Beta Festival Creative Producer Sophie Delaney introduces this year’s edition of the Beta Festival, the Dublin-based event which explores how technology can change the way we understand the world beyond ourselves.
I had followed Beta Festival and the work of Irish digital artists and researchers from my home in Australia, so moving to Ireland last year felt like an opportunity to get to know a scene I had long admired from afar. Beta’s Director, Aisling Murray, took a chance on an Aussie she had only met over Zoom, and we quickly bonded over our shared love of art and technology (and occasional fear of both).
Now in its fourth edition, Beta Festival (founded by Aisling Murray and The Digital Hub), has grown from an annual festival into a year-round platform for art, technology and society. This year, the festival asks what happens when we move beyond a human-centred perspective and consider the intelligence of landscapes, plants, animals and machines. At a time when so much attention is focused on artificial intelligence, the programme invites us to think more broadly about how technology shapes our relationships with the living world.
Xenocene: A Manifesto in Motion by Claudix Vanesix comes to Project Arts Centre
Across Dublin, the festival presents 14 new artworks by Irish and international artists, spanning installation, performance, sound, and interactive digital media as well as the Irish premiere of existing works from internationally renowned performers. What excites me is how differently these artists approach these questions, often finding unexpected ways to make complex ideas accessible. SEED: Signal and Trace, is a Coalesce research project led by Trish Morgan and István László, bringing together six new commissions exploring environmental change through sensory experiences of data. Wind, carbon dioxide and temperature readings become material for artworks that we can experience through sound, scent, touch and sight. Meanwhile, Unmasking Nature, led by AlanJames Burns, invites visitors into a multisensory environment inspired by Ireland’s biodiversity, exploring the connections between neurodiversity and the natural world.
At a time when so much attention is focused on artificial intelligence, the programme invites us to think more broadly about how technology shapes our relationships with the living world.
We are also presenting new commissions from Cezar Mocan and Hung Lu Chan through Studiotopia, our European project bringing artists and scientists together. As well as commissions through our Local Artists Network (showcasing Irish-based practitioners) including Serena Devereux, whose interactive work draws on real-time weather data, and 1iing Heaney, who explores ecology and the Irish landscape.
This year, we have an exciting new partnership with Project Arts Centre (PAC), where we are now an associate festival and will be hosting Claudix Vanesix’s Xenocene: A Manifesto in Motion, which considers AI in relation to the end of the Anthropocene and asses.masses, an ambitious live video game in which audiences take turns playing a herd of donkeys navigating questions of labour and revolution. At PAC, we’re also expanding our idea of who an audience can be. Our new strand, The Other Audience, includes woofy woofy ૮֊˕֊ა੭ bow-wow hauhau, an interactive sound installation designed for dogs.
Cloud Chamber by Fiona McDonald (Pic: Mark Stedman)
With our friends at Alliance Francais and the Goethe Institut, The F Word brings artists, researchers and young people together across Ireland, France and Germany to explore facts, freedom and our increasingly fragmented digital world with three performances over two nights on opening weekend.
Our Force Quit workshop series takes a more hands-on approach, with opportunities to build personalised computers with the OG Cyberdeck Girly Annike Tan and mesh networks with Synthesize_Her, presenting opportunities to experiment with alternative technologies and reconsider our reliance on mainstream platforms.
Beta Festival Creative Producer Sophie Delaney
For me, one of the most important things about Beta are that it brings different communities into the same space. Artists, researchers, technologists and audiences don’t always have opportunities to exchange ideas, even when they’re thinking about many of the same questions. Art can offer another way into these conversations: one that makes room for ambiguity, emotion, play and disagreement. Also, you don’t need to be an expert in digital culture to take part. Sometimes, all you need is an open mind and a willingness to try something unfamiliar. Whether you’re deeply immersed in digital culture or simply curious, I hope you’ll come along, explore, meet new people and see where it takes you.
Beta Festival takes place across Dublin from 6-22 November – find out more here