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Young Barbican Nights: Life Rewired Launch

Join Young Barbican for a free night of talks, workshops, music and art exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything. 

Installations and Exhibitions

In The Curve
Artist and Jarman Award 2018 winner Daria Martin revisits dreams and memories from her personal family history to create a complex portrait of migration, loss and resilience.

Come visit the experience on the night and explore atmospheric film and gaming technology. Find out more about Daria Martin: Tonight the World.

There will be a tour of the exhibition at 6.30pm with Priya Jay who worked on the curation of the exhibition.

On Level G
Explore this surreal lost property office where you will uncover stories in the most unlikely places.

As a society fixated on youth and agelessness, we tend to ignore an important question about ageing: what will it be like for me? Unclaimed, a new installation by The Liminal Space, puts forward new narratives about ageing. With the help of talking shoes, binoculars that let you see through someone else’s eyes and books that read to you, the often untold stories of what it’s like to grow old in the UK today are brought vividly to life. Read more about Unclaimed: The Liminal Space.

Curator and artist Hector Dyer will be running workshops and holding talks inspired by Unclaimed. Read below to find out more.

 

Talks in the Life Rewired Hub
Most of the talks taking place throughout the night will happen twice but each session has limited capacity. 

Future of Smart Materials
6pm / 7.55pm
Join Dr. Anna Ploszajski to explore the futuristic world of smart materials, where solid objects will be able to move, morph, sense and adapt to changes in their environment, not because of cunning robotics or fancy electronics, but because of their intrinsic materials properties. Anna will also be roving through the Barbican Centre throughout the evening demonstrating some of these materials in person. 

Perfecting the pitch
6.25pm / 8.20pm
Kate Fagan, Head of Production at The Smalls, will take you through the dos and don'ts in creating the perfect proposal for a film brief. She'll be discussing her latest commission with the Barbican, The Life Rewired Shorts, and give us her insight as to why the first two videos of the season were chosen.

An introduction to Unclaimed: The Liminal Space
6.45pm 
Curator Hector Dyer talks through the newly opened installation Unclaimed by The Liminal Space and how art, science and research can be brought together to present a new perspective on ageing.

Where is the authentic in the age of technological reproduction?
7.05pm / 8.35pm
The constant presence of screens in our day to day lives has firmly embedded artworks into our daily routines. This mass trivialisation of the image challenges traditional notions of authenticity. In discussing the relationship between his paintings and their digital replicas artist Realf Heygate considers whether the work of art’s once cultic status is reaffirmed, or completely disintegrated. 

The Peter Pan generation
7.25pm
Does the year we’re born in change the way we communicate and how do we talk to people who are older or younger than ourselves? In this open workshop we’ll be exploring communication between generations - what works and what needs to change.

 

In the Level G Studio
Each of the sessions has limited capacity. Be sure to arrive on time if you want to attend. Ask on the door for more information.

Extending the senses
6.30–7.15pm
In this workshop, we’ll explore the senses that go beyond the five we’re used to as well as how new technology is helping people replace a sense they’ve lost or even develop entirely new ones. You’ll even get to try out a sense-replacing app that helps blind people navigate a world that’s largely set up for those who can see.

Sensory play to calm you down
7.30–8.15pm
Living in a highly connected world can take its toll. One way we can combat stress is to spend time ‘in our senses’, paying attention to what we’re experiencing. In this workshop, we’ll try out some sensory games to help bring calm to your life, and explore what the brain is doing as we play those games.

Sessions run by Clare Jonas

 

In the Fountain Room

Screen printing with Screengrab
Drop in
Join Screengrab in their pop-up screen printing studio and have a go printing your very own screen print made by Illustrator Catalina Velásquez from her work on the Life Rewired Reads.

Livecodelab workshop
6.15pm / 7.30pm
Using LiveCodeLab learn how to code your own 3D visuals that shape, form and change as you type. This workshop session will be led by visual artist, Antonio Roberts, who will help you create weird and wonderful art on your computer screen.

This workshop has limited capacity.

 

Workshops by The Liminal Space

A blueprint for living 100 years
Drop in
With one in three of us in the UK today living to see our 100th birthday, we’ll be creating a live installation to make a blueprint for a 100 year life.

What do you want to do on your 40th birthday, or what shouldn't you be doing if you want to reach 70 years old? Come and share your ideas and see how they compare to others as we map our imagined futures together.

Intergenerational (mis)communication
Drop in 
Does the year we’re born in change the way we communicate and how do we talk to people who are older or younger than ourselves? In this open workshop we’ll be exploring communication between generations - what works and what needs to change.

