Today, Moogfest unveils its 2018 festival lineup, which will focus on female, non-binary, and transgender artists. Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. soldier who disclosed 750,000 government documents to Wikileaks, now a privacy rights and transparency activist, will keynote the Durham-based event.
Moogfest is holding a special event at Motorco in Durham at 6 p.m. Wednesday to celebrate the new lineup. Durham is now the Moogfest headquarters, although the Moog Factory remains in Asheville. “We’re lucky to be here in Durham,” says Moogfest CEO KamranV.
At the event in May, Manning will discuss “The Future of Creativity.” She will explore how technology enables radical disruption in the personal and political spheres, framing the technological future as a new creative landscape.
From its beginning in 2014, Moogfest has sought new perspectives on the future of creativity, tackling questions about how it will evolve and what tools will shape it. Its emphasis on leading edge electronic music and using technological tools creatively continues the tradition of its namesake, synthesizer developer Robert Moog, PhD.
“We use the festival format as a platform to look at technology and creativity and how one impacts the other,” said Lorna-Rose Simpson, Moogfest director of programming.
To celebrate the new lineup Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Moogfest is presenting a 50-hour, 50 performer, “Always On” livestream in partnership with Tom Tom Magazine starting noon today (Wednesday, Dec. 6) to 2 p.m., Dec. 8. You can watch it free at the Moogfest site.
The “Always On” livestream is intended to “Celebrate women, who are often under-represented in music, particularly electronic music,” said Simpson. “It’s not about excluding men. We seek diversity through radical inclusivity. We’ll announce the rest of the lineup in January and celebrate them.”
Moogfest livestreams every event during the festival on its site.
Other artists scheduled for the festival’s nighttime program this year include:
- LCD Soundsystem synth experimentalist Gavin Rayna Russom.
- Gender ambiguous theremin virtuoso, Armen Ra.
- Kuwati conceptual artist Fatima Al Qadiri.
- Afrofuturist DJ Maliibu Mitch.
- Pop mavaen SOPHIE.
- The U.S. debut of Japanese multi-instrumentalist Midori Takada.
The artists will participate in Future Sound performances at night and lead Future Thought workshops and conversations by day during the festival.
