We’re still in 2006 and already Manchester’s digital arts, society and technology festival is beginning to take shape. Futuresonic 2007 will move from July back to the May slot it last occupied in 2004. Key themes in 2007 include:

ENVIRONMENT 2.0
In 2007 a focus of the Social Technologies Summit is ENVIRONMENT 2.0, a new international initiative in which two worlds collide:

• The world is waking up to realities of climate change, long predicted but until now too easy to ignore.
• The world is in love with smart environments, mobile communication, pervasive media, wearable computing.

Can these two approaches to environment, each one iconic for our times, be reconciled?

The Social Technologies Summit will host a network meeting for ENVIRONMENT 2.0, and present the findings of a pioneering study of the carbon footprint of the Futuresonic festival, undertaken in collaboration with Manchester-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Creative Concern.

FREE-MEDIA
A linked focus is FREE-MEDIA. Free-media is about finding inspiration and resources in our built and natural environment that were previously dismissed as being without value or irrelevant. It doesn’t cost much because it makes use of public domain Free and Open Source Software, and recycles freely available old equipment, waste materials and junk (FOSS). Free-media increases access to media technologies, especially to the people who need it most and can afford it the least, and lowers environmental impact of the media we produce and consume.

THE MAP DESIGNERS
The 2007 Summit will also play host to THE MAP DESIGNERS, an event drawing together map hackers, artists, cartographers, DIY technologists, architects, game programmers, bloggers and semantic web philosophers. Presented by the British Cartographic Society, the event will focus upon the interface between cartography and cutting edge design.

FUTUREVISUAL
As the main conference strand of the Futuresonic festival, the Social Technologies Summit will also host discussions of the festival’s artistic themes. In 2007 this will involve a conference strand supporting Futurevisual, a city wide celebration of future image and sound. It will mark the 40th anniversary of the first multimedia events of the kind that we would understand today, which took place in the halcyon year of 1967, the year that also saw the first crossover between avant garde and popular music, and the introduction of the Moog synthesiser. The conference will feature seminal figures from the period, alongside contemporary artists who can connect with the energy and openness of 1967, and bring it bang up to date.

If you like the sound of that lot, you can book early and save £20 off the standard delegate price. The deadline for advanced bookings is December 31 (payment by January 31) and they can be made on the Futuresonic website or by emailing tickets2007@futuresonic.com.