At the Center for Contemporary Culture "Smena " the tenth book festival to be held

December 8 and 9, 2018, on the days of the 5th anniversary of the Center for Contemporary Culture “Smena”, the tenth book festival will be held within its walls - a two-day fair of intellectual literature, a large city festival with an extensive educational program. Today the main theme of the festival has become known - the search for an answer to the question “What's further?”, As well as a discussion of the main  trends of the future.

Representatives of the natural sciences will offer their view on the problem of the future: they will share how their scientific disciplines are developing now, what changes are awaiting scientists in the future, and will help to understand how this may affect our lives.

Sergey Markov, a specialist in machine learning techniques, during the lecture “Artificial Intelligence and Literary Creativity” will talk about the limits of application and development of artificial intelligence, and also explain why robots-writers are needed and whether robots-readers will appear. The lecture of the linguist Svetlana Burlak will be devoted to the human language and how the study of antiquity is changing, curator and art critic Natalia Fuks will touch on the topic of future art. The writer and literary critic Lev Danilkin will tell about his future book, the existence of historical discourse in society  and Anatoly Fomenko, the philosopher Alexander Vileykis - about “dark ecology” and life after the end of the world,  Giacomo Andreoletti will speak on the topic “Philosophy of time”, where he will try to explain whether there is a difference between past and future, and whether things can change over time, but remain unchanged.

The question “What's further?” will also be answered by managers of the leading book publishers setting the intellectual agenda in Russia. They will share the results of the year and tell about the upcoming cultural trends of 2019. The editors of the main Russian publishing houses will come to Kazan. Alexander Ivanov will present the topic “Ad Marginem publishing house before the 25th anniversary: interim results”, Pavel Podkosov with the topic “Alpina non-fiction 2019: Anthropological turn”, Valeriy Anashvili will present the publishing house “Logos”.

Children's program

The children's program of the Winter Book Festival will be dedicated to ecology. During the master classes, teachers will talk with children about the history of all living things - they will acquaint them with rare species of animals, plants and birds and  tell why they should be protected. Also, children will learn why it is necessary to sort out and recycle garbage and why it is so important to preserve the planet. The participants of the master classes will spend the weekend without gadgets, and while the parents choose books at the fair, their children will have the opportunity to read, invent games, draw, make and learn about the world around them.

USSSY performance

The party after the first day of the festival is one of the events at which the employees of Smena, together with visitors, will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Center!

The USSSY Moscow noise-oriental-rock band is a duet of Pavel Yeremeyev (guitar) and Sergey Bolotin (drums). Since its inception in 2007, the team has released several full-length albums and has repeatedly performed at major experimental music festivals. Usssy combine complex rhythmic constructions and an oriental melody using electronics, a variety of effects pedals and unusual musical instruments - for example, quartet guitars.

The festival was organized with the support of the Kazan Mayor's Office, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Zhivoy gorod Contemporary Art Foundation.