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Use Your Imagination / Environment 2.0 / Free Studio
Social
Technologies
Summit
The Social Technologies Summit, the 'ideas strand' of the Futuresonic festival, is a major international conference exploring the creative and social potential of new technologies, bringing together leading figures to explore "a whole new way of doing things in the air".
The Social Technologies Summit promotes technology as social practice, and explores the social impact of technologies, in particular a new generation of network technologies that are increasingly embedded in the social sphere. It looks at how people collaborate to make or use technology, at the way in which certain technologies can create an extension of social space or support group interaction, and asks how we can make technology more social.
In 2007 the Summit returns with a programme that is stronger than ever before, including one day presented by a major new interdisciplinary research centre at Lancaster University; the Environment 2.0 talks and presentations; and a session introducing the leading figures in the grass roots open source movement that is sweeping across Brazil like wild fire and captivating the world's imagination.
TICKET INFO or click here to BUY a Delegate Pass.
Social Technologies Summit 2007
Contact Theatre, Manchester
10-12 May, 2007
Highlights
Friday 11 May 2007
Use Your Imagination
A man falls in slow motion from a high building. Upon impact the concrete paving gives way and ripples in concentric waves as it absorbs the energy of his fall. There is an idea out there that the world is not solid any more. Now that everyone can speak to anyone while on the move or open a web page from anywhere, the ground beneath our feet is no longer hard, but 'soft', as in 'software'.
We live in an age when the future of the next few hundred years is being written. Just as the printing press and the steam engine changed history, so the decisions made now about the design of the technologies we use will shape our lives tomorrow.
It is not just scientists who are engineering this future, but artists and DIY technologists also. A focus in Use Your Imagination is the way in which the barriers are breaking down between art and engineering.
Leading figures from around the world are converging on Manchester for Use Your Imagination, a one day event presented by a major new research institute called Imagination@Lancaster. This unique event begins with the idea that it is for everyone, and with the goal of 'open sourcing' some of the technologies and concepts that are reshaping our lives today.
Participants include :
Anne Galloway (Carleton University Ottawa)
Charlie Gere (Lancaster University)
Steve Dietz (YProductions)
Nina Wakeford (INCITE)
Giles Lane (Proboscis)
Eric Paulos (Intel Research)
Paul Domenet (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Linda Doyle (Trinity College Dublin)
Alan Dix (Lancaster University)
Drew Hemment (Lancaster University)
Kristina Andersen (STEIM)
Laura Watts (Lancaster University)
Read full details of Imagination@Lancaster session
Saturday 12 May 2007 (morning)
Environment 2.0
A cross section of speakers launch a wide-ranging project on the sustainability of future arts and technologies. Introducing a masterplan to take eco-clubbing to the world, including an electricity-generating dancefloor; plans to provide mobile phones with new "super-senses" so that you and I can join together to monitor environmental change; and investigate the question "how green is the internet".
Environment 2.0 is a new international initiative seeking to explore the sustainability of future arts and technologies. It is a part of a 3 year project by Futuresonic seeking to minimise the environmental impact of the Futuresonic festival and also to explore broader issues connecting Futuresonic's interest in mobile and social technologies with the new urgency surrounding climate change.
In Environment 2.0 two worlds collide. When the environment is mapped, tagged and digitised it becomes navigable, computable and manipulable. How can this approach to environment, one which is iconic for our times, be reconciled with the need to address climate change?
The Environment 2.0 conference strand is one part of a range of linked activities at Futuresonic 2007.
Learn more
The activities in 2007 will be followed by a major conference on this topic in 2008, and a major exhibition in 2009.
Read full details of Environment 2.0 session
Saturday 12 May 2007
Free Studio
There is today a grass roots open source movement that is sweeping across Brazil like wild fire and captivating the world's imagination.
A high profile session coinciding with the initiation of a local Estudio Livre (Free Studio) in Manchester, based on the Brazilian model, will be headed by Claudio Prado.
Claudio Prado (Brazil), 63 is the leading figure in the Brazilian movement. He was deeply involved in the countercultural movement in 1960's London - he was one of the organizers of the first Glastonbury Festival, and was involved in the launch of the International Times and of the first format of Time Out. In London he met the musician Gilberto Gil, now Culture Minister of Brazil, with whom he has had a lifetime friendship.
Claudio is now in a unique position, working in a very new frontier between government and media activists running the Digital Culture Department of the Ministry of Culture of Brazil. He is the man responsible for Brazil's involvement in international discussions around digital and open source culture, and all its consequences in IP regulations, cultural production and identity, creative economy and so on. He is also responsible for putting all these concepts into practice, through the Pontos de Cultura project - 600 grassroots cultural centers spread all around the country that receive a digital multimedia production infrastructure and take part in a series of meetings and workshops regarding free and open source software for multimedia production, open licensing, gift economy and similar subjects.
