FutureEverything is an innovation agency that hosts an annual festival in Manchester, England. The festival is both a cultural event and a research vehicle, using participatory design methods to experiment with new ideas and technologies. Through year-round labs and the 4-day festival, FutureEverything explores emerging digital cultures and ways that art, technology and public participation can shape the future of cities. The document discusses several past projects from the festival that prototyped new social applications or gathered city-wide data through public participation.

1. Festival As Lab OpenLivingLabs, Amsterdam, 2 September 2014
Drew Hemment
CEO & Founder, FutureEverything
Dundee Fellow & Reader, University of Dundee

2. FutureEverything Est. 1995
FutureEverything is an innovation agency, that presents city
data services, design for science, innovation events, advice and
training, art commissions, and experiences and demonstration.
It's festival is both a cultural event and research vehicle, for
experimentation in methods and mechanisms for research and
knowledge exchange around the emergence of a digital culture.

3. The Festival
Overview

4. The FutureEverything Festival
A global festival of ideas, art, invention

5. The FutureEverything Festival
A global festival of ideas, art, invention

6. The FutureEverything Festival
A global festival of ideas, art, invention

7. The annual festival
4 days / 200 artists and speakers / 80 events / 20 venues.
Festival 2013
Festival 2010
Festival 2012
Festival 2009
Festival 2011
Festival 2008

8. Labs
Year-round labs with city, culture, science and industry partners.
Smart Citizens
(2013)
Urban Interface
(2009-10)
Digital Public
Space (2011-13)
Globally Connected
Events (2009-10)
The Data Dimension
(2010-2012)
Social Networking
Unplugged (2008)

9. Festival As Lab - living lab

10. Academic Interface
Internationally leading in the Research Excellence Framework

11. www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/feb/17/top-10-ideas-festivals

12. FutureEverything
Wider Programme

13. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
Established 1995

14. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
Data Synchronisation Programme
Linking public sector data: release open
data and unlock its potential; challenge
the data community to innovate
City Data Services

15. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
ArtsAPI
Insight and value
through data analysis
Data Insight

16. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
Smart Citizen Manchester
(SMARTMCR) - Crowd sensing
platform: measuring air quality
Citizen Engagement

17. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
emoto - London 2012 data visualisation
Visualising audience response in real time
Art Commissions

18. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
Climate Services
Design for science - data
visualisation, UX design, etc
Design For Science

19. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
ODI Manchester
Open data advocacy
Open Data Advocacy

20. FuIntunorveaEtiovne Argyetnhciyng
Smart Citizens
eds Hemment, Townsend
Publications

21. Festival As Lab
Emergence of method

22. Living Labs – 'in the wild'
“Somewhere, something incredible
is waiting to be known.”
Carl Sagan (Astronomer,
Writer, Scientist)

23. Festival As Lab
Art and participatory design methods combined with public trials.

24. Experiences and Demonstration
City wide participatory experiences.

25. Prototyping the near future
Use of art and design prototypes to read and design the
future. Combining scenarios and ethnography, with
methods such as 'Wizard of Oz'.

26. Art as mode of enquiry
Art enables questions, tacit knowledge and the otherwise
inexpressible to be externalised and given tangible form.

27. Social Infrastructure
Research experiments with social infrastructure that endures.
DataGM

28. Curating Innovation
Putting into play of new patterned networks or
assemblages of people, ideas, things and actions.

29. Festival As Lab
Cities become laboratories for new
ways of living, playing, governing, new
forms of citizenship.

30. Publishing and sharing methods, mechanisms
futureeverything.wikispaces.com

32. The Carnivalesque
How can a festival become
an innovation agency, and
an innovation agency
become a festival?

33. Carnivalesque
A temporary space and moment,
using humour and chaos to subvert
social norms and liberate new ideas.

34. Festival As Lab
A temporary space and moment,
using co-design and play to disrupt
norms and liberate new ideas.

35. Festival As Lab
Projects

36. OurTravel
Festival Navigator 'Field Trial'

37. Chattr
Reverse 'Wizard of OZ'

38. @Chattrleaks
"This is like kissing whilst being watched."

