Futuresonic Conference 2008 Thur 1 May & Fri 2 May With supporting events 21 Apr & 3 May Contact Theatre, Manchester 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 Gerd Leonhard on the future of music, plus keynotes, critical debates, demos, experiences and open sessions on mobile social software, freeing space in the augmented city, the future of music, how game design can revolutionise social software, OpenID and who is keeping an eye on the kids. Learn more about the festival theme.   Art Music Conference Getting Involved Past Commissions and Projects

The Conference Digital culture burns bright with a vision of being not in isolation but in groups, placing the relations between people first. Beyond the hype lies ever greater isolation and conformity. Join us as we go in search of the social. 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 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. Open and participatory sessions will be combined with keynotes and panel discussions, promising a fun and engaging number of days. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| The Theme The Social - Online, Mobile & Unplugged Social Networking 40 years after 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. The festival and conference 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. Today we can occupy many different social spaces at once. Social software, online worlds, and the internet itself create an extension of social space, and new ways for people to find the stuff that interests them, link up with others, and share. Computers have become social interfaces for sharing digital media and collaborating to build online communities and folksonomies. 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 conference will explore how we can rethink all kinds of social space and social interaction - how can we remake cities, or intervene in the forces, inequities and inequalities that shape society. Some technologies are more social than others. Social technologies are bottom up and many-to-many instead of one-to-one or one-to-many. They can include technologies created and maintained by social networks, such as communities of developers and users working collaboratively with open source tools. But at the same time 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. Digital culture burns bright with a vision of being not in isolation but in groups, placing the relations between people first. Beyond the hype lies ever greater isolation and conformity. Join us as we go in search of the social. Web 2.0... I take part you take part he takes part we take part you all take part they profit. (Paris '68 slogan remixed)   Download Registration Form - If you want to meet the creative thinkers, artists, programmers, digital media experts, scientists, industry specialists, hardware and software developers, marketers, political thinkers and activists - If you want to find out about new technologies and their impact on tomorrow's society - If your group or company is looking for new and exciting ways to create, do business and interact Then sign up early to the Futuresonic Conference. Download the Registration Form below and return with your payment. Or email your name, address and contact details to ideas2008@futuresonic.com to receive full conference details and priority booking options. Download Registration Form Conference Tickets Advance Delegate Pass || £100 Delegate Pass (on the door) || £150 Students/Concessions || £30 * Further discounts available for group bookings - please contact ideas2008@futuresonic.com for further details. * A limited number of pay-what-you Day Passes will be available on each day of the conference - please contact ideas2008@futuresonic.com for further details. The full-price Delegate Pass (advance and door rates) includes a Weekender WrIstband which gives access to key festival events. Delegates will also be offered special advance music ticket offers. Reservations and Further Details Download the Registration Form below and return with your payment. Or email your name, address and contact details to ideas2008@futuresonic.com to receive full conference details and priority booking options. Download Registration Form |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Call For Submissions Futuresonic now invites submissions 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. *SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED* For details on submitting to the conference click here   Conference Speakers Include: Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist, Author, CEO www.sonific.com The Wall Street Journal describes Gerd Leonard as one of the leading media futurists in the world. He is the co-author of the influential book The Future of Music (2005, Berklee Press), and currently is CEO of Sonific.com. Gerd's work focuses on the convergent sectors of music & content, technology, communications and culture. Gerd is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London). www.mediafuturist.com Richard Stallman, Founder, Free Software Foundation Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, and the the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary doctorates. www.gnu.org Jonas Woost, Head Of Music, Last.fm Jonas Woost will feature on a panel of leading industry experst to talk on Web 2.0's impact on music industry, and the 'Future of Music'. Last.fm is a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It is the world's largest social music platform with over 15 million active users based in more than 200 countries.