Best known as the troubled muse of Andy Warhol and singer with the band The Velvet Underground, elusive artist Nico always seemed to be defined by the men in her company. Maxine Peake's new show The Nico Project , externallooks to change that.

The project centres on her album The Marble Index - a haunting, avant-garde piece that upon its release in 1968, sank into relative obscurity. However, in the subsequent decades it's been hailed as a classic.

In The Nico Project, Maxine Peake and director Sarah Frankcom hope to give Nico a voice separate from the men that surrounded her: not just for the artist herself, but for women everywhere trying to self-define in industries run by men.

Obviously we're always happy to go and see anything with living legend Maxine Peake, but this project sounds particularly special. Learn more about it here., external

And, if you're inspired to see more amazing women tear up gigs around Manchester, take a look at our Queens Of The Electronic Underground , externalnight, curated by Mary Anne Hobbs.

A couple of days ago we were lucky enough to have a full city-wide takeover by ANU, external, the cutting-edge Irish theatre company who staged fifteen unique interventions all over the city, causing just my kind of trouble all day.

Here's more info about the work., external

We've grabbed a few images of the crew in action:

Image source, Chris Payne for MIF

Image source, Chris Payne for MIF

Image source, Chris Payne for MIF

Image source, Chris Payne for MIF

And we have some quick-fire coverage from our man on the ground, Callum:

We'll have some film of the whole thing to share soon too. What a day this was!

Considering it's a rainy Tuesday in the middle of the festival, the line-up for Festival Square today has absolutely no right being so packed. It's honestly ridiculous. I promised I'd go home and see my family at some point but look at the line-up!

First up, Manchester-based singer/songwriter Chloe Foy opens the stage at 12:30 BST. Read more about her here, external.

Image source, MIF

Next up at 14:45 BST there's a whole pile of super artists joining MIF as part of the Horizons programme, more here, external.

Then from 17:30 BST until 19:00 BST we will be LIVE with the amazing Bethlehem Casuals, external! Check back here for a live stream of their set.

Image source, MIF

Keeping the energy high from 20:00 BST til 22:00 BST will be the always-incredible Riot Jazz, external, also streaming live right here. Get down there, or join us here, and witness their brilliant live show.

Finally, going from 22:00 BST until Probably Quite Late, the man who needs no introduction at this point, it's only DJ Yoda, external isn't it. For those not in the know, he's a turntablist VJ live mixing pop culture insane-o-legend performer that we cannot recommend highly enough. This one will be special, it will go off (or your money back. Oh, wait, everything at Festival Square is FREE, oh my!)

Image source, MIF

Here's the full festival line-up, external, and as ever: keep it locked to MIF Live for coverage. See you down there!

“Rarely does the eye light on a thing…” Invisible Cities, Calvino 1976

Next up from our Creative Lab cohort is a collaboration between Jessica El Mal, external and Sophia Malik, external, who've joined forces to create INTER[NATION] - an ambitious installation project that's currently residing in Central Library. This one's a beaut:

Image source, MIF

Bombarded by fake news, clickbait headlines and post-Brexit uncertainty, our perspectives are distorted and the truth is hard to grasp. Inter[nation] is a live installation providing a visual representation of real UK home office data. Through the notion of a city being an amalgamation of signs, dreams, fears and desires, a physical framework will receive light signals to represent the lives and stories of people seeing refuge in the UK.

The installation will allow you to easily interpret factual numbers on your own terms, without an agenda or judgement.

Head to the entrance of City Library (at the bottom of the first floor stairs) between 5pm and 7pm on July 11 to see the live installation and meet the artists.

Image source, MIF

This is a beautifully executed project that not only looks brilliant but tells a critical data story in a challenging and interpretive way. Here's a digital flyer with all the details, head over to catch it:

Image source, MIF

Last night was the first full-on dress rehearsal for Rimini Protokoll's exceptionally ambitious MIF19 commission, Utopolis, external, and our intrepid live correspondent Dan was along for the ride.

It is safe to say, dear reader, that he was very much into it. As the project is full of secrets he can't tell you lots about the specific locations or everything he saw or experienced (no spoilers here), he did tweet a lot of thoughts and comments about the show completely live as it happened. Here are the highlights in order, including a quick run-down at the end.

