Festivals and Politics

Planetary Breakdown: autonomous infrastructures for a sustainable future was a one day event in Gateshead on 10 March 2010, investigating artistic strategies for sustainability and survivability following impending climate change. This live Twitter feed from the event forms the first part of an ongoing editorial that examines the role of the arts and artists in relation to the green agenda.

We've got a very special EXCLUSIVE buy one get one free offer from the AV Festival 10 for the RIVERS performances on Sunday 14 March. Read on for more information...

Want to know what's going on at the AV Festival? Keep up to date with all the latest news and gossip by following the Axis Twitter feed. For the duration of the AV Festival Axis will be filtering Tweets relating to the festival and showing live feeds from our writers and editor who will be attending events, exhibitions, performances and conferences. You can also use this page to make your own comments and join in the conversations

FutureEverything (formerly Futuresonic) is an art, technology and social innovation organisation that runs an annual festival of art, music and ideas. FutureEverything 2010 takes place 12-15 May in Manchester England. Artistic Director Drew Hemment takes us through its history and highlights

Axis have negotiated 15% off the current Delegate Registration rate for the FutureEverything Festival & Conference taking place in Manchester between 12 - 15 May 2010. Read on to find out more about FutureEverything and how to claim your discounted ticket...

The festival ‘season’ is nearly upon us. That time each year when you emerge from the hangover of Christmas into a seething mass of exciting arts festivals and events. My ‘festival’ bag is nearly packed so I can be ready to set off around the UK to take in some of the best visual, film, media and sound art that is on offer at the moment. This is the first in a series of previews of the festivals that the webzine will be visiting...

Artist Liliane Lijn's work is concerned with light and its relationship to matter. She describes relationships as being the key to her practice because she sees ‘relations’ as being the crux of reality. These relationships then, as opposed to things, become the most important. Constantly inventing new ways to experience phenomena her work has refined and reformed itself over her pioneering career bringing science into art.

As large-scale posters of a wrinkle-free David Cameron hit our streets, the Conservative Party’s plans for arts and heritage spending are coming sharply into focus. They have a 10% lead in the opinion polls and could soon be in a position to implement their policies. So what can we expect? Sheila McGregor, Axis Chief Executive, reports on two encounters with the putative government in waiting.

This national symposium discusses online access to film archives and the creative use of this material in the digital age. During the symposium on Friday 12 March, William Rose will be sending a few tweets to keep us up-to-date with the conversation and they can be seen here. This will be followed next week by an extended report looking at the key points raised in the discussion.

In keeping with the theme of this issue our new Ranter Becky Hunter asks us if political art can ever empower us? Or does it just reduce the anarchistic spirit to aesthetics and art dollars? Can art ever replace action? And if you displace the art from the original political context, does this dilute its message?

This week Shaun plunges into the world of the semi-professional art guru - or the 'curatoriat', as he has termed the ever growing army of art school graduates working not as artists, but as facilitators of art activity in their cities. With his ever critical eye he asks what the growth of the 'curatoriat' means to the individual artist...

Our new Ranter-in-Residence for February, Shaun Belcher, starts off on a topical, if controversial note, asking 'has Arts Council England (ACE) failed? Do we really need it anyway?'. Shaun asks if the lottery years have set ACE up for a fall as we move into tighter financial times and political pressures are heightening.