[1] On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m (US$280m), making Last.fm the largest European Web 2.0 purchase to date. www.last.fm Scott Cohen, Founder, The Orchard Founded in New York City in 1997. The Orchard sprung from the belief that every independent label and artist deserves the opportunity to make its music available throughout the world. Scott will feature on a panel of leading industry experst to talk on Web 2.0's impact on music industry, and the 'Future of Music'. www.theorchard.com Matt Locke Matt Locke is Commissioning Editor for Education and New Media at Channel 4. He was previously Head of Innovation for BBC New Media & Technology, responsible for developing and running research programmes academic and industry partnerships, and developing open innovation initiatives. Matt has worked as a curator and writer, and still continues to write regularly about these themes for journals, websites and his own site. www.test.org.uk Matt Fuller Matthew Fuller is currently Reader in Media Design at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam. He is the author of ATM; Behind the Blip, essays on the culture of software; Media ecologies, materialist energies in art and technoculture and, Softness: interrogability; general intellect; art methodologies in software. He is a regular collaborator with the artists group Mongrel. www.mongrelx.org Ravikant Shama, Sarai Ravikant taught and researched history in Delhi University for a number of years. He currently conceptualises and edits content at Sarai. Sarai is a programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, (CSDS) one of India’s leading research institutes with a commitment to critical and dissenting thought and a focus on critically expanding the horizons of the discourse on development. www.sarai.net Tapio Makela Tapio Mäkelä is a media artist, researcher and an event organiser based in Helsinki, Finland. He is currently working on an Arts Council Finland and Finnish Academy grant in the "arts and interaction" funding programme. Mäkelä was the programme chair of ISEA2004, the 12th International Symposium of Electronic Art. Tapio Mäkelä has also participated with interactive web based installations to Ars Electronica and ISEA. www.translocal.net/tapio Ele Carpenter Ele Carpenter is an independent curator and researcher based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Her curatorial practice responds to specific socio-political cultural contexts in collaboration with individuals, groups and organisations. Ele is currently completing her PhD in the relationship between politicised socially engaged art and new media art, with CRUMB at the University of Sunderland. www.elecarpenter.org.uk Paul Coulton, Nokia Innovation Network Paul Coulton leads the UK's Nokia Innovation Network hub, which aims to research, develop and deploy innovative mobile solutions. The network focuses on applied research, proof of concept development, real world testing, rapid prototyping, and mobile systems and applications training and education. The network will enable scalable collaboration activities and foster innovation capturing and knowledge transfer between mobile developers globally. The hub is based at Lancaster University which is consistently rated amongst the top ten universities in the UK. Interests include Location Based Services, Gaming and Entertainment, and Mobile Social Networks. Olga Goriunova Olga Goriunova is a researcher and an organiser in the fields of digital media arts and cultures, based in Moscow. She currently teaches audiovisual arts, philosophy and sociology of art and media theory in Moscow City University and Moscow State University of Humanities Katie Lips Katie is a well known Social Media Strategist, blogger, and Director of her North West based company Kisky Netmedia. Katie's background was in Arts Management & Cultural Policy; and she now focuses on helping many cultural organisations leverage the power of Web 2.0 platforms, tools and principles. www.katielips.com Ronald Lenz Ronald Lenz heads the Locative Media research program a the Waag Society, a media lab in Amsterdam, and is also creative director at 7Scenes, a company that develops location-aware software for the cultural, educational and events sector. www.waag.org Gabe Sawhney Gabe Sawhney is a hacker working at the edges of code and culture. He is co-creator of [murmur], a location-specific oral storytelling project that makes accessible the hidden stories of cities on three continents. He is a founder of Wireless Toronto, a community group offering free-to-use hotspots in public and publicly-accessible spaces in the city, each featuring its own "hyperlocal" community portal. www.33magnetic.com Monika Buscher Monika Buscher has recently been appointed Senior Lecturer in the mobilities.lab at the Sociology Department at Lancaster University, building research and design for new mobilities. Her work informs mobilities research, ethnomethodology, science and technology studies, participatory design, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), and pervasive computing. Beryl Graham Beryl Graham is Professor of New Media Art at the School of Art, Design and Media, University of Sunderland, and co-editor of CRUMB - an online resource for those who curate, exhibit, organise, or archive new media art. www.crumbweb.org Andrew Wilson In 2004 Andrew was AHRB/Arts Council England Visiting Fellow in the School of Biology, University of Newcastle, investigating portable technology, networks and cooperation. He has presented workshop papers on social and cultural applications of RFID technology and ubiquitous computing. www.blinkmedia.org James Wallbank James Wallbank is an artist, activist and social entrepreneur who has worked across the fields of the creative arts, computer recycling, open source software and peer-learning communities. He founded, "Redundant Technology Initiative" and in 2000 RTI opened "Access Space", a walk-in, open access media lab posing the question "What creative things can you do with all this technology?" Access Space has remained making it one of the longest lived open access internet learning centre in the UK. http://access-space.org CONFERENCE PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE The Programme Committee for the Futuresonic 2008 Conference is Anne Galloway, Beryl Graham, Charlie Gere, Gabriella Giannachi, Gunalan Nadarajan, Joel Slayton, Karen Gaskill, Leon Cruickshank, Lucy Suchman, Melinda Rackham, Michelle Kasprzak, Monika Buscher, Nina Czegledy, Paul Coulton, Sadie Plant CONFERENCE STEERING COMMITTEE The Conference Steering Committee consists of Ele Carpenter, Tapio Makela, Colin Fallows, Leon Cruickshank and Drew Hemment. Sign up to the Futuresonic mailing list to receive regular updates. Buy Tickets Now! Web 2.0... I take part you take part he takes part we take part you all take part they profit. (Paris '68 slogan remixed)