You can also read more about the technology behind Utopolis right here, as we went behind the scenes with technologist Chris Ball and composer Harry Ovington.

Enjoy...

And some final thoughts when not in the rain...

So yes. Utopolis was stupendous, you should go to it, that's it. Alright? GO!

Well heck, we're a third of the way through this year's Manchester International Festival, and frankly, you ain't seen nothing yet. Unless you've already been to see something. In which case, frankly... you have seen some stuff.

ANYWAY, today we're going to be focussing on everything you can do for absolutely ZERO dollar, because a free day is a happy day.

First of all, take a look at the overall schedule:

Image source, MIF

Let's get down to the free stuff:

Having been to see the David Lynch exhibition, external yesterday at Home I'd say it's an absolute must see for any fans of Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, Mullholland Drive, or anyone who grew up greedily consuming bleakly funny dystopias (all of you).

We'll also be getting along to the free Talking Points event, external, where local residents will be discussing the theme of The Self, inspired by Lynch's work. Fingers crossed things get weird.

The other exhibition we'll be at is A Parliament Of Ghosts, external, which explores the lost history of Ghanian people at the hands of colonial Britain, and then we'll be heading over to one of the brilliant School Of Integration , externalclasses, running throughout the festival at the Manchester Art Gallery.

And of course, we'll be rounding out the day in Festival Square, external for the Bethleham Casuals, Riot Jazz and a set by DJ Yoda.

One third down. A lot more truffle fries to go.

Still with us, Manchester?

Another beautiful day in Manchester comes to a close, as the festival settles into its cruise control - the loud chaos of the opening has passed, and now it's a steady stream of exciting commissions, gigs and surprises to take in over the next... *counts on fingers*... thirteen extraordinary days.

We saw the relaunch of the Manchester Street Poem, threw some light on the excellent (and free!) Talking Points programme, went behind the scenes at BELLS FOR PEACE and focused on the amazing School Of Integration - a project we'll be diving into a lot over the coming days, including a little life drawing battle between your Live platform editorial staff. Who will win? You, dear audience, will win - it'll be some good content.

For now, we recommend a beverage and one of the many EXTRAORDINARY PLATES available to you on Festival Square, or alternatively an early night ahead of another exciting day at MIF - pick your path, either way we'll see you tomorrow.

Live team: out!

The amazing Alphabus wrapped up its run yesterday, Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray's , externalbrand new festival collaboration with Manchester's very own Young Identity, external. The response to it has been incredible, here are our favourite hot takes!

What a show. Did you see it? Was it amazing? Yeah it was. Congratulations to Reggie and the crew!

MIF17 saw the creation of the first Manchester Street Poem. Originally conceived by Karl Hyde and Rick Smith of Underworld, Manchester Street Poem threw a spotlight onto the stories of those who find themselves homeless in the city – in a work where the catch-all term ‘homeless’ gave way to individuality, identity and integrity.

Image source, MIF

We're excited to say that the Manchester Street Poem has returned this year, and is currently underway. This is a constantly evolving and re-forming artwork that we highly recommend making repeat visits to, to really give a sense of how much it's going to change over the coming days.

The Manchester Street Poem is being painted live each day at the arches on Albion Street, and the finished panels will be moved into Festival Square each day for you to marvel at. Don't miss it.

Festival Square never sleeps. It looks like it when it gets really late, but it's just resting it's eyes, alright?

Image source, MIF

Anyway, it might be a quiet Monday for most of Manchester, but the square has the noise for you as ever.

We kick off the evening at 17:30 BST where city favourite Reform Radio, external and Thirty Pound Gentleman, external present some of the amazing artists who have passed through their Soundcamp programme. We've no idea what to expect but we know it'll be sweet.

From 20:00 BST until 22:00 BST we have the unreal Jenna And The Gs, external bringing their amazing live show to the square - funk, soul, drum n bass, jazz, WE DON'T KNOW but we love 'em.

Finally from 22:00 BST until very late we have DJ Mary-Ellen McTague, external, and Craig Potter, external from a little band called Elbow who you might have heard of. Just to clarify, Mary-Ellen is in fact most famous for being a legendary Manchester chef, but she'll be cooking up some tasty beats for us tonight. Weird. But cool.

See you down there!

