Let’s get to those rooms above pubs, street corners, concert halls, village halls, school halls, libraries, fields and theatres, where real live people are performing for real live audiences and sharing a moment in time together, participating in a social exchange that celebrates an act of creativity engaged for its own sake, prompted by values outside basic commerce. Let’s go and be with other people, sharing a communal moment of beauty and provocation, which will dissolve as soon as it is done and remain precious for that very reason.

The rest of the piece richly deserves your attention.

And it begs the question, what was the last artistic performance you took a risk on?  For me it was Society of Futopia which, although it bemused and bored me in equal measure, I was very glad to have seen.

The Society of Futopia has been developed by four final year students at BIAD, Birmingham City University and will take place during the New Generation Arts Festival. One of the artists, Gareth Burnett did have a blog he was using as a diary – there’s some interesting stuff there but that seems to have petered out. According to the artists:

The performance is rooted in Futurist Theatre and mixes live performance with film and animation; at its core it is an exploration of the human condition. There is a level of interaction with the audience; instead of conventional lighting the audience will be given torches to discover the characters themselves.

Or, rather more excitingly:

In violence we worship beauty. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. This is the truth according to the Society of Futopia.

The performance will also be filmed and exhibited alongside a set of photographs based around science and genetics in the future, religious structures and the human condition. This exhibition runs from 17th June – 20th June. On the subject of filming, here’s a trailer they prepared earlier: