Insomnia Insights

Insomnia Festival has evolved to become more than a music festival. The festival week is full of interesting events for the music lover and the socially engaged person.

Workshops
Insomnia has always sought to be a creative force of the vibrant music community in the north. One of our means to do this is to program a series of workshops each festival, hosted by some of the interesting artists visiting the festival. This year the workshop program is as varied as our music program: from learning about African beats and drum methods by Nihiloxica, to creating 3D visuals with Sabrina Ratte. Abelton courses for beginners with Gaute Barlindhaug and for the more advanced with Perera Elsewhere. There will be an FM Synth crash course with Center of the Universe, and last but not least, Russian sound alchemist, Rihardas Norvila, will teach you how to create your personal electronic instrument. And if you are hungry for more after this - Rudow will host a weekend of field recording later in the year.

To attend our workshops you need to sign up here!

Art
Insomnia is prod to present the group exhibition Optical FLOW in collaboration with Tromsø Kuntforening. The exhibition will look in to the concept of perception, can we trust our perception of the state of the world when trying to make decisions on how to move through it?
In the exhibition Leevi Lehtinen will present his three channel installation “Babylon” - reflecting on the triumph and destruction of humanity. While Sally Golding's participatory installation “Your Double My Double Our Ghost” explores interaction and perception within a multi-sensory environment, involving lighting and projection onto optical sheeting, sonic composition, and the viewer’s own reflection.

The exhibition opens on Friday 25th October at 6 PM and can be experienced until 9 PM that same day of from 12 til 17 PM on Saturday 26th October.

During the festival week there will be an opportunity to experience Pile O´Sápmi, ealaskan, a flock of spirits, awakened by artist Máret Ánne Sara in collaboration with Elin Már Øyen Vister. The art piece is the continuation of the Pile o´Sápmi project, a bigger body of work investigating the concept of colonizing and domination. The awakened spirits are a personal manifestation by the artist, shadowing her family´s extensive legal fight against the colonial powers, demanding forced culling of the Sara family´s reindeer flock, threatening their traditional presence on their ancient indigenous lands.

More information about this event will be available soon.

Insights Seminar
After last years success Insomnia will continue to present its seminar program at Tromsø Library. The venue provides a great setting for conversations where everyone is invited to join in. This year the topics of discussion is the effects on hate speech and false information online on our society, and the possibility of changing the way we conduct political decision making into a digital voting system.

How is hate speech and false information spread, who is it targeted at and how does this sort of content circulate on our social media platforms? How is fake information and hate speech online contributing to the polarisation of our society? How are political persons and parties taking advantage of this and using it in their struggle for power? And what role, if any, should the large social media coorporations have in moderating its content? Could we all vote digitally case by case on political issues? Are we well enough informed to do so or should we leave it to the “expert” politicians to find the solutions for us? Would digital paperless voting be a safe solution for future political decision making, and if so are we ready to take the responsibility it comes with?

These are some of the questions that we will discuss in the panels Dangerous and Digital - The Hate that Controls the World and Digital Democracy - Dangerous E-Voting vs. Powerful Innovation to Collaborate

After the panels we invite you to take part in a practical workshop to create playful conversational tools (in other words, games) about the topics and conversations that emerged from the panels. Learn how boardgames can be used by policymakers, advocates and educators to explain complex ideas, explore different scenarios and weigh the trade-offs of a decision in a safe environment.

Insomnia Insights is free of charge and open for all audiences.

Read more details about Insomnia Insights programme here.