Critical Acts: Performance Lectures

6pm-9pm – 09/10/2024

Location: Modal, School of Digital Arts (SODA)

Event Type: In-person

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Critical Acts  is an immersive gathering and a platform for surveying emerging net and digital cultures through performance lectures.

This series hosted at the School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Met seeks to unravel the intricate ways in which power operates within our interconnected lives and emerging models for existing and engaging with an online world. Each volume aims to place an expansive lens on the tenets of Web3, virtual worlds and AI, whilst challenging us to reconsider our understanding of control, agency, and resistance in this moment of transition.

Through a diverse collection of performative essays manifesting as sonic explorations, verbal monologues, moving image collages and animations, Critical Acts will explore the exploitation of labour and knowledge via what is often perceived as smooth and seamless systems, technologies and platforms.

Critical Acts is part of a two year curatorial partnership at School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University. Find out more about the partnership and other events happening in the programme.


This programme is a collaboration between Abandon Normal Devices (AND) and Modal gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts (SODA). AND is supported with public funding from Arts Council England.

Image Credit: The Deluge, James Ferraro at AND Festival 2017. Photo taken by Chris Foster