Futuresonic 2008
Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas
1-4 May 2008
Manchester UK
In 2008, the Futuresonic festival will once again be in May, with the focus
weekend 1-4 May.
An annual festival of art, music and ideas, which is currently in its 12th year,
Futuresonic occupies the orbits of both music and digital culture.
A focus in recent years has been presenting artworks in unexpected city spaces,
and on social art and social technologies.
Futuresonic now invites artists, thinkers and makers to get social and present
new types of collaborative social experience at Futuresonic 2008.
This is a time when we see how electronic communication can isolate us, as
more and more people drown in a deluge of email that generates stress, even
reducing IQ; and it is 40 years since people took to the streets of Paris
in 1968 calling for society to be abolished.
Join us as we go in search of the social today.
Web 2.0...
I take part
you take part
he takes part
we take part
you all take part
they profit.
(Slogan from Paris '68, remixed)
Full 2008 festival theme and call for projects announced Autumn 2007.
The Conference...
Futuresonic's Ideas strand
At the heart of the festival is the internationally-acclaimed Futuresonic conference, and its focal point the Social Technologies Summit. It has prefigured new trends and is a place where important international discussions take place. Discover the small sparks that unfold into new ways of seeing the world and critically explore the latest upgrade affecting today's digital culture. Futuresonic brings together creative thinkers, artists, programmers, media producers, scientists, technologists and theorists alongside digital media and creative industries, hardware and software developers, marketers and music industry specialists, together with political thinkers and activists interested in how technology impacts on society.
The Theme...
The Social - Beyond Social Networks
Computers have become social interfaces for sharing digital media and collaborating to build online communities and folksonomies.
Social technologies create an extension of social space, and new ways for people to come together, meet and share in today's society. They include social software such as MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and FaceBook, and also technologies that enable people to connect with each other in public places, and that create other kinds of social networks, such as communities of developers and users working collaboratively with open source tools.
But this is a time when we see how electronic communication can isolate us, as more and more people drown in a deluge of email that generates stress, even reducing IQ. And 'online communities' are based upon an artificial equivalence between 'users' which obscures power relationships and issues of ownership.
In all parts of the globe people are seeking to open up or hold onto places to meet and communicate freely, online and offline. In India we see emergent kinds of community media, in South Korea new social uses of the mobile internet, and in Brazil the spread of 'cultural hotspots'.
The Social Technologies Summit will explore the new social spaces and the social implications of technologies for the many different kinds of people who make, use and are affected by them.
Booking Information
Programme details and early bird booking information will be released in November.
Email Your Name, Address and Contact Details to ideas@futuresonic.com and we will send you full details on the Futuresonic Conference as well as priority booking options.
Sign up to the Futuresonic mailing list to receive regular updates.
Futuresonic is produced by FutureEverything in partnership with Arts Council of England with support from Contact Theatre. It is presented in collaboration with ImaginationLancaster, a new open and exploratory research lab at Lancaster University.