Rio, Brasil and our very own city, Johannesburg came together in world class style on Saturday 1 November, as Heineken® kicked off their Open Your City campaign at The Warm Up in Maboneng.

The event was held off the back of the limited-edition Heineken® City bottles, each featuring one of 6 Global cities: New York, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, London, Amsterdam and Johannesburg.

This summer, Heineken aims to inspire South Africans to live worldly adventures by unlocking the secrets of their cities. To celebrate the campaign, the global brand is hosting three epic music events in Jozi, bringing the best of Rio, New York and Shanghai to life and recognising Johannesburg as one of the greatest cities in the world.

The first #OpenJozi event, held this past weekend at The Warm Up, saw international graffiti artist, Fabio ‘Binho’ Cerqueira from Brasil take the stage with renowned local graffiti artist Rasty. The international pairing came together creating a breath-taking audio-visual performance, combining interactive technology with performance, art and music.  The performance was facilitated by VJ (video jockey) and DJ team Afterlife, made up of Craig “Digital Lama” Shackleton and Wayne “Gravity South” Ellis Lee.

Without getting too bogged down with the technicalities of how it all works, the team harnessed computer vision software to track the position of infrared LEDs inside an electronic paint roller. Essentially where ever Binho decided to “paint”, an image appeared. Innovation and art collided in what can only be described as a truly world class collaboration.

Adding even more global star power to the event Session Victim, a pair of devoted vinyl DJ’s from Germany, delivered a great “live” set using controllers and instruments.

 Don’t miss more upcoming Heineken #OpenJozi events –

 A fusion of music and dance featuring international dance act, Caster Crew from Shanghai, battling it out against local talent Artistic Intelligence at Zone 6, Soweto on 29 November 2014. Entrance: Tickets on sale at the door on the night.

 International underground hip hop artist, DJ ENVY from New York City takes to the stage with AKA at The Sands, Sandton on 6 December 2014.

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