Talking Points, external is a brand new programme for MIF19, that invites YOU (yes you!), the citizens of Manchester, to engage with and discuss some of the lofty but critically important themes that many of the festival artworks are also tackling head-on.

Image source, MIF

We find this idea enormously exciting, offering the chance for our audience to not just think about and discuss the ideas, but actively run the sessions too.

The programme is already running, and will be popping up in locations as varied as the Dancehouse stage, and the food market in the Arndale Centre - we've no idea either, but we love the idea.

Anyway, these sessions will all be completely unique and exciting, and are absolutely free to attend. We'll be at a couple of them this week, and will bring you a full report.

The full schedule is online here., external

Part of the focus for this year's Manchester International Festival is finding ways for our brilliant community to be a vital part of shows being championed. Ideally involving a lot of clay.

With this in mind, The School Of Intergation, external is built around offering free workshops by and for local residents, A Drunk Pandemic, external demands you take a tour around a bespoke brewery, Alphabus, external takes local dance and poetry talent and fuses it with international choreography, and our opening ceremony Bells For Peace asked the people of Manchester to come along to workshops to learn how to make their very own bell.

Take a look how it went:

If you'd like to learn a new skill yourself over the next few weeks, take a look at the School Of Integration class list, external, and sign up absolutely free.

Right so, what exactly is Atmospheric Memory, external all about?

In essence it's a big beautiful installation, where you can wander around and try out fantastic machines, experience some truly amazing cutting edge tech, and immerse yourself in a strange and different world. Here are some shots, to whet your atmospheric whistle:

The piece, by an artist called Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, is inspired by the 'father of computing', a philosopher/engineer called Charles Babbage -which we can all agree is a fantastic name.

About 180 years ago Mr Babbage (honestly, what a guy) proposed that the air was 'a vast library' holding every word ever spoken - and it's this idea that Atmospheric Memory was born from.

Lozano-Hemmer uses tech, visual art and just pure cleverness to transform the air around us into physical entities - trails of water vapour, ripples on a surface, glorious projections, and presents them in an enormous chamber built to make you feel like you've entered another world.

Essentially, it's a piece that makes you think about where our memories and thoughts live, what's contained within the air around us, and how on earth we go about capturing it.

What to say about it at a dinner party:

"Well I mean truly, we cannot ever know what Babbage would make of the result, but the pursuit of physicalising the transient surely is the very heart of his passion. To Babbage!"

What not to say:

"Yeah but he didn't make the Nintendo Wii, did he?"

Find out more about Atmospheric Memory here, external

You love to learn things, you love to learn things for free, and you love to learn things for free whilst doing something brilliant for your community. Right?

Well hooray for The School Of Integration, external, which is offering all of this to anyone in Manchester over the next few weeks.

First up was a banner-making class, led by Manchester resident and activist artist Lotte Karlsen, external, originally from Norway. Do you currently know how to make a top quality activism banner? Thought not.

Now don't make this mistake again with your Japanese flower arranging - take a look at the full class schedule now, external, and make a proper difference to our brilliant city.

The School Of Integration is an MIF project by Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera. We're so excited to get schooled.

An extraordinary custom-built structure is currently sitting just next to Manchester's Science and Industry museum - housing our ludicrously ambitious installation Atmospheric Memory., external

In his 'most ambitious work ever', award-winning Mexican-Canadian electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer takes on the idea that air is a 'vast library', holding every word ever spoken.

With this in mind, he's created a series of ‘Atmospheric Machines’ that mine the air for turbulence caused by speech, then transform it into something we can see, hear and even touch: trails of vapour, ripples on water, epic 360-degree projections. Then invited us to give them a go.

If it sounds like something to melt the brain, that's exactly what it's supposed to do - but why pass up the opportunity to launch into a sensory adventure of words, thoughts and machines? Get involved., external

Not sure if Serious Art might be your sort of thing, but like the idea of taking a trip to a secret brewery? Well, do we have the show for you.

So, you may or may not know that during the 1800s cholera swept through Manchester, contaminating the water supply and killing thousands. Those who survived were kept alive because they drank beer instead of water, and it's this fact that Japanese art collective Chim↑Pom have focussed on in their creation A Drunk Pandemic which runs throughout this year's festival.

It promises to be one of the most surprising, entertaining and certainly delicious experiences of the festival, and you can find out more about it here, external. We never thought we'd be looking forward to learning plenty more about cholera.

