About Us
“The revolution will be televised, digitised, analysed and theorised if this festival for ‘anarchists of the imagination’ is anything to go by.”
- The Guardian
Abandon Normal Devices (AND) is an energetic regional festival of new cinema, digital culture and art. The festival takes place annually in Liverpool and Manchester on alternate years, with an extended regional programme.
Our mission is to push the boundaries of audience experience through a programme that spills out of galleries and screens into the streets of the Northwest.
Pushing the boundaries of audience experience: A Small Cinema teams up with Abandon Normal Devices in Chinatown in Liverpool, 2011
To date AND has commissioned 56 new works across several platforms including film, performance, public realm, visual arts, and media art, working with over 300 contemporary artists including Eva and Franco Mattes, Brody Condon, Molleindustria, Ubermorgan, Andrew Kötting, John O’ Shea, Heath Bunting, Oreet Ashery, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Stephen Fortune, Carolee Schneeman, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Gillian Wearing, Phil Collins, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, The Yes Men, Centre of Attention and Jamie King.
AND features a content mix of screenings, installations, online projects, residencies, public realm interventions, exhibitions and has a distinctive emphasis on critique and ideas. Criticality is central to the festival concept, with space for both high-level industry-based knowledge and wider public engagement, conversation and debate.
The festival formed in 2009 as a unique partnership between FACT and Cornerhouse and folly.
