FutureEverything 2015 — The Highlights
“Is it even possible to get more hip to the twenty-teens than this?” Bruce Sterling of WIRED magazine asked this time last year, looking ahead to FutureEverything Festival 2014. Yes, it is Bruce. Now in its 20th year, the line-up for 2015 looks set to be the festival’s strongest yet, finds Sara Jaspan…
Manchester- based FutureEverything is an award-winning ‘innovation lab’ dedicated to exploring the meeting point between technology, society and art. Its annual festival, however, is a chance for the city itself to become laboratory — for anyone to throw-on the white coat and examine the digital sphere through an inspired lens of installations, performances, talks, discussions, new commissions, experiments, music, parties, world premieres and, for the first time, film screenings.
Working in collaboration with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), opening night (25 Feb) kicks off with a unique double-bill featuring Memo Akten’s Simple Harmonic Motion for 16 Percussionists (pictured above) – a sound and light performance exploring complex patterns through simple multi-layered rhythms. Queued alongside The Well: a newly commissioned performance in which compositions by electronic musician Koreless are re-scored for Moscow’s acclaimed four-piece Intrada Choir, and set within a light-scape designed by visual artist, Emmanuel Biard.
Other highlights include the world premier of Too Much Information; a walking-performance by artist collective Blast Theory exploring the relationship between young and old people within today’s modern society. While Code.Act, one of the most acclaimed names in new media art, presents Nyloïd; a sound and sculptural installation exploring the boundaries between the organic and the mechanical.
For the first time, FutureEverything 2015 will also include a series of film screenings (many of which are free) running throughout all four days. The line-up features intriguing highlights including: Because We Are Visual, a poetic voyage by two Belgian documentary filmmakers into the unsettling world of public YouTube video journals; Fully Awake, a detailed exploration of Black Mountain College (1933-1957), an influential experiment in education that inspired and shaped twentieth-century art; and Elektro Moskva, an essayistic documentary about the Soviet electronic age and its legacy.
But with so much going on, it’s important not to overlook the festival’s other, equally rich component. Running alongside all this, FutureEverything conference (26-27 Feb, Manchester Town Hall) returns with a two-day series of talks, debates and discussions delivered by experts on everything from digital storytelling, hacking and media arts to researchers, writers, activists and policy analysts.
Under the microscope this year is the impact of the digital on four key areas: Memory, Democracy, Ownership and (a wild card) the Weird & Wonderful. Speakers will challenge city leaders and future thinkers to confront the devolution debate with a dose of digital radicalism; question the impact of our ‘sharing’ culture on global economies; and debate the right to be forgotten – among much else. It’s this rigorous exploration that has earned the conference its place among the Guardian’s top ten ideas festivals in the world.
As is tradition, the festival’s closing party rounds up at Soup Kitchen, this year with a night joint-curated by Manchester’s own Faktion and Annex Agency with Beatrice Dillon, Bloom, M.E.S.H and DJ Nigga Fox. Expect an international mix of gyro-grime, Congolese drum rhythms and Blues Dance, going on into the early hours.
Sara Jaspan
Advanced tickets are on sale until 26 Feb 2015, priced at £110; concs £40
More on the festival including full programme details here
