WISE Future Think Tank Wises up, Expands Program to Include Two Days of (Free) Avant-Garde Music

When WISE "The Future Think Tank" debuted in October of last year, it was the ultimate hobnobbing opportunity for music industry insiders, savvy tech entrepreneurs, and cooler-than-thou creatives. This year's two-day event, to be held May 18-19 at UCCA, is set to be even larger, with 16 panel talks featuring a huge array of industry experts which will span trends in AI, music business and performance, the art market, Chinese culture, fashion gamification, and beyond.

The overriding theme of the WISE 2019 is to take a good, hard look at some of the biggest issues threatening, and opportunities arising from, the ever-evolving world of technology. Founder Philipp Grefer tells the Beijinger that recently he's been "obsessed about the opportunities and the disadvantages AI can bring to us," particularly, "the question of how AI will be able to read our emotions better than we know them ourselves. On the one side, this is scary, on the other, it could potentially also protect us from stupid decisions we make when we follow our impulses."

Aside from the deep dives into consciousness and the implications of losing our minds to robots, guests are also invited to unwind with two full evenings of music. This is where WISE has truly excelled in its second outing, broadening its offerings with the help of Hamburg's Reeperbahn Festival ("Germany's answer to SXSW," in the words of Grefer) at the Danish Cultural Center. In a free afterparty of sorts, both conference days will be concluded with a musical showcase loaded with eclectic and individually strong Chinese and European acts. Guest list spots to the evening events are already going fast, but those with conference tickets will get priority.

Of the acts, homegrown talent includes the likes of Xiamen's LOWS0N, fresh off a gig at Austin, Texas' SXSW and a contestant in the upcoming season of Rap of China; Chengdu's all-female indie-rockers The Hormones; and Beijing's very own veteran synth-drummer duo White+.

From further afield, the foreign contingent spans Hong Kong's noisy art-punkers DAVID BORING, Argentinian electro-grime rapper/producer Catnapp, Dutch music-tech pioneer Chagall (pictured at top), Austrian hip-popper Mavi Phoenix, and Germany's hopeless romantic crooner Jungstötter.

So whether you're knee-deep in a cutting-edge industry or simply on the hunt for some new music, the inclusion of gigs to this year's WISE has transformed a once niche event into a surprisingly bustling weekend of forward-thinking talks and acts smack-down in the middle of an otherwise particularly festival-lacking spring.

To buy tickets for WISE The Future Think Tank at UCCA on May 18 and 19 (RMB 260 per day or RMB 420 for the weekend) or to register for the free concerts at the Danish Cultural Center, click here.

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Email: tomarnstein@thebeijinger.com
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Images: Eduardo Fitch, courtesy of the organizers