bluedot festival announces science line-up
bluedot, the new festival at Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, has revealed its science programme, which will see luminaries from across the science and art worlds joining forces.
More than 150 astronomical experts and academics will appear at the festival across 22-24 July to give talks, engage in debate and introduce audiences to their areas of expertise.
Among the science bill are TV presenter Dallas Campbell, known for the BBC’s Horizon series and one-off documentary Voyager: To the Final Frontier, and professor Danielle George, who in 2014 became only the sixth woman in 189 years to present the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.
Campbell will be talking about Mars and the story of the spacesuit from its post-war origins to the new technology that will be used by future astronauts.
George will be talking about smart machines, including the huge telescopes in the Atacama desert, and how the enormous amounts of data they generate help us to see space.
A member of the team that discovered Einstein's gravitational waves earlier this year, professor Stuart Reid will discuss this landmark breakthrough; associate director of Jodrell Bank Tim O'Brien plans to set up two live links on the main stage with scientists at major international science facilities; professor Monica Grady will offer a view of what the end of the universe might look like; and Dr Matt Taylor will tell the story of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft mission to intercept a comet.
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Elsewhere, science-music crossovers include a performance from French electronic duo Air, who will be playing their new soundtrack for the 1902 sci-fi film Le Voyage Dans La Lune prior to a screening of the film; while Doves and Black Rivers brothers Jez and Andy Williams will demonstrate how they worked with Jodrell Bank to become the first band to bounce a guitar riff off the moon.
More details have also emerged regarding the celebration of fantasy author Alan Garner – Erica Wagner will be in conversation with Jodrell Bank director Teresa Anderson about the novelist (who will be making a rare public appearance himself, for a book signing).
Europe’s largest interdisciplinary space meeting, the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), takes place in Manchester for the first time from 23-27 July and has curated its own mini-series of talks and performances for bluedot.
Highlights of the series include the National Graphene Institute’s composer-in-residence Sara Lowes, who will discuss and perform extracts from her six-movement piece, Graphene Suite, with a orchestral accompaniment; and Ig Nobel Prize founder Marc Abrahams, who will perform dramatic readings from bizarre scientific studies.
ESOF will also present CERN’s Cosmic Piano, an electronic instrument devised by physicists based at the Large Hadron Collider.
The festival has already announced its music line-up which will be co-headlined by electronic acts Caribou, Underworld and Jean-Michel Jarre, who will make his first appearance in Britain for over five years. They are joined by the likes of Floating Points, Everything Everything, Public Service Broadcasting and Lonelady, along with DJs such as Ben UFO and BBC Radio 6 Music’s Marc Riley.
For the full line-up, head to discoverthebluedot.com, and keep an eye on The Skinny News over the coming weeks for more announcements.
Tickets are on sale now. Full weekend camping (from £129) and day tickets (from £35) are available.
bluedot
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre
22-24 July 2016
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