Synch.Live

Be a part of Synch.Live, a joyful, participatory community art experience and cutting edge brain science experiment designed to spark emergent behaviour. Energising, inspiring, and a little bit mysterious.

This year's Great Exhibition Road Festival offers a chance to join the unique experience that is Synch.Live. Players are assembled into groups wearing hats equipped with randomly flashing LEDs. The group’s challenge is to synchronise the LEDs without talking or touching. The LEDs will synchronise if the group can figure out how to move together in a coherent, emergent fashion.

Emergence is incredibly broad in scope, capturing the creation of galaxies, intelligent behavior in ants, economics, ecosystems, and conscious brains. Recent advances in information theory have allowed three of Synch.Live’s collaborating scientists, with colleagues, to develop an algorithm to quantify emergence. In Synch.Live, we use the algorithm to measure how emergent the group as a whole becomes. While the algorithm is tested, our application—measuring emergent behaviour among humans—is radically new.

Visitor information

This event will have some advance tickets released ahead of the Festival weekend.

To attend the Festival, please make sure to register for free. Registering is the only way to receive the latest Festival updates, a first-look at the full programme, and opportunities to book onto popular talks, creative workshops and tours.

Register for the Festival