Get involved in Futuresonic 2008! 1-4 May, Manchester, UK   2008 Festival 2008 Conference 2007 Commissions & Projects 2008 Commissions & Getting Involved

Conference - Submissions The Futuresonic Ideas Strand Futuresonic brings 500 opinion formers, futurologists, artists, technologists and scientists from the digital culture, music and art communities to Manchester for four days of seminars, workshops and events. At the heart of the Futuresonic festival is the internationally-acclaimed Futuresonic conference, and its focal point the Social Technologies Summit, which looks at how technologies can create an extension of social space or support group interaction, and asks how we can make technology more social. Submissions are now invited to the Futuresonic conference and the Social Technologies Summit. Proposals for talks, presentations and workshops plus also session themes are invited. Submissions of innovative formats for social interaction and experimentation are encouraged. Deadline: 5pm, Tuesday 18 December 2007. Download the Futuresonic Ideas Application Form. Online, Mobile and Unplugged Social Networking The Conference Theme The Futuresonic conference is a place where important international discussions take place. Over recent years hype about social software and web 2.0 has raged largely unchecked. The conference will bring together leading figures to unpick the hype around the latest technological zeitgeist, broaden the debate, and propose and explore a critical understanding of social technologies. The 2008 conference will explore the theme of Online, Mobile and Unplugged Social Networking. The conference will also mark 40 years since people took to the streets of Paris in 1968 calling for society to be abolished, and will assess the claims of todays digital culture as a potential catalyst of radical change amidst wider currents of radicalism. 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. As well as social software such as MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and FaceBook, there are technologies created and maintained by social networks, such as communities of developers and users working collaboratively with open source tools, or that enable people to connect with each other in public places, or that bind people together in their everyday lives. 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. Some proclaim the death of email. Life is supposed to be 'more social' - easier to communicate, the world at our finger tips, more sharing, more social. 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. Additionally, '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'. Join us as we go in search of the social today. Learn more about The Social festival theme. How To Submit Please download a submission form and return via email with ‘2008 Ideas Submissions’ in the subject line to ideas_subs08@futuresonic.com. Download the Futuresonic Ideas Application Form. Supporting materials and a printed copy of the submission should be sent by post to: 2008 Ideas Submissions Futuresonic PO Box 20 Manchester M60 1WE (Please do not send a submission by post without also emailing a downloaded form.) The deadline for submitting proposals is: 5pm, Tuesday 18 December 2007. Postal submissions should be postmarked no later than this date. Please be aware that Futuresonic cannot ordinarily return any supporting materials. If you have any questions about submitting your proposal, please contact Tullis Rennie - Programme Manager, Futuresonic tullis@futuresonic.com 0161 834 1300 Join us as we go in search of the social. Deadline: 5pm, Tuesday 18 December 2007. Download the Futuresonic Ideas Application Form.