Futuresonic Festival

Futuresonic is an annual festival of art, music and ideas. It involves a freeform mix of live events, exhibitions, workshops and talks in up to 30 different venues and spaces across Manchester UK. Futuresonic was established in 1995, with the first major festival was in September 1996, and has since presented projects in Asia, Africa, N America, S America and Europe.

Futuresonic occupies the orbits of both digital culture and music, and was one of the events that brought those worlds together in the mid 1990s. Musically its roots are in club culture and the tradition of electronic dance music that began with Jamaican dub. It is well known for its art and technology events - it has played a leading role in mobile and locative media, and a current focus is social technologies, art and the city.

The festival presents live music performances focusing on the best and up-and-coming music. It also commissions unique one-off projects and artist collaborations, with a special emphasis on projects using emerging technologies.

It has explored many themes, and stages exhibitions and events on technology culture and social issues. It is a place where important international discussions take place.

The Social Technologies Summit explores how technologies can create an extension of social space or support group interaction, and asks how we can make technology more social.

Futuresonic has a growing reputation for breaking new artforms and technologies. It promotes innovative forms of participation such as the EVNTS 'wiki-festival' strand which enables people to stage autonomous events as a part of the festival. A focus in recent years has been presenting artworks in unexpected city spaces, and on social art and social technologies.

Futuresonic and Future Everything could not exist without the generous support of funders, partners, advisory group members and all the many people who have helped us since the organisation was established in 1995



Futuresonic Art

Social Networking Unplugged

Futuresonic presents a sideways and playful look at social networking, in the first major art exhibition to present a comprehensive and creative look at social networking. For five days and nights Manchester will be the most sociable city on the planet - with new commissioned artworks and many world firsts from an array of international artists across the city, Manchester city centre will be overrun with ‘unplugged’ social networking.

All around you
Some artworks do not take place in any one location, but involve everyone everywhere across the city, in the streets, at work, in the bars and clubs, on the bus...City locations

Artworks are located in unexpected city locations, around Piccadilly Gardens, the historic heart of Manchester, continuing past China Town down Portland Street to the exhibition at Cube, and then along Oxford Road towards the main music and conference venues and the Futuresonic Village

In the gallery
Forming the centrepiece of the exhibition, and located at the midway point between the city-centre festival sites and the main music and conference venues on Oxford Road, is an exhibition of artworks exploring the social networking unplugged theme at CUBE.




Futuresonic Music

"A glimpse of tomorrow's music today" BBC

The RZA - the genius behind Wu-Tang Clan and producer of soundtracks for Kill Bill and Ghost Dog - headlines as Bobby Digital in a showcase of leftfield hip-hop, celebrating the creative spirit in the genre. Also headlining are seminal art-punk pioneers Wire plus Venetian Snares, Luke Vibert, Flying Lotus, Chrome Hoof, Rustie, Rolo Tomassi, Zombie Zombie, The Chap, MIT and many more at venues city-wide.

Thurs 1 May
The RZA as Bobby Digital (Wu-Tang Clan)/Flying Lotus/Rustie Thurs 1 May, 8pm
An Audience with The RZA Thursday May 1, 7.30
Felix Kubin/Zombie Zombie/MIT/Chips With Everything DJs Thurs 1 May 1, 8pm

Fri 2 May
Chrome Hoof/Rolo Tomassi/Gay Against You/Agaskodo Teliverek Fri 2 May, 8pm
Simon Fisher-Turner Fri 2 May, 7pm
Claro Intelecto Live/Allez-Allez DJ Set/Computer Controlled Fri 2 May10pm - 3.30am

Sat 3 May
Future Of Sound: Modified Toy Orchestra/Martyn Ware/Sancho Plan Sat 3 May, 4 - 6pm & 8pm - 1am
Wire/Dirty Projectors/The Chap/Skeletons & The Kings Of All Cities Sat 3 May, 7pm
Wire in conversation Sat 3 May, 6pm
Beacons of Sound/The Drake Music Project/Unity Radio Sat 3 May, 12pm - Midnight
Sequence@Futuresonic: Venetian Snares/Luke Vibert/Bogdan Raczynski Sat 3 May, 9pm
Futuresonic & Hey! Manchester: Health/Yacht Sat 3 May, 10.30pm
El Diablo’s Social Club: 5th Birthday Rave Up Sat 3 May, 10pm
Futureworks & Sketch City Workshops Sat 3 May, 1 - 4pm, 7 till late

Sun 4 May
Junior Boys/Kelpe Live/Pedro Live/Samurai.fm/TRAMP! DJs Sun 4 May, 8pm
C’mon Feet DJs plus many others Sun 4 May, 12pm – Midnight

Mon 5 May
Last.fm Lounge: Sisters Of Transistors/Printed Circuit/Cats in Paris Mon 5 May, 4pm - Midnight
Chris Corsano/Denis Jones Mon 5 May, 5pm



Futuresonic Conference: The Social Technologies Summit

1 -2 May 2008, supporting events 30 April & 3 May

Online, Mobile and Unplugged Social Networking explored by leading figures developing the next generation of social software alongside Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software movement, and media futurist Gerd Leonhard and Last.fm on the future of music, plus keynotes, critical debates, demos, experiences and open sessions on mobile social software, freeing space in the augmented city, how game design can revolutionise social software, OpenID and who is keeping an eye on the kids.



Futuresonic EVNTS

Grow your own Futuresonic

EVNTS is a festival-within-the-festival, an open or wiki strand which enables any programmer, curator, promoter, label or artist group to present autonomous events at Futuresonic. Since its introduction in 2005, EVNTS has grown into a community of people who each year return to give the festival an extra edge. Frequently one of the most vibrant and alive areas of the festival, it is a place to discover the genres, artforms and stars of tomorrow


Organiser

Futuresonic is presented by FutureEverything CIC, a non-profit creative 'community interest company'. It is registered with Companies House UK and regulated by the CIC Regulator.

Futuresonic has been awarded Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) status by Arts Council England. Futuresonic was a 'Manchester Firsts' project commissioned by the inaugural Manchester International Festival, and was selected as an exemplar project by the Original Modern campaign directed by Peter Saville.

The founder and Artistic Director of Futuresonic is Drew Hemment

Contact:
FutureEverything CIC
Swan Buildings 20 Swan Street
Manchester M4 5JW

Office Tel 0161 834 1300
Festival Info 0161 848 8000