Art
More ambitious and relevant than ever, themes include society, technology and the city plus this year Environment 2.0. The exhibition takes place across Manchester and beyond, with the focal point an exhibition at the CUBE gallery. All Art exhibitions and events are FREE. Read Curator's Statement.
Elin Wikström (SE)
Reds Against Greys - One Kind of Squirrel Versus Another Kind of Squirrel (Part I)
An installation mixing film, performance art, lectures and wheelchair tag rugby to explore biodiversity issues and provide a metaphor for Darwin's battle of the species.
Ackroyd and Harvey (UK)
Gallery installation of 250 oak saplings and 3 day in-conversation event with Ackroyd & Harvey and guests. This long term project explores the legacy of renowned artist Joseph Beuys and his seminal artwork 7000 Oaks.
Amy Balkin (US)
Reading the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
A public recital of the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Join volunteer readers in the first attempted public reading of this globally important, yet rarely read document, to take place over several days.
HeHe (UK/DE)
An artist made wheel on a single train track for autonomous, personalised transport. Plus documentation of a large scale environmental artwork awarded a recent Golden Nica by Prix Ars Electronica in which a laser projection illuminates a cloud of vapour emissions produced by a power plant.
Jon Cohrs (US)
Winner of the Futuresonic 2009 Art Award. Artist Jon Cohrs has created an art device for striking it rich by prospecting for oil in the city centre. Visit CUBE to take part.
Scenocosme (FR)
Akousmaflore is a small garden composed of living musical plants or flowers that sing in response to the invisible electrical aura of human touch. A flower concert is created.
Haque Design + Research (UK/PK)
Haque Design + Research have designed an electricity socket which people can purchase and install in their homes. The socket comes equipped with a plant creating a "carbon sink."
Prayas Abhinav (IN)
A project on urban food systems in Bangalore and Delhi, exploring the nutritive, environmental and inter-personal implications that growing vegetables in the public can have on neighbourhoods.
Janine Randerson (NZ)
A film by new media artist Janine Randerson depicting the formation and decay of clouds as fluid, visual poetry and drawing conceptual parallels with the processing of data by computers.
Aaron Koblin (US)
Data visualisation artist Aaron Koblin will be presenting Flight Patterns, a stunning visual animation of the path of the thousands of aircraft in American airspace during a single day.
Andrea Polli (US)
At Futuresonic 2009, Polli is participating in the Environment 2.0 Lab and showing two artworks at CUBE including documentation of Cloud Car, a public artwork in which a cloud of steam and mist surrounds a Ford Taurus station wagon.
Eva Meyer-Keller (DE)
A film in which three different catastrophic weather scenarios are re-enacted with playful precision using household objects and materials such as a mixer, a hairdryer, salt and water.
Jonah Brucker-Cohen (US) & Mike Bennett (IE)
THWONK is an online social networking application launched at Futuresonic 2009 - it is a web 4.0 application that allows participants full manipulation of the rules of social engagement.
POC Group (ES)
Post-Oil Cities: Imagining Cities Beyond Oil
A touring exhibition curated by Lluis Sabadell Artiga and Carlos Sant'Ana with contributions from artists, architects, designers and engineers on how we might transform our cities to make them more independent from oil.
Royal College of Art & Yamaha
Yamaha have collaborated with the Royal College of Art on this exhibition of highly innovative and often unusual musical instruments and interfaces. Presented for the first time by Futuresonic 2009.
Fujiko Nakaya
Fogfalls #47670 'Tales Of Ugetsa' & Foggy Forest
Documentation of work by the winner of this year's Special Achievement Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival. Since the 1960's Fujiko Nakaya has created work exploring the interface between nature and technological society.
Cleo Evans (UK)
Following on from Liverpool's Capital of Culture year, John Lennon's Imagine will ring out across Liverpool on the world's highest and heaviest peal of bells at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral.
Yuri Suzuki (JP)
A music project played by using a mobile phone to scan QR code graffiti (two-dimensional bar-codes) sprayed by the artist in the street with a stencil.
Kim Abeles (US)
Presidential Commemorative Smog Plates and other portraits of US politicians in smog
An installation of beautiful and distinctive ceramic plates illustrating how the promises of politicians are at odds with the harm done to the environment in different eras.
Will Schrimshaw (UK)
Little Helpers are small, DIY sound making devices scattered throughout the city, each one unique and home made. Look and listen out for them in the streets near main venues and check website for further details.
Rob Bailey (UK)
Manchester artist Rob Bailey is installing thousands of tiny insects weaving a trail through the gallery. Each one is made from discarded magazines and leaflets, the detritus found under feet in urban environments.
Owl Project (UK)
One of Manchester's most original art groups, The Owl Project combine music, DIY electronics, and woodcraft. Join the global developer community, and enjoy the performance.
Ackroyd & Harvey / James Marriott (UK)
Ackroyd & Harvey in conversation with James Marriott
A rare opportunity to hear these artists discuss their mutual attachment to acorns and explore how Beuys' self-declared mission to change the social order can be interpreted at the beginning of the 21st century.
Megan MacMurray & Angela Pablo (US)
Beautiful devices indicate electricity usage in real time, to make energy consumption visible and palpable. Design project on energy in the home, by graduates from New York's influential ITP.
Various Artists
Japan Media Arts Festival Highlights
A film screening of award winning animation from this major festival, plus prize winners from the entire programme including Art, Entertainment and Manga categories.
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Sound Network & BURNEVERYTHING (UK)
Make your own unique sound piece and its packaging by operating a 'micro-recording plant' set up for the day in a live interactive installation and performance.
Mark Pilkington (UK) & Tim O'Brien (UK)
In a celebration of the International Year of Astronomy and the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings, musician Mark Pilkington and astrophysicist Tim O'Brien reinterpret the sounds from the world leading Jodrell Bank Observatory.
Elin Wikström (SE)
Reds Against Greys - One Kind of Squirrel Versus Another Kind of Squirrel (Part II)
A conceptual art event and expanded cinema performance by Elin Wikstrom with leading experts in biodiversity and Wigan and District Wheelchair Tag Rugby Club.
Drew Hemment, Yara El-Sherbini, Carlo Buontempo and Alfie Dennen
Experience 100 years of climate change simply by taking a short, late night walk. An mp3 download by artist Yara El-Sherbini will guide you during your walk. You are then invited to telephone a number to share your experience.
Carlo Buontempo, Alfie Dennen and Drew Hemment
Climate Bubbles: The Bubble Run and Bubble Racing
A playful, participatory project in which the Bubble Racing and The Bubble Run games enable people across the city of Manchester to test air flow circulation, and by sharing the results online, enable the Met Office to map the Urban Heat Island phenomenon.
Christian Nold with Natural History Museum, Rebecca Ellis and Drew Hemment
A participatory project to discover and map Manchester's urban wildlife in new ways. People will move along a straight line through Manchester, traversing a range of microclimates, including cooler and warmer areas of the city.
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