Output details

FutureEverything 2008-13. (Series of Festivals, with associated Publications, Workshops, Laboratory)

FutureEverything (aka Futuresonic 2008-9) is a curatorial project focused around the paradigm of an annual festival – engaging over 1,200 artists and 150,000 audience members. It was conceived as a living lab for advancing understanding and practice in emerging artforms and social and digital innovation. Hemment developed the 'Festival As Lab' – a methodological framework designed to underpin the curatorial context for FutureEverything. This framework and the festival itself provide a vehicle to evaluate new ideas in digital culture through art and design prototypes. The mechanism supports collaborative, interdisciplinary practice-based research with stakeholders and practitioners in the host city, Manchester, and from around the world. Hemment posits the festival format, with its iterative yearly presentation and associated publication and conference. This provides a unique platform where advances in understanding and practice in emerging artforms and innovative applications of new technologies can respond to the cutting edge of social and political thought.

The outcome is a highly forceful understanding of the contemporary character of culture and community in a computerised, networked and collaborative world. The festival strives to enable increased research, industry and public engagement in digital culture, a stronger creative economy, and contributions to social and digital innovation. It has advanced new knowledge, organised into thematic programmes Smart Citizens (2013), Digital Public Space (2011-13), The Data Dimension (2010-2012), Urban Interface (2009-10), Globally Connected Events (2009-10), and Social Networking Unplugged (2008).

FutureEverything named by The Guardian (2012) one of the top ten ideas festivals in the world, and recognised by awards from the arts, technology and business sectors, including Lever Prize 2010. Accredited as a Living Lab (2011) by European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), funded by ACE (NPO), NESTA, TSB and EC (FP7, CIP, ERDF and Culture Programmes).