 

On the FreeStage

Live coding performance
8.30pm
Electronic music breaks new boundaries in the form of algoraves, where musician Deerful and artist Antonio Roberts respond to the live crowd in front of them to create new sounds and visuals using computer coding.

Key Information

Most of the activities are drop in, but some of the workshops and talks are limited capacity so be sure to arrive early to get a seat. 

Tickets can be collected on Level G.

Digital Programmes

In an effort to be more sustainable this digital programme is part of a trial we are conducting to discontinue printed freesheets.

Performers

Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, engineer and communicator, and in 2017 was named Young Engineer of the Year by the Royal Academy of Engineering. She regularly performs stand-up comedy about materials and engineering at venues from the local pub to the Edinburgh Fringe, and was a UK finalist of FameLab 2017, the world’s biggest science communication competition. 


Antonio Roberts is a New Media artist and Curator based in Birmingham, UK. His practices explore what ownership and authorship mean in an age impacted by digital technology.

His visual and performance work has been featured at galleries and festivals including Glitch Moment/ums at Furtherfield Gallery, London (2013), Loud Tate: Code at Tate Britain (2014), glitChicago at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, US (2014), Permission Taken at Birmingham Open Media and University of Birmingham (2015-2016), Common Property at Jerwood Arts, London (2016), Ways of Something at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017), Green Man Festival, Wales (2017) and Barbican, London (2018).

He has curated exhibitions and projects including Birmingham (2011), the Birmingham editions of Bring Your Own Beamer (2012, 2013), µChip 3 (2015), Stealth (2015), and No Copyright Infringement Intended (2017).

He is Curator at Vivid Projects.

Clare Jonas has a PhD in psychology and is an expert on human perception. By day, she is a science communicator who explains the ins and outs of cancer research! By night, she is also a science communicator, but about psychology! At weekends, she has a nice rest by going for walks in north London and trying to guess what other people’s dogs are called. Clare runs That Thinking Feeling, a blog about the everyday questions that psychology can answer.

Deerful is Emma Winston, a singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in London. She writes electropop about feelings, sometimes in the music programming environment ixi lang and sometimes on miniature synthesisers, and exists in a perpetual state of being far too excited about making things.

Hector Dyer is a writer and performance maker who works as a creative producer for The Liminal Space who use art and design to create groundbreaking experiences that transform what people think, feel and do. 

Josie Blue Molloy is an artist and printmaker based in London. her work explores texture, light, materials, colour and space through a range of craft and printmaking techniques. Fuelled by her love of architecture and colour, and movements such as the Bauhaus and brutalism, her bold, crisp style, creates images with depth, surface texture and simplicity.  She is currently working at Wimbledon College of Art as a specialist printmaking technician as well as continuing her own practise and running workshops in numerous museums and art centres across the country.

Kate Fagan is Head of Production at The Smalls, The Smalls is a video commissioning platform that connects its community of 17,000+ independent filmmakers and production companies with brands and agencies who need video. By combining advertising expertise and service with boundless creativity, The Smalls’ direct-to -source model offers a streamlined, time efficient way to create video content. The Smalls’ offering is rooted in quality and authenticity, born out of The Smalls Film Festival (since 2006).

Pippa Sa is a facilitator, performer and co-director of Bechdel Theatre, a campaign that highlights underrepresented voices in theatre through a feminist lens. 

Priya Jay is Curatorial Trainee at Barbican and Iniva. She worked with the curator of Daria Martin’s commission for The Curve, Tonight the World.

Realf Heygate (b.1994, Leicester, UK) lives and works in London. Heygate graduated from BA Fine Art Central St Martins (2017). Selected group exhibitions include Through the Looking Glass at Cob Gallery, Elephant x Griffin Art Prize at Elephant West; Form at Cob Gallery (2018); Woon Foundation Prize at Baltic 39 (2017). Awards include Central St Martins Associate Studio Programme (2017-19); Elephant x Griffin Art Prize shortlist (2018); Woon Foundation Prize shortlist (2017).

Level G

Young Barbican offers & discounts

Take a piece of the Barbican home
10% off in the Barbican Shop
Pick up an inspired souvenir or browse our curated collection of books, stationery, jewellery and more.

*T&Cs: Valid only on Mon 11 Feb 2019. Excludes CDs and Barbican Maker items. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount or offer, or on the online store.

Slice and soda at Barbican Kitchen
Pick up a slice of pizza and soft drink (bottled water, coke or San Pellegrino) for £5

Grab a burger from Bonfire
Get a burger and soft drink from Bonfire on Level 1 for £10**

**T&Cs: Excludes the Shakespeare Tower burger. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount or offer.

Plan your visit

Meet friends, grab a drink, drop in to one of the free installations on Level G before the show - here's what else is happening at the Barbican when you visit.