So far in this festival we've witnessed huge crowds ring bells for Yoko Ono, seen Janelle Monáe blow the roof off the Castlefield Bowl, grilled David Lynch about Twin Peaks, built installations of sound and smoke, smashed spoken word into street dance, played our specially commissioned game and more than any decent sentence can handle.

Plus, in a bid to stay awake, Dan's spent all his money on food in Festival Square. "Just one more sweet potato fry" he cries, eyes wild, the poor mad fool.

Anyway, the point is, we've got a lot more ahead. And he's taken up cycling. What's happening today then?

Image source, MIF

Chim↑Pom's secret-brewery-tour-show (why not eh?) A Drunk Pandemic, external is now open, promising surprises, excitement, and a surprising number of references to cholera - what's not to like?

The David Lynch exhibition, external is open for all to see inside his beautiful twisted mind, as is Ibrahim Mahama's A Parliament Of Ghosts, external - both free to all.

Also free are the classes for the School Of Integration, external, the brilliant project by Tania Bruguera that hopes to showcase the diverse and glorious skills of Manchester residents who were born elsewhere in the world. We'll be heading down there today, so stay tuned to find out exactly what taking a class is like (fingers crossed for life drawing).

Speaking of free, there are as ever free performances and pop up gigs taking place in Festival Square, external, and if you can't make it over in person, then you can play our specially commissioned game Songs Of The Lost , externalfrom wherever you are.

Well, that's enough to be getting on with - we'll be updating all day with videos, behind the scenes stuff and, let's be honest, Dan will end up succumbing to more sweet potato fries. He just can't control himself.

Check back soon!

Thanks for spending another day with us - we're now off to Festival Square, external to watch Robert Maseko & The Nubeat, the Desi Jockeys and finishing up with a DJ set from proud Manc Chunky. We absolutely recommend you join us.

Tomorrow we'll be back with more need-to-know intel, some behind the scenes action, photos, videos and festival buzz. Till then, adventurers!

Not so much a show as a series of free workshops, the School Of Integration, external is an open-hearted, fun and genuinely important project exploring integration and who is responsible for making it happen.

Created by acclaimed Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera, current Manchester residents from from 54 countries will teach a series of workshops on almost every topic you can imagine.

Take a look at the taster below:

From life drawing to hair braiding, dumpling making to glass painting, the hope is that by coming together to learn as well as teach, we can properly celebrate the best aspects of all our cultures.

You can take a look at the full schedule of events here., external

We are mere days away from the first run of Rimini Protokoll's new project Utopolis, external, an ambitious new work created for MIF19. Utopolis Manchester is a site-specific work that uses intricate tapestries of sound and voices to transform our view of the city.

Image source, MIF

Fortuitously, the MIF Live team are currently occupying the same building as the Rimini Protokoll team, so what better opportunity to go behind the scenes? It would be rude not to, really.

The technical story behind the project is truly amazing: powering the work is a network of beautifully custom-made units that are carried by each audience group taking part in the project. These are the guides to the piece, playing beautiful continuous audio to each group that lead them through the city while remaining synchronised with each other, allowing groups to slowly join each other, their audio becoming unified.

Here's what the whole lot sounds like in one place during testing (it was LOUD):

Image source, MIF

I spoke to Chris Ball, a Manchester-based creative technologist and the talented chap responsible for the design and build of the units, including the custom-made circuitry and code inhabiting each one. He explained the challenges of creating units in such high number that had to remain completely synchronised for hours, favouring custom-made electronics over smartphones:

After Utopolis premieres in Manchester it will be touring around the world, which was another big consideration for the choice of technology:

The audio was a particularly interesting challenge too - I spoke to Harry Ovington, the composer of the dozens of pieces of sychronised music that weaves throughout the project.

As I write this, the team are doing their first full-spectrum rehearsal, with dozens of units spread out all over the rehearsal space playing their audio - synchronisation slowly comes in every so often, reflecting the groups of audience joining together. The whole run is about four hours - do we get a break?!

Don't test your kit in quiet pubs, kids.

There are even more layers and elements of this project that I'm not allowed to talk about, but: if you want to see this massively ambitious project in action you can join us when it launches this week at various locations across the city.

Utopolis, external is nearly here, and it is going to be astounding.