of information overload to present kitsch music aligned to our ravaged attention spans. Think hyperlink wormholes, internet-induced psychosis and cybermedieval avatars. If you’re a little disorientated and a little confused, you’re in the right place. It is precisely Thorsten’s style of DJing, which he labels as “irreverent and rude”, which encapsulates, if not Australia’s natural landscapes, the zeitgeist of a young nation forever unsure of itself. Self-mockery, tongue-in-cheek probes at authorities, unapologetic nods to Australia’s cultural cringe, larrikinism and a tinge of political commentary pulsate throughout local techno, hardcore and breakcore. DJs like Thick Owens bounce seemingly carelessly between silliness and serious critique.

The philosophy leading SOFT CENTRE’s projects is all about repurposing and transforming the experience of being at a festival. There is an initiative to cross different art forms often not combined,  creating an experience very specific to being at a SOFT CENTRE event. Through these combinations, they evolve into building an identity that resists a jammed understanding of art, with no fear of mutating into extreme and weird experiences.

While Soft Centre is still hedonistic and really fun where you come and have a social experience, it’s also very much about being active and engaging with what’s in front of you because it’s quite testing. It’s challenging. It provokes thought.

You wanna live fancy? Live in a big mansion? Get chopped into little pieces at your factory job? You want a massive set of ears? You want to make an extremely impressive music video? You better work.

The upcycled limited collection is folklore for the entangled future. Eco-tech wearables forged in a farfetched forlorn fairytale: cybergothic sprites, mutant doof faeries, half-priced haute couture as hyperstitional magick.