Category: 5. Entertainment

When millions of parents bought their kids a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game in the late 90s and early 00s, they couldn’t have understood the profound effect it would have on their children’s music taste. With bands from Bad Religion to Papa Roach and Millencolin accompanying every failed spin and grind, these trick-tastic games slyly doubled up as the ultimate compilation CD.

While the Fifa games have an equally storied history with licensed music, those soundtracks feel impersonal – a who’s who of whichever artists EA’s associated record labels wanted to push at the time. Pro Skater’s soundtrack, by contrast, felt like being handed a grubby and slightly dog-eared handmade mixtape, still battered from its last tumble at the local skate park.

“Most of the bands were chosen because I heard them growing up at the skate park. I would say most of the original punk stuff – even the early hip-hop – that was my soundtrack to skating in the 80s and 90s,” Tony Hawk says. “I never imagined that I would be a tastemaker but, that was really just a byproduct of staying true to the culture.”

“Tony was very involved in punk rock,” says Chris DeMakes, frontman of Less Than Jake, before his set at this year’s Slam Dunk festival. “Ultimately, he had to approve the bands on his soundtrack … So that always kind of made me feel good about it.” The band’s Roger Lima adds: “The culture of skating and music is so meshed, it made sense for them to have a real soundtrack to it.”

For the bands that made it on to these games in those years, the impact was immeasurable. “I remember playing earlier versions of THPS and hearing some of our contemporaries … I hoped we’d get an opportunity like that,” says Hunter Burgan, bassist of AFI. “But I don’t think I really understood how big the impact was until after we actually were on the soundtrack. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me over the last two decades and told me that THPS3 was their first introduction to AFI.”

“Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater made All My Best Friends Are Metalheads a hit – as big a hit as if we would have been on 60 major rock stations in America … Probably bigger,” says DeMakes. “I talked to John Feldman [of Goldfinger] about this recently, and with Superman it’s the same thing for them. That wasn’t a worldwide hit, but it became a hit for them because of that game.”

When the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater came out in 1999, those grey PlayStation discs served as a punk rock Trojan horse, sneaking a killer introduction to the world of alt and punk music to millions of unsuspecting kids. A quarter-century later, new artists are featuring on modern remakes of the Pro Skater games, alongside the bands that shaped their taste.

“Those games fully altered my taste in music!” says Sammy Ciaramitaro, vocalist of hardcore band Drain. “They brought punk rock (and a lot of other incredible music) to my childhood bedroom.” Drain are now one of a handful of new artists that were chosen to be added to the soundtrack for the remakes. “I think our inclusion represents the growth of hardcore,” says Ciaramitaro. “I’m honored that we now get to be a part of this with Turnstile and End It, too. I hope that maybe some young kids will hear our songs while playing and it will motivate them to do a deep dive into punk rock music, like we all did when we were younger.”

Other bands who weren’t quite big enough to get on Tony’s radar at the time, such as the Ataris, spent their careers dreaming of making it on to the next Pro Skater game. “We were coming of age the same time that Pro Skater was,” says bassist Mike Davenport. “In 1999/2000 was when we really started to take off as a band and we didn’t even feel as if we belonged with the bands that were featured [on the games].” The Ataris’ track All Souls’ Day eventually made the soundtrack for 2020’s Pro Skater 1+2 remake.

Davenport says that the band used to play Pro Skater constantly on tour in the back of an RV – even, once, in the middle of a car accident. “My merch guy and I were playing in the kitchen nook one night when we heard the driver yell ‘look out!’ and then the TV flew at us, and we both literally batted it down with our hands so as not to have it smash us in the face,” he remembers. “Sadly the TV and PlayStation were killed, but luckily not us.”

Even though Less Than Jake reaped the rewards of being on the game back in 2002, returning with a different song on the Pro Skater remake decades later still felt like a badge of honour: “We’re a band that’s been around for 33 years, so we love anything that can propel us and get us in front of a new audience,” says DeMakes, “Everybody has social media. Anybody can upload their song to YouTube or Spotify or Apple Music now, it’s a different playing field. So how do you get noticed? Getting asked to be in a video game is perfect.”

