ABANDON NORMAL DEVICES FESTIVAL 21// ONE-FIFTH OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE

About

Abandon Normal Devices Festival - the UK's only roaming digital festival - resurfaces for 2021 taking you on an extraordinary journey reponding to the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, taking place on docklands, on the water and through an expanded  online programme of radical and disruptive artworks, film screenings, audioviisual performance, sound installation and talks. The programme follows the flows of shipping, energy and political power structures, from container ports on our doorsteps to the depths of the ocean floor; through ecosystems bound up with industrial chemicals, minerals and microplastics, to their effects on our planet, human and non-human bodies.

One-Fifth of the Earth’s Surface is a conversation between artists Hakeem Adam, Maxwell Mutanda and the Atlantic Ocean. Presented as an interactive audio-visual landscape and explorative online experience that unearths the power of water as a dynamic and fluid archive.

The project offers multiple readings of the unpredictable transatlantic waters as an evolving structure that initiates change on its surrounding lands, rerouting power and reshaping the lives of all who depend on it.

The research involves investigations and experiments into the design of various systems and infrastructure, such as canals and dams, transcontinental submarine data cable maps, and much more. One-Fifth of the Earth’s Surface will explore how these tools and materials have been used for dredging up and rearranging our histories, lives and power.

Featuring landscapes created from data and the artists’ knowledge from their own unique relations to water, this web-based artwork will be an open dialogue, wherein the viewer is privy to the conversation between the pair. The website serves as an experimental route for users to read various digital drawings each offering and responding to a specific theme connected to the Atlantic Ocean, a body of water covering one-fifth of the Earth’s surface.