Other keynote participants include:
Cristiano Scabello (Brazil)
James Wallbank (Access Space)
Matthew Edmondson (Open IT Up)
Dave Carter (Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency/MDDA)
Followed by an Estudio Livre de Manchester workshop
Read full details of Free Studio session
Friday 11 May 2007
Dorkbot
Friday 11 May / 6pm-8pm / Free
Council Chambers, Steve Biko Building (upstairs in Academy), Oxford Road
Manchester's first Dorkbot, an informal gathering and Show 'n' Tell for artists, musicians, video makers, inventors, hackers, engineers ... anyone doing strange things with electricity, with a special focus on alternative computer interfaces. During the event Steve Symons will demonstate his computer interface 'muio' and show how to make a 'muio-mini' for under £17. Simon Blackmore will demonstate how to use 'Wiring', an open source programming environment and electronics i/o board currently developed at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia by Hernando Barragán.
There will also be a Manchester release of 'SLOW', a free DVD of open source
software for Mac and Windows. Hot of the press from streets of Bogota, 'SLOW' is designed to make migrating to open source software easier.
Saturday 12 May 2007
Saturday Kro Lab
Kro Bar (upstairs), Oxford Road / Saturday 12 May, 12pm-4pm / Free
Video Sniffin' and Spy-Kiting
MediaShed / 12pm Midday
Hack wireless CCTV while talking a stroll through the streets of Manchester, and fly kites
equipped with CCTV cameras. A Gearbox free-media project by MediaShed. Gather upstairs at Kro at 12pm.
iPoi
Jennifer Sheridan / 1pm
Imagine swinging tiny computers in tennis balls and socks around your body to create live visuals and audio like a DJ or VJ. Developed at Lancaster University, iPoi is based on the ancient Maori art of poi and uses a wireless, peer-to-peer, sensor-packed upgrade of the original.
Mobile Gaming and Social Software
Paul Coulton / 2pm
Try mobile software applications developed by Lancaster University's InfoLab21 :
Poppet: Using mobile phones as motion sensing games controllers for a car racing game.
Locomash: Using mobile and gps to create a collaborative location based photo mashup.
Art For Shopping Centres
Artist Talks / 3pm
Informal talks by Graham Harwood and Katherine Moriwaki on the artworks in the exhibition,
followed by a trip to Manchester Arndale for a 'gallery tour'.
Thursday 10 - Saturday 12 May 2007
Musician & Artist Talks
As the main conference strand of the Futuresonic festival, the Social Technologies Summit
will also host discussions of the festival's artistic themes.
Thursday 10 May: 1967 MULTI-MEDIA
Barry Miles on 1960's 'Multi-media' (See Futurevisual section),
in conversation with Colin Fallows
Friday 11 May: SPIRIT OF '77
Faust with Stephen Morris (drummer of New Order/Joy Division),
introduced by John Robb
Saturday 12 May: SPIRIT OF '87
Wolfgang Flür (Kraftwerk) with Graham Massey,
introduced by John Robb
Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Doors 6pm - 8pm
(Talks at 6pm, ticket includes entry to Futurevisual at 7pm)
£5 / £3 Conc.
Free with Futuresonic Weekender Wristband
The Map Designers
We regret to announce that THE MAP DESIGNERS event has been
POSTPONED and will no longer take place during Futuresonic 2007.
Social Technologies
Consider the sheer scale of social technologies, and their economic and social muscle:
* Google's index HAS NOT been written by Google staff, but by millions of collaborative contributors throughout the world.
* The web itself is an example of a social technology - and what made the web possible was that it is an open system - each web page allows itself to be linked to without reference to the original author; the web is defined by open, internationally standardised, royalty-free languages and protocols; you don't need a licence to contribute.
* The fastest-growing operating system in the world (Linux) is freely available, technically superior and highly efficient - and it's an example of social technology - it's owned by its contributors, and the key to its security and fast growth is its openness - anyone can make improvements.
DELEGATE PASS Ticket Info
Delegate Pass (includes £30 Weekender Wristband)
£45 BUY
Student Delegate Pass
£10 BUY
++Fixed number of Day Passes available each day on a Pay-What-You-Can basis.
The Delegate Pass gives you access to the Social Technologies Summit,
all Futuresonic seminars and talks, and all Futuresonic Live and Urban Play
events over the festival weekend.
Conference places limited - advance booking essential.