“As long as there are people playing video games there will be an avenue to connect them with music,” says Burgan, “Skateboarding, punk rock and video games were a huge part of our lives growing up and were inextricably connected, so it seems like a natural continuation of that. For bands, I think the cultural impact is far more important and lasting than any financial benefit.”

Such is the lasting impact of the Pro Skater soundtracks that there are cover bands dedicated to playing it live – among them the 900. “We were really annoying when we first started the band, just tagging Tony Hawk in every story and Instagram post,” frontman Harry Shaw tells me. “When he followed us [on social media] we thought: ‘That’s it, we’ve made it.’ We never imagined that he’d actually come on stage with us.”

In a video that’s since gone viral on Instagram, Tony Hawk hopped on stage unannounced with the 900 in east London, covering Bloodstains by Agent Orange and Superman by Goldfinger, to a rapturous crowd. “[We’re] eternally grateful for him doing that show, and also just not being a dick about bands covering songs from his game, either,” says Shaw, “He doesn’t have to do this stuff, his name is so big within pop culture – like Ronaldo or Messi – he’s almost like a living meme.”

“There are five bands that only play covers from our video game series, and I’ve sang with three of them. But that one [the 900] was really fun,” says Hawk. “My appearance was a surprise, and they were kind enough to choose songs that I was more into. Yes, I’m proud of the soundtrack, but I can’t sing every song nor could I remember the lyrics!”

In the decades that have passed since the original Pro Skater games, their soundtracks have been the gift that keeps giving for the bands who make it on. “I actually just met Tony a few weeks ago at a music festival,” says AFI’s Burgan. “He is a true music lover and that makes being included in THPS even more special.”

While Pro Skater has gone down in legend, Less Than Jake believes that it could have very easily gone the other way.

“How many stars do we know that have made products or endorsed things that weren’t good?” laughs DeMakes. “But in Tony’s case, he had a really cool game that kids embraced and loved.”

“Pro Skater could have been a flop, it could have just not really worked out in the long run,” agrees Lima. “But every element of it was just super effortlessly cool and it was huge for us … I can’t count the amount of times someone has said: “I found out about you guys through Pro Skater.” Just look at the YouTube comments … thousands and thousands of fans that probably never would have heard of us otherwise.”

On the morning of 13 November 2022, Hunter Johnson and Emily Alandt, two students at the University of Idaho in Moscow, answered an odd phone call. Their friend Dylan Mortensen, who lived just a few houses away, heard strange noises during the night and was scared. Her four upstairs roommates weren’t answering their phones – could they come over and check on things? Johnson and Alandt weren’t particularly concerned, Moscow being a quiet college town of unlocked doors, until they reached 1122 King Road. The usually boisterous residence, the node of a sprawling friend group, was eerily quiet. Johnson proceeded up the stairs and into the bedroom where his best friend, Ethan Chapin, 20, was staying over with his girlfriend, Xana Kernodle, also 20. Then, to spare the others the trauma of a ghastly sight, he told the girls to call 911 for an “unconscious individual”.

By now, the clinical facts of the University of Idaho murders, as they have become known, have been published and republished, dissected to death online and seared into the consciousness of even casual news consumers. So One Night in Idaho: The College Murders, a new Amazon docuseries that includes, for the first time, extensive interviews with Johnson, Alandt and other close friends and family, takes a different approach – not a chronology of the murders of Chapin, Kernodle and her roommates, Madison Mogen, 21 and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, but how the crime and its nuclear fallout landed on their loved ones. How much confusion ensued in the hours after the 911 call, as more and more friends, including Chapin’s fellow triplets, Hunter and Maizie, gathered outside the house, while police searched and said nothing; the group got confirmation that their friends had died not from officers on the scene, but from a campus shelter-in-place alert to their phones.

“In the crime genre, the majority of those are told through the lens of an investigator or law enforcement or a journalist,” Matthew Galkin, co-director of the series with Liz Garbus, said. “We wanted to flip the script with this one because we felt like that was the part of the story that hadn’t been told yet.”

