FUTURESONIC 2009 — Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas :: May 13-16, 2009 :: Manchester, UK.

Now in its 14th year, Futuresonic is an international festival featuring world premiers of astonishing artworks, an explosive city-wide music programme, and visionary thinkers from around the world. Featuring 50,000 festival visitors and 300 artists at 100 events in a city-wide urban festival experience.

Art: Futuresonic’s 2009 art programme is more ambitious and relevant than ever. A forest in the gallery grown from Joseph Beuys’ acorns, a project engaging the population of Manchester in monitoring climate and biodiversity, and John Lennon’s Imagine ringing out on cathedral bells in Liverpool. Themes include society, technology and the city plus this year Environment 2.0. Art exhibition across Manchester and beyond, centred at the CUBE Gallery.

Music: All Music events are on sale now. From the breathtaking AV performance of Mexican electronica pioneer Murcof and the lo-fi future folk of LA’s Ariel Pink, to legendary NYC hip-hop crew Anti-Pop Consortium, the driving doom metal of Electric Wizard and a highly anticipated UK performance from Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, this is the best, most explosive, all-encompassing Futuresonic music lineup to date. For full listings and to buy tickets go here.

Social Technologies Summit: The Social Technologies Summit is the place where the technology and digital sectors connect with the creative vision of the international digital arts community. A leading international conference where 500 opinion formers, futurologists, artists, researchers and technologists to explore the latest upgrade affecting today’s digital culture. Leading international speakers include Stowe Boyd, Jamais Cascio, Rachel O’Connell, Adam Greenfield and Tom Ilube. Register as a delegate online.

EVNTS : The Futuresonic EVNTS strand is a festival-within-the-festival showcasing the best new and original events, performances and creative happenings. An innovation unique to Futuresonic, EVNTS is a place to discover the genres, artforms and stars of tomorrow and takes place across the entire city centre. EVNTS is a ‘wiki-festival’ which throws open the doors of the festival to new and innovative event organisers and artist groups. EVNTS is 5 years old this year! To see the full list of the 2009 EVNTS award winners go here.

The Festival: Futuresonic Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas is an international festival now in its 14th year occupying the orbits of both digital culture and music. It combines the Social Technologies Summit with art and music events, exhibitions and live performances across the city. Transforming the city into a space of experimentation, making it come alive

Futuresonic is presented by FutureEverything CIC. It is a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) of Arts Council England North West, a pillar event of Manchester City Council and is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. FutureEverything was shortlisted for the highly acclaimed 2009 Lever Prize.

Futuresonic is presented in partnership with ImaginationLancaster, a major new research lab at Lancaster University.

In 2010 Futuresonic will return as FutureEverything.