This February, FutureEverything, Bangalore-based tech-art platform BeFantastic, and Manchester-based partners and venue HOME will deliver a weekend pop-up event and a programme of activity sharing artistic ideas, concepts and artworks created for FutureFantastic, India’s first artificial intelligence (AI) and art festival engaging with climate change, part of the British Council’s India Together UK Season of Culture.
Dates: Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 February 2023
Give me a Sign
A prototype for an interactive storytelling tool which uses Machine Learning and hand gestures – from ancient Indian dance practices – to trigger urgent and important conversations of multiplicity, climate crisis and the anthropocene.
Artists: Upasana Nattoji Roy (India) and Diane Edwards (UK)
Only A Game (?)
A locative embodied gaming experience based on movement arts explorations where the participants use body movements as the controller to race against time and offset changes in their environment. The aim is to convey non-intuitive concepts underlying climate science, the urgency and reality of climate change, and the role of the individual and of the collective.
Artists: Pritha Kundu (India), Tiz Creel (UK) and David McFarlane (UK)
Panel discussion: Manchester to Bangalore: Art and technology at a time of climate crisis (Saturday 25 Feb, 3pm - followed by networking)
From the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the home of the first electronic-stored programme computer to the heart of India’s IT industry or Silicon Valley, Manchester and Bangalore are two cities at the forefront of digital innovation, development and technological investment. Both cities also have a thriving art tech scene and community, including artists who push technology’s boundaries and invite us to explore new perspectives and ways of thinking through their work.
In this panel discussion, we are exploring how technology and art come together at a time when society, our world and relations are heavily mediated through digital technologies and capitalism, but also at a time of great challenges, such as the climate crisis. Can art help us rethink and reimagine technology and societal systems and enable us to engage with the world and ecosystems in non exploitative ways?
Free, ticketed event. Tickets can be acquired at HOME and via the HOME website here.
Speakers: Valentino Catricala (SODA), FutureFantastic Artists - Upasana Nattoji Roy, Pritha Kundu, Diane Edwards, Tiz Creel, David McFarlane and chaired by FutureEverything Creative Director Irini Papadimitriou.