Plenty of other stories were – within hours of the discovery, the four murders made international news. Reporters from outlets around the country descended on the small, formerly quiet community in the northern Idaho panhandle. The house at 1122 King Road became not only an active crime scene but a grim tourist attraction, drawing amateur sleuths and true crime enthusiasts who posted photos of blood dripping down the house’s foundation. The tragedy was catnip for widespread attention – four photogenic, white, very online kids whose public social media profiles provided ample material for amateur sleuths; the group posed and posted classically college photos, all tangled together before a football game, the day before they were brutally stabbed to death. Authorities revealed next to no information – no leads, no suspected motive, no known connections to a killer at large. Plenty of space for sideline conjecture, or as Galkin put it, “a perfect storm for that kind of social media scrutiny”.

The first two episodes of the series relive those horrific initial six weeks for friends and family, as they were bombarded with media requests, unsolicited direct messages or accusations of murder themselves, on top of unimaginable grief. Anonymous websites argued that Johnson – the kid that found his best friend murdered — was the killer, based on his friends’ social media snippets. Amateur sleuths snuck into classes and dorms. Others tried to access the house, still roped off with caution tape. “All of a sudden there are blueprints of the house and people are making 3D models,” Galkin said. “It just became almost like a game to people.” For those close to the victims, so-called Reddit detectives and anonymous DMs threatening retribution were just as scary as the fact that the real killer was still at large. “I was once again fearing for my life but for a completely different reason,” Daniel Berriochoa, Chapin’s fraternity brother and one of the last people to see him alive, recalls in the series.

Direct threats aside, “I don’t think the majority of people were malicious in what they were doing. I certainly think there was a legitimate desire to solve this,” said Galkin. But the naming of suspects in public went “haywire” – “these people aren’t law enforcement. They’re not lawyers. They have no right to pick people they don’t know and accuse them of horrific crimes and then just sit back and watch it all happen.”

Six weeks after the murders, authorities arrested Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology student at Washington State University, a 15-minute drive over the border from Idaho’s campus, at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania. According to a probable cause affidavit, investigators found him based on DNA evidence from the button of a knife sheath left at the scene. One would think an arrest would tamp down speculation, but new questions only fueled it – why did he do it? How did he know the victims? Why did he leave two – Mortensen and Bethany Funke – unscathed? It was at this point that Galkin and Garbus entered the picture and began speaking with families about telling their side of the story. As with Garbus’s recent series on the Gilgo Beach serial killer, there would be hard rules: “We go by facts. We do nothing salacious. We do nothing gratuitous,” said Galkin. There would be no blood, no bodies, just recreations of the victims’ rooms as they would have existed prior. “We can have people tell us the story and infer visually what happened, but you don’t have to go there.”

Though grounded in first-hand experiences, the series stays attuned to larger forces – online speculation, the ongoing information vacuum from authorities after a court’s gag order, and Kohberger’s potential links to hyper-misogynistic incel (“involuntary celibate”) ideology. The latter half of the series speculates that Kohberger posted creepy questions about the murders – which hand did he use? Did he shower at the house after? – in a large true crime Facebook group as “Pappa Rodger”, perhaps in a nod to “incel hero” Elliot Rodger, who killed six and injured 14 during a murderous rampage in California in 2014. Rodger targeted an Alpha Phi sorority house and left behind manifestos and videos railing against women who rejected him. Goncalves was a member of Alpha Phi at the University of Idaho, while Kernodle and Mogen were members of Pi Beta Phi.

The question undergirding all this attention remains: why? “We went as far as we could possibly go with answering that question without having actual facts because there was no process of discovery and there was no trial,” said Galkin. But based on what has been revealed, “I don’t believe that it was a completely random act of violence,” he said. “He didn’t just pick four strangers. I feel like there was at least one of them that he had tracked at least somewhat.”