39. City Fictions
'Design Fiction' In The Wild

40. Digital Public Space

41. The Space

42. Blast Theory - I'd Hide You

43. FutureEverything Innovation Challenge Winner 2013

44. Environment 2.0
Leonardo Special Section
(and Prototype Artworks,
Curated Exhibition)

46. Art Prototypes, Exhibition, Conference
13-16 May 2009, Manchester UK

47. Project Development Workshop
24-25 March 2009, Lancaster University

48. Climate Bubbles:
Manchester
Help build a climate
model of Manchester
by blowing bubbles!
Play & Upload
Take measurements by playing our two bubble games,
then upload your results to our website to build a live
map of wind patterns in Manchester.
Turn over for full instructions
Perfect Timing
We need lots of measurements on the same
day. The day will be announced online from
May 10th and confirmed 24 hours before, so
please check:
www.futuresonic.com/bubbles
Both bubble games are intended to be played
outside throughout Manchester.
While playing the games please ensure that you
think about your own safety and that of others.
While chasing bubbles make sure that you do not
run across roads or trespass onto other’s
property. Do not drink the bubble liquid.
Ensure that an adult is present at all times.
Two playful, participatory bubble
games which enable people
across the city of Manchester to
map air flow and the urban climate,
devised by Futuresonic and the Met Office.
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Pellentesque eu arcu massa, sed vehicula sapien.
Nulla nec velit vel mi ornare pulvinar et eget est. Sed
non diam sit amet metus rhoncus eleifend.
BE PROUD.
LOVE MANCHESTER.

49. 1 Start location
Choose somewhere easy to pinpoint on an online
map, like the entrance to a park or just outside
your house, somewhere it is safe to run around.
Also record what time you start the chase.
The Bubble Race
1 Start location
Choose a start location. If you just completed a
Bubble Run start right there!
Remember to record the time of day you
start the race.
Note the location and time here... Note the location and time here...
2 Blow a bubble, Chase it, Repeat
Chase a single bubble until it pops, lands or floats
somewhere you cannot follow. Blow another bubble
from the finishing point. Repeat 5-10 times.
Be very careful not to run into a road or garden
3 End location
After 5-10 bubbles, record the final place you
end up, so you can later pinpoint it online.
Upload your results
2 Set the finish line
Mark a 10 metre distance (10 large adult steps) from
your start location in the direction of the wind.
x10 10 Metres
3 Time a bubble
Use a stopwatch (or a mobile
phone) to time how long it takes
for a single bubble to reach the
finish line. Try it with a friend.
Note the end location here... Write the race time here...
Urban Festival of Art, Music and Ideas
Climate Bubbles:
Manchester
The Bubble Chase
www.futuresonic.com/bubbledata
Two playful, participatory bubble games which
enable people across the city of Manchester to
map air flow and the urban climate, devised by
Futuresonic and the Met Office.
Upload your results to our website to help the
Met Office build a model of Manchester’s Urban
Heat Island.
Perfect Timing
We need lots of measurements on the same
day. The day will be announced online from
May 10th and confirmed 24 hours before, so
please check:
www.futuresonic.com/bubbles
Both bubble games are intended to be played outside
throughout Manchester.
While playing the games please ensure that you think
about your own safety and that of others. While
chasing bubbles make sure that you do not run across
roads or trespass onto other’s property. Do not drink
the bubble liquid.
Ensure that an adult is present at all times.
BE PROUD.
LOVE MANCHESTER.

50. Project Website

51. Bubble Blowing Kits
Distributed City Wide (Or Make Your Own)

52. Bubble Blowing Games In Manchester

53. Project Website

56. “HOW FAR WILL WE ACCEPT
PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS BEING
CAPTURED AND SHARED ONLINE?”

57. “WHAT ARE THE IMPLICIT
RULES FOR EXCHANGES IN
THESE NEW SPACES, AND
HOW DO VISITORS
NEGOTIATE THESE?”

62. Consent Chat Transcribe Publish
chattr.cc @chattrleaks

65. RESEARCH METHODS

69. REFLECTIONS
• Implications of technology
• Experience of the project
• Trade offs
• Reputation of their pseudonym

70. BEHAVIOUR CHANGES
• Self censorship
• Gaming the system
• Deliberately controversial
• Talking to the machine

71. “This is like kissing
whilst being watched...
after a while you don't
think about it anymore.”

72. Festival As Lab
Key Characteristics

73. Why Festivals?
• Involve large numbers of people taking part in
experimental, playful activity.
• Participatory spaces that nurture play, risk and
community creation.
• Enable the free circulation of people and ideas,
connecting people at different levels, from grass
roots to government and business leaders.

74. Festival As Lab Characteristics
Festivals as agile RND environments for real-world
rapid prototyping, open innovation and user-led
design.
• Experts and passionate amateurs coming
together to imagine and experience the future.
• City as playspace - People and businesses play
and experiment with the infrastructure of a city.
• These experiments devise and test innovations,
and generate visibility and engagement.

75. Festival As Lab Differentiation
FestivalAsLab LivingLab
pop-up,
light touch
embedded,
longitudinal
staged,
extraordinary
real world,
ordinary
wide
engagement
deep
engagement

76. Discussion
Different rule and
permission spaces
Art / research / commercial.
Public space / private space.

77. Call To Action
FutureEverything 2015
25-28 February 2015
drew@futureeverything.org