On Friday September 16, Incubate will organize the DIY Conference. The conference displays the development and ethics of DIY culture with lectures, interviews, film, panels and stands. Renowned speakers and artists within DIY culture, such as Michael Azerrad, Bill Drummond 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 Incubate DIY Conference will take place on September 16 at the Midi Theatre in Tilburg. It is part of the main theme of the festival this year: We Are Incubate, about the artistic practice, DIY ethics and audience participation in independent culture. The conference offers reflection on the extensive program of the festival.

The keynote speech will be given by Michael Azerrad, author of Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana (for which he is seen as the definitive Nirvana biographer) and Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground. He was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and he has written features for amongst others New York Times and Mojo. Our Band Could Be Your Life describes American underground bands such as Black Flag, Sonic Youth and Hüsker Dü who, while finding relatively little mainstream success, did have an establishing role in American alternative and indie rock. The book was named one of the 50 best music books even written by The Guardian. At the Incubate DIY Conference, Michael will share the insights he gained while interviewing the bands and writing the book. (Photo: Getty)

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 a reaction to pre-recorded music, where an ad hoc choir, consisting of the visitors of the conference, will sing one of Drummond’s works. The performance will take place just once at the conference. (Photo: Lucy Johnston)

English punk legend Steve Ignorant will be interviewed by writer and BBC commentator John Robb. With his band Crass, Ignorant was one of the driving forces of the DIY 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 ad will interview Ignorant about DIY, Crass’ and Ignorant’s ethics and his autobiography The Rest is Propaganda.

At the DIY Conference, Incubate will 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, there will be a panel with the makers of the film.

Other panels taking place will be about DIY zines & journalism, Generation Bass (about the creation and sharing of non-western dance) and the DIY student debate. Stands will be occupied by different DIY initiatives.

To make sure the event is accessible for everyone, the festival uses the Pay What You Want-principle. This gives the visitors the control to determine the value of the conference and debate for themselves. Tickets can be bought from July 13 through incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org. Visitors can indicate how many tickets they want to buy and what total amount of money they would like to pay for them. The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate.

Additional information on the Incubate DIY Conference can be found through www.incubate-innovation.org. The conference is supported by the Performing Arts Fund and Hivos Foundation.