The City as Living Lab or Play Space

Drew Hemmenthttp://futureeverything.org http://imagination.lancaster.ac.uk

Festivals as Living LabsCo-creating networked urban futures.

Transforming the city into a living lab for participatory experiments in art, society and technology.

A global festival of art, music & ideas4 days / 300 artists and speakers / 100 events / 40 venues.Established 1995.

The FutureEverything Festival Global festival of art, music & ideas

The FutureEverything Festival Global festival of art, music & ideas

The FutureEverything Festival Global festival of art, music & ideas

The FutureEverything Festival Global festival of art, music & ideas

The FutureEverything AwardBringing the future into the present.

The EyeWriterFutureEverything Award 2010 Winner

The FutureEverything CommunityGlobal Network.

A destination for a world-wide community of artists, technologists and future-thinkers.

FutureEverything LabsBringing the future into the present.

FutureEverything Labs devise and test innovations in art, society and technology.

Art in the public realm

Mobile Connections(2003-5)

Mobile Connections(2003-5)

Loca: Set To Discoverable (2004-6)

Loca consists of a small network of nodes...

inside each node is a Bluetooth device,made of readily available components,

encased in concrete for use in the urban environment.

The nodes are deployed in public spaces.

Art For Shopping Centres (2007)

Social Networking Unplugged (2008)

Environment 2.0 (2006-9)

The City Experiment (2009-10)

Open Data Cities (2009-10)

New Mobilities (2009-11)

Bringing the future into the present

Research connections

FutureEverythingThe only way to predict the future, is to invent it.

FutureEverything is an art, technology and social innovation organisation that runs year round innovation labs and an annual festival of art, music and ideas.

ImaginationLancasterUsing design, innovation and creativity to stimulate and enable interdisciplinary research into people, products, places and systems for the future.Lancaster University

http://imagination.lancaster.ac.uk

FutureEverything as Research Project

FutureEverything (formerly Futuresonic) was a part of Lancaster University's successful RAE2008 (Research Assessment Exercise) return.

Rated among the top 4 UK universities for research in Art & Design.

The method.

FutureEverything LabsBringing the future into the present.

Year-round innovation labs, lasting between 9-36 months, each looking at a specific theme.

New Mobilities (2009-11)Open Data Cities (2009-10)Distant Collaboration (2009-10)The City Experiment (2009-10)Environment 2.0 (2006-9)Social Networking Unplugged (2007-9)Art For Shopping Centres (2007)Futurevisual (2007)Off The Map (2006)Instrument (2006)

Low Grade (2005)Mobile Connections (2003-5)FutureDJ (2004)Turntable Re:mix (2004)Migrations (2002-3)Blacktronica (2002)Sensurround (2001-2)BrokenChannel (2001)Audiovisions (2000)SenseSonic (1999)Sub.merge (1998)

FutureEverything Labs

Festival as Living LabBringing the future into the present.

The festival creates a space in which participants can experiment and play - transforming the city into a space of experimentation, making it come alive.

Festival as Living LabBringing the future into the present.

Participatory art-design interventions construct possible futures and enable people to inhabit them experientially and experimentally, bringing the future into the present.

Festival as Living LabBringing the future into the present.

These experiments devise and test innovations in art, society and technology, and collaboratively generate ideas and concepts.

Festival as Living LabBringing the future into the present.

Activity can include artworks, technology prototypes, social innovations and design projects.

Co-creating networked urban futures.

The evolution of the method and the approach to the public realm.

Mobile Connections(2003-5)

Locative Media: The return of the “Here”

Locative ArtsOr, art by the geospatially uninhibited

New ways of seeing, sensing and representingRadar, sonar, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, GIS, etc

Seeking an art of mobile communications:Are there any forms of expression that are intrinsic or unique to mobile and wireless media?

•We are all being mapped, •all of the time

•The devices we carry leave traces of our movements

Loca: Set To Discoverable (2004-6)

Loca consists of a small network of nodes...

inside each node is a Bluetooth device,made of readily available components,

encased in concrete for use in the urban environment.

The nodes are deployed in public spaces.

Mobile Connections(2003-5)

Loca: Set To Discoverable (2004-6)

•We are all being mapped, •all of the time

•The devices we carry leave traces of our movements

Locative media energised an renewed engagement in the city.

Art For Shopping Centres (2007)

Art For Shopping Centres (2007)

Art as intervention in the city; locative media, net-art and free-media in urban spaces.

Mediashed The Duellists (2007)

Social Networking Unplugged (2008)

Environment 2.0 (2006-9)

Environment 2.0

Exploring the interface between digital footprint and environmental footprint, drawing on new approaches to the environment from pervasive and locative media and work on issues related to climate change and sustainability

http://futuresonic.com/09/env20

One billion eyes"A populace so knowing and capable that all problems get noticed and addressed, quickly, by a billion eyes."- David Brin

BiotaggingDiscovering and creating a folksonomy of the city's urban wildlife. People moved through a range of microclimates observing and identifying the plants, animals and fungi they find along the route. A 'Rover' vehicle was used to film and collect data. Participants were able to think up their own ways to classify and record the wildlife they discovered.

Christian Nold, Rebecca Ellis, John Tweddle, Drew Hemment

Climate Bubbles

A playful, participatory project in which bubble blowing games enable people across the city of Manchester to test air flow circulation, and by sharing the results online, enable the Met Office to get a snapshot the Urban Heat Island phenomenon

Drew Hemment, Carlo Buontempo, Alfie Dennen

Open Data Cities (2009-10)FutureEverything is leading the charge to make Manchester an Open Data City.

The City Experiment (2009-10)Serendipity City Challenge

Distant Collaboration (2009-10)Exploring new ways to be globally connected, and the potential for artworks involving remote collaboration.

Globally Networked Event (GloNet)

Developing a new type of global event taking us to new corners of the globe and reducing air travel.Shifting from a single city event, to one taking place simultaneously at venues around the globe.

New Mobilities (2009-11)

A collaborative project, join us!