Gardeners of the 5th Industrial Revolution

We are pleased to be partnering with Lancaster University to present a new performance lecture by BRiGHTBLACK as part of Cultivating Data Natures. Gardeners of the 5th Industrial Revolution has been commissioned as part of our Critical Acts programme strand – a platform for surveying emerging net and digital cultures through performance lectures.

It is the first day of the 5th Industrial Revolution. Inside this speculative world, within one year, AI has liberated the first and last human from labour. It has happened so quickly, we have only emerging structures and ideas, and seek new paths forwards. We meet in the GrowDome, as gardeners of knowledge, exploring a new cultural ecology. Through a growing map of living objects, from 350-million-year-old fossils to hybrid-jellified consciousnesses, we unearth the ecologies that shape us, tracing the structures of dominatory hierarchies and egalitarian networks they seed. With a blend of storytelling, game engine simulation, and provocative dialogue, BRiGHTBLACK invites you to be part of a performance lecture to understand and question who we believe ourselves to be, and so who we will become, in the 5th industrial revolution.

Reserve your free place to Cultivating Data Natures via Lancaster University.

BRiGHTBLACK is the collaborative company of artists Simon Wilkinson and Myra Appannah. Their work spans immersive art, playable culture, virtual reality, fashion, video games, artificial intelligence, and music, with a core belief that culture is a global conversation that should invite participation. Known for creating installation and performance-based works that aim to disrupt, democratise, and decolonise, they focus on engaging audiences who are often excluded from traditional cultural spaces.

Cultivating Data Natures is presented in partnership with Abandon Normal Devices, Deco Publique, and Lancaster Arts, and marks the closing celebration of the Future Places Centre—Lancaster University’s interdisciplinary hub for experimental research into data, design, and environmental futures.