The Incubate DIY Conference will take place on September 16, 2011 at Midi Theater Tilburg. The conference displays the development and ethics of DIY culture with lectures, interviews, film and panels. Renowned speakers and artists within DIY culture, such as Michael Azerrad, Bill Drummond, MOMO and Steve Ignorant will participate in the program. Through the Pay What You Want-principle, visitors can determine the value of the conference for themselves.

The DIY Conference is part of the extensive program of this years theme of Incubate Festival: We Are Incubate, a project around the artistic practice, curative strategies, Do-It-Yourself ethics and the new participative role of audiences in Independent Culture. The conference offers reflection on the comprehensive program of the festival and on the value of creation in society.

Check out the full program description and the time schedule below (click to enlarge or download here as a .pdf file). Get your tickets (Pay What You Want) over here.

Michael Azerrad - Photo: Getty

Michael Azerrad keynote speech
Michael Azerrad is an American music journalist from New York and author of the books Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana and Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991. He also was a contributing editor of Rolling Stone as well as a writer for The New Yorker, Mojo, Spin and the New York Times.

One day, Azerrad was watching a documentary on the history of punk. While watching, the film skipped from Talking Heads to Nirvana. “I thought maybe I’d blacked out for ten minutes, and missed the part about Black Flag, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, all these bands. But I did not blackout. They just skipped over an entire decade of punkrock.” Azerrad thought someone should tell that story about this influential community and scene so thriving and inspiring.

In true DIY spirit, he decided to write the book himself, coming up with Our Band Could Be Your Life. The book was issued ten years ago, and was named one of the 50 best music books even written by The Guardian in 2006. Paste named the book one of the 12 best music books of the decade in 2009.

In the book, Azerrad writes about thirteen American underground bands that, while finding relatively little mainstream success, did have an establishing role in American alternative and indie rock. Mostly though being embedded in local scenes, touring and releases on small local imprints.

Through many interviews, Azerrad describes the story of (amongst others) bands like Black Flag, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. At the Incubate DIY Conference, Michael will share the insights he gained while interviewing the bands and writing the book.

Bill Drummond - photo Lucy Johnston

Bill Drummond lecture & performance
Bill Drummond is best known as co-founder of late 1980s hit group The KLF and its 1990s “avant-art” media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation. With The KLF, Drummond scored multiple Number 1 hits and wrote “The Manual”, a book on how to write a Number 1 hit. The K Foundation is notorious for burning a million pounds in 1994.

At the conference, Bill Drummond will give a lecture as well as perform his latest work The17. It is always a unique and one-off performance. The17 is a reaction to pre-recorded music, where an ad hoc choir, consisting of the visitors of the conference, will perform one of Drummond’s works. The performance will take place just once at the conference. It’s a unique possibility to become part of one of his works. (Photo: Lucy Johnston)

Steve ignorant interviewed by John Robb
English punk legend Steve Ignorant will be interviewed by writer and BBC commentator John Robb. Ignorant co-founded the anarcho-punk band Crass with Penny Rimbaud in 1977. With Crass, Ignorant was one of the driving forces of the DIY movement, and therefore a major influence on the punk movement. Crass was one of the first bands to arrange their record sales and concerts without interference from the music industry and asked fans to make their own merchandise.

John Robb writes for The Observer, The Guardian and The Independent and will interview Ignorant about DIY, Crass’ and Ignorant’s aesthetic and his autobiography The Rest is Propaganda.

PressPausePlay screening & panel
“This changes everything. The industry is dead. There has never been a better time to be an artist.” – Seth Godin,  author, entrepreneur and public speaker
“We are on the verge of a new dark age. The creative world is destroyed. All we have is cacophony and self opinion.” – Andrew Keen, author, The Cult of the Amateur

At the DIY Conference, we’ll also have the Dutch premiere of the PressPausePlay documentary, a film about hope, fear and digital culture. The film was previously screened at Sonar Barcelona and SXSW in Texas. The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed unlimited creative opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era like Seth Godin, Moby, Andrew Keen, Sean Parker and Bill Drummond.

After the screening of the film, there will be a panel with o.a. Philip Marthinsen (producer of PressPausePlay), Dwight Witherspoon of Ericsson Sweden, who made the film possible, hip-hop and electronica producer Daedelus (a.o. Ninja Tune, Stones Throw, Brainfeeder and Warp) and Arnold de Boer, since long the guy behind Zea and since two and a half years singer and guitarist in The Ex. Zea is self made and the way of doing may be best described as grass-roots, as is The Ex. The panel will be moderated by Erwin Blom.

MOMO's work in Lisbon

MOMO Q&A with Koen Delaere
MOMO is known for thoughtful urban-intervention using post-graffiti: experiments include tagging his name a tag the width of Manhattan, over-sized outdoor collage, tide powered sculpture, a computer script which makes his art for him, and prints, paintings, and videos that rely on chance and context for fun and substance.

