Futuresonic Future Everything 1

Each year in Manchester, the futuresonic conference brings together experts from the fields of digital media and focuses on the cutting edge and future of the technology. This year’s conference looked at social media and the idea of trust as well as the additional theme of the Environment.

Can digital and social media save us from Climate Change? Some believe that it can, as it creates a world where we can communicate around to globe more easily than ever before. Some feel that we will have to resort to geo-engineering. But one thing was agreed upon. More and more the geophysical community is being replaced by the virtual online community. The old feelings of belonging and community that we once felt in our streets and neighbourhoods, can now be found in cyberspace with people we have more in common with than just a postcode. Perhaps this sense of community can be tapped into to help the physical environment, or perhaps we all need to turn our computers off and go outside to appreciate what we may soon lose.

The image above is an art work by the Comob project, who were tracking people using an iphone application on a paper map as they walked around Manchester city locating areas of 'pollution'.