Ibiza and Formentera will host the first edition of ZTA BES from November 11 to 18, a new cultural initiative presented as a meeting point for literature, music, contemporary art, hacker culture and counterculture.
According to its organisers, ZTA BES is not intended to be a conventional festival. Instead, its creators describe it as a “Temporary Autonomous Zone” and an “International Port of Counterculture”, designed to encourage encounters between authors, artistic languages, generations and different cultural sensibilities.
The project is based on the idea that the boundaries between paper, screens and code have become increasingly blurred, and proposes a programme deliberately removed from traditional cultural formats.
For one week, the organisers aim to turn Ibiza and Formentera into a space for cultural exchange and experimentation.
Literature, blues and Phoenician culture
The programme will include dramatised readings inspired by the Phoenician world and its culture, accompanied by live blues music and analogue distortion.
The event will also feature psychogeographical interventions, in which the landscapes of Ibiza and Formentera will no longer function simply as a backdrop, but will become part of the artistic language of the project itself.
The programme seeks to connect worlds that are rarely brought together, ranging from high literature and contemporary poetry to cyberpunk, technology and hacker culture.
One of its central concepts will be Blueschain, described as a Baudrillardian parody of blockchain and linked to a cult novel that will be presented during the event.
The proposal brings together blues, technology, contemporary fiction, distortion and reflections on the nature of the simulacrum, creating one of the most unusual intersections within the ZTA BES programme.
From the Swedish Academy to hybrid forms of writing
The first edition will feature one of the leading figures in contemporary Nordic poetry, who was a member of the Swedish Academy between 2019 and 2024.
During the visit to Ibiza, the poet will present a book that will launch the Bes Poetry Collection, published by Melqart Editorial.
The new collection focuses on literature, memory and cultural roots.
At the same time, the event will introduce the Rubicón Collection of Hybrid Writings, also published by Melqart Editorial. The series is aimed at works influenced by hacker culture, blues, technology and contemporary fiction.
The organisers place this combination of artistic and literary languages within what they call the “Cortocircuito channel” — a concept intended to bring together apparently opposing forms of expression and generate unexpected connections between them.
Ibiza and Formentera become part of the story
ZTA BES aims to give Ibiza and Formentera a role that goes beyond simply providing the venues for the event.
The project highlights the islands’ long history as places shaped by travellers, merchants, artists, cultures, myths and stories.
From this perspective, the islands are once again presented as cultural ports — places where people arrive, cultures meet and ideas are transformed.
For the organisers, that historical identity provides the backdrop for a week in which literature, music, technology, art and counterculture intersect with the landscape and cultural memory of Ibiza and Formentera.