Born in San Francisco, he has traveled most of his life, discounting six years New York. He joined a graffiti crew in 1999 while living in Spain, found his use of color while employed in the Caribbean, and fell for outside art while living outside: in a cave for a year, in a truck for a year, and in a tent for a year.

In New York, Barcelona, Toronto and Sao Paolo, buildings are decorated by graffiti artist Momo, with or without prior consent. Incubate adds Tilburg to this list of cities. In September, the artist along with some local help will decorate buildings in Tilburg with colors, lines and figures. Momo’s work is abstract, futuristic and minimalistic, making it very different from other graffiti.

Adding to the context of his works in Tilburg, MOMO will do a Q&A with Koen Delaere, an artist living and working in Tilburg. Delaere will talk to him about the origins and ethics of his work.

Slava Rubin, CEO IndieGoGo

IndieGoGo / Slava Rubin
Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of IndieGoGo - the world’s funding platform  -  which provides anyone with passion the opportunity to fulfill their dreams and fund creative, entrepreneurial, or cause campaigns.  The service has been used for over 35,000 campaigns and distributed millions of dollars in 200 countries. In 2011, IndieGoGo was named one of the partner companies for Startup America – President Obama’s initiative to stimulate entrepreneurship in America. Recent speaking engagements include Skoll World Forum, TedX, SXSW, CMJ & Internet Week NY, while press includes NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Oprah, BBC, and CNNMoney.

At the Incubate DIY Conference, Slava Rubin will discuss topics like ‘Crowdfunding as Market Validation’, ‘The tips and tricks of raising money on the Internet’ and ‘How to fund your business, project, or cause’ in his presentation.

DIY zines & journalism panel
The DIY zines & journalism panel is meant to bring together some of the media that report on independent culture. During the panel, they will reflect on the current state and effect of DIY on journalism. Taking seat in the panel are:

- Lisa Blanning, Wire, a magazine about modern music – improvisation, electronics, avant rock,
- Shawn Reynaldo, XLR8R, a publication on accelerating music and culture (XLR8R will also curate three days of electronic music during the festival),
- Frances Morgan, The Quietus,  an editorial independent music website on rock music and pop culture (Frances also used to be involved in Plan B Magazine),
- Gé Huismans, Gonzo (circus), a website and magazine from the lowlands on innovative music and culture,
- Louise Brown, Terrorizer, a magazine for extreme music subtitled ‘the World’s Most Dangerous Music Magazine’

Atze de Vrieze from leading Dutch music website 3VOOR12 will moderate the panel.

Hope Masike

Generation Bass Forum
Generation Bass was initiated in 2009 by Incubate when a gap was noticed within the development of world dance music in Europe and more specific in The Netherlands. With the founding of the Generation Bass blog, a gap was filled by offering a complete overview of the developments within non-Western dance, instead of just one specific genre or style. An example? Moroccan pop mixed with Latin-American rap that a dj from New York discovered on an Angolan blog en spins at a festival in Holland. At the same time, people in the Brazilian favela are also dancing to the song in the local ‘Baile funk’ version.

The Genaration Bass program at Incubate 2011 is aimed at bringing together non-western artists and western electronic producers. It consists of two evenings of live music and the forum at the DIY Conference. We want to bring these people together at one table, to stimulate the scene and to make it insightful for a wider audience. During the Generation Bass forum, these people meet in real life and exchange ideas and thoughts on the processes of creating and sharing their work, the differences and similarities and what they can learn from each other. The forum will be moderated by Jaïr Tchong (Music Center Netherlands).

Taking seat in the panel are:
- Hope Masike
- Chad Lee Jones (Process Rebel)
- Bernardo Resnikowski (DJ Quien)
- And DJ UMB (Generation Bass)

DIY Student debate
At the DIY Conference, we have a lot of people who’ve been working with and exploring DIY tactics for quite some time now. But how does a younger generation view current developments like digitalization and individualization within the context of DIY? Age Versluis, currently studying Music Management at the Utrecht School of the Arts will put together a panel of students who will discuss these topics. The debate will be moderated by Niels Aalberts.

Incubate celebrates 20 years of Gonzo (circus)
Gonzo (circus) is an independent Dutch magazine reporting on contemporary music, culture, art and (new) media. It started in 1991, which means at the DIY Conference, we will celebrate 20 years of Gonzo (circus)! When the program is finished, we’ll have Gonzo (circus) DJ’s spinning records in the bar at Midi Theater. So come and have a drink with us between 17:15 and 19:00.

DIY Stands
Stands at the conference will be occupied by DIY initiatives and partners: No Guts No Glory, De Groene Amsterdammer, Gonzo (circus) and Hivos. There will also be book sale by Studystore Tilburg University.

To make sure the event is accessible for everyone, the festival uses the Pay What You Want-principle. This gives you the control to determine the value of the conference and debate for yourself. Tickets can be bought from Thursday July 13 right here. You can indicate how many tickets you want to buy and the total amount you would like to pay. The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate.

The conference is supported by the Performing Arts Fund and Hivos Foundation.