A Manchester-born non-profit, once dubbed “one of the top 10 idea festivals in the world,” has announced its closure after 31 years at the forefront of digital culture.
Founded by Drew Hemment in 1995 as Futuresonic, FutureEverything became one of Europe’s most influential art-technology organisations – and a driving force in Manchester’s digital renaissance.
Cited by Prime Minister David Cameron in major policy speeches as a UK success story, it shaped fields that define contemporary digital culture – from locative media, which prefigured the smartphone era, to AI arts, open data, and smart cities. Its global reach extended from Manchester to Singapore, Moscow to San Jose.
Landmark projects included Mobile Connections 2004, the world’s first major cultural event on mobile media; DataGM (The Greater Manchester Datastore), one of Europe’s first open data initiatives; and GROW Observatory, the world’s first continental-scale citizens’ observatory. These grew from FutureEverything’s pioneering ‘festival-as-lab’ approach – turning cultural events into laboratories that opened new territory and generated lasting change. Partners included the Singapore Government, European Commission and Intel
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The organisation was instrumental in Manchester’s transformation into a vibrant international city with strong digital culture. FutureEverything preceded and contributed to Manchester International Festival, embodying the city’s future-facing identity on the global stage. International partners approached Hemment to forge strategic relationships with Manchester – for many years, FutureEverything was how the world’s digital culture leaders knew this city.
In recent years, under creative directors Irini Papadimitriou and Lucy Rose Sollitt and executive director Chris Wright, FutureEverything also undertook a series of globally ambitious projects, establishing itself as a leading cultural voice on AI. These included a series of international exhibitions on art and AI, reaching 400,000 visitors internationally, as well as Nature Directed, an unprecedented move to “give Nature legal decision-making power across the organisation.”
Founder Hemment said: “FutureEverything was born when digital culture was a niche interest with a small international community of pioneering artists, technologists and institutions. Now, digital culture no longer exists as a discrete field – it’s everywhere, embedded in everything. The debates we championed, around AI, data, surveillance and climate, are now central to global discourse daily. In a way, it feels like the end of FutureEverything marks the moment a pioneering generation passes the baton to the mainstream it helped to create.
“The closure also reflects the structural precarity faced by small pioneering cultural organisations in a post-pandemic funding environment – influential far beyond their means.”
Though the company closes on 4th April, FutureEverything’s legacy continues. Drew Hemment will “translate FutureEverything from a company into a method” – distilling 31 years of sensing and shaping futures to seed and empower new initiatives, communities and ways of working. To mark the closure, a legacy website has been launched telling the full story of FutureEverything, and an archive project will document the organisation’s legacy and impact, with the international community invited to contribute. Nature Directed will continue beyond the closure as an inspiration for wider transformation in the cultural sector.
Hemment’s current work – including Doing AI Differently, a global initiative he leads at The Alan Turing Institute applying FutureEverything’s world-building ethos – continues the mission on a global stage.
Hemment added: “I’m proud of the way FutureEverything’s team carried the organisation through its final chapter with dedication and care. Over three decades, it sparked major initiatives that continue to thrive, with people it nurtured going on to significant careers across the digital culture sector.
“FutureEverything has been the defining work of my life, and it belonged to everyone who shaped it. What we built together – the ideas, the community, the fields we helped open up – doesn’t close with the company. It carries forward into the future it helped to imagine.”
Director of Manchester International Festival and long-time collaborator, John McGrath, added: “I had the privilege of working with FutureEverything across many years – first at Contact Theatre, and later at Manchester International Festival, where we collaborated on Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s extraordinary Atmospheric Memory. Manchester, and the wider world of creativity and ideas, will miss this wonderful company.”
A summer celebration gathering the international community is envisioned, offering an opportunity for collective reflection on FutureEverything’s impact and continued relevance.
If your life or work has been touched by FutureEverything, Hemment invites you to share your ‘Memories’ to help build a living archive via www.futureeverything.org/memories. You can also read the full story of FutureEverything at www.futureeverything.org.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “For a long time, FutureEverything put Manchester right at the centre of global conversations about technology and society. What stood out was its belief that technology should work for people – by opening society up, not closing it down, and putting digital tools in the hands of communities. That’s a legacy we want to carry forward here in Greater Manchester in the years ahead.”
Annette Mees, chair of the board, concluded: “FutureEverything has had an outsized influence on digital culture, on Manchester, and on countless artists, technologists and communities around the world. We are proud of everything the team has achieved, and certain its legacy will continue to shape technological futures.”
