Inside Italy’s Biggest Techno Festival That Mixes Raving With Art

I’m in the workshop of the Italian artisan candy company Peyrano, about to bite down on a Ferrari-shaped sweet that somehow mixes chocolate with Balsamic vinegar. I’m told it’s the result of a lengthy collaboration with the multiple-Michelin Star-awarded chef Massimo Bottura, but the idea of the combination, frankly, sounds unappetizing. I take a taste anyway. It’s great. I have two more. The verdict around me is a chorus of “these shouldn’t go together, but they do.” But isn’t that the secret to finding some verve in life: mixing together disparate elements to create something fresh? Chocolate and balsamic vinegar, current season designer and ratty vintage, or, in my specific case this past week, underground techno music with the totality of fine European culture? It all makes sense.

My main reason for visiting Turin, Italy is the Kappa FuturFestival, the country’s biggest dance music festival and one of Europe’s most important events of the season. This year’s lineup brought together the kinds of superstar DJs that even people not particularly interested in the genre have heard of (Diplo, Peggy Gou, Anyma), established icons (Carl Cox, Seth Troxler), underground artists, and a well-selected lineup of live acts with genuine connections to the world (in this year’s case Caribou, Soulwax, and Floating Points).

But the venue itself just may be the star of the show. Every year since 2012, KFF has been held in Parco Dora, a post-industrial wonderland of a public space that architect Jean-Pierre Buffi cobbled out of a former factory district. Turin is Italy’s automotive capital, and the park’s signature bright orange spires used to hold up the roof of a Fiat ironworks plant. The out-of-context remains look like something out of Dune. Considering Techno was birthed in America’s own automatic capital of Detroit, and has long found inspiration in the repetitive sounds of mechanical production, what better setting could there be for a techno fest? Although the stage designs are great and the lighting is impeccable, Kappa doesn’t lean into the Disneyland-esque production of so many American festivals.

In fact, walking around the massive campus as an American is fascinating enough. The Europeans take their electronic music seriously. I find very few attempts at Instagram portrait sessions, the masses are dancing, and the most regular ruckus onstage stems from DJs blaring Happy Hardcore, a genre considered niche even in the more techno-obsessed corners of Bushwick.

By the three-day festival’s midnight end, I’m not quite ready to leave. Yet, I do have to get up the next morning to get that full “chocolate and balsamic vinegar” experience. I’m tagging along for the festival’s “Art & Techno” program, which unlocks Turin’s cultural heritage for festivalgoers during the day. The package this year includes a private collection at a home in Turin’s hills. There are multiple Rauschenbergs, Schnabels, and even some of Delvoye’s infamous tattooed pigs. To give you an idea, not only is every mirror I see in the house actually a piece of work by Michelangelo Pistoletto, but the biggest features a portrait of the owners—he’s an old friend.

We visit the studios of artist Ernesto Morales, fresh off an exhibition last year at the Rothko Museum in Latvia. He gives a demonstration of how light is meant to play with his painting. A visit to Casa Mollino, the secret apartment of the late Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino, gives me a sudden urge to redecorate my own apartment back in New York City. We even get to visit the archives of the festival namesake, Kappa, the sportswear brand known for its logo of two naked models resting against each other’s backs. By the time I ended the festival with Caribou’s set on Sunday night, I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Well, except for maybe a few more of those chocolates.