Whatever evidence investigators found of Kohberger’s intentions, or any connection to the victims, remains an open question that may never be answered. Earlier this month, Kohberger pleaded guilty to all four murders, thus avoiding a long-delayed trial scheduled for next month as well as the death penalty. He will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole, pending a judge’s acceptance of the deal later this month. The deal, a week before the series aired, “caught us all off guard”, Galkin said. “There were some grumblings that it was possible, but I didn’t actually think it would happen.”

Immediately, some loved ones vehemently opposed it; in a statement, the Goncalves family, who did not participate in the series, said they were “beyond furious” at a “very unexpected decision” they did not consider to be justice. Others who did – including the Chapins and Mogen’s mother and stepfather – expressed support, relieved not to endure the trauma of a long trial with graphic evidence and the possibility that Kohberger walked free. “We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don’t want to have to be at, that we shouldn’t have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person,” Mogen’s father, Ben, told CBS. “We get to just think about the rest of lives and have to try and figure out how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids.”

Galkin and Garbus added a title card explaining the outcome at the end of the final episode, though it does not change its focus: remembering how the four victims lived, in the words of the people who actually knew them. Mogen was sweet, quiet and slyly funny with her distinctive dance moves; Goncalves was ambitious and sparkly; “DJ Xan” Kernodle insisted on bringing her MacBook computer everywhere to play her music; Chapin never missed an opportunity to make people laugh.

And for Galkin and Garbus, to offer a true crime series that warns against the obsession with true crimes concerning real people. “There is a time and a place for amateur sleuthing. But there’s also a human toll,” said Galkin. “Hopefully, this series allows you to look in their eyes and just understand what this is doing to people. Maybe people might think twice before they do this on the next enormous crime story.”

Molly McGuinness: Slob

“There should be a buffet at every comedy gig,” says Manchester-based Molly McGuinness – and luckily for us, she’s making that happen for her Edinburgh debut. Her laugh-packed sets, served with snacks and a warm conversational style, are inspired by the standup of Caroline Aherne. “I like it to feel as if I’m talking to a friend,” she says. Slob began as a turning-30 existential crisis about reaching your potential, but when a rare disease left McGuinness in a coma, everything shifted. She will share the “bizarre and surreal” experience of coma-induced delirium, tender reflections on “the sweetness of the nurses” that cared for her, and a blossoming love story. “A lot of people feel like a slob, but we’re doing the best we can,” she says.
Monkey Barrel, 28 July–24 August

Simple Town

US group Simple Town make consistently brilliant short films, where everyday conundrums (what’s the meaning of “adroit”? What happens if you’re late for a funeral?) escalate to extremes, or descend into meta-narratives about the absurdity of online content. The foursome, who started performing regularly in New York around 2017, are bringing an hour of “pure sketch comedy” for their fringe debut. Their previous visits to the UK sold out fast. “Our work is somewhere between alternative and crowd-pleasing. Sometimes it’s brainy, ‘comedian’s comedian’ humour, but we also work very hard for the shows to be silly, broad, fast-paced, and fun,” they say. “So hopefully, both kinds of audiences will find something in the show to hate.”
Pleasance Courtyard, 11–24 August

Dirty Work

Australian performer Jessica Barton started out in musical theatre and got her first taste of comedy at French clown school Gaulier. She began to “play using song and movement, physical comedy and clowning”, moved to London and immersed herself in its alternative comedy scene. Dirty Work combines her vocal talents with playful audience interaction. In character as Floppins – a Mary Poppins-esque figure intent on cleaning up the stage – she cleverly explores gendered domestic roles. “Expect to have a lot of fun,” she says. “Expect to be challenged and to rise to the occasion. Especially the men in the audience.” Dirty Work was awarded best newcomer at Melbourne international comedy festival and as she gets deeper into the character: “I’ve enjoyed finding new things within the world I’ve created.”
Underbelly Cowgate, 31 July–24 August

Ayoade Bamgboye: Swings and Roundabouts

Her assured presence and sideways perspective make Ayoade Bamgboye stand out on any lineup, despite having only three years of live comedy under her belt. She had been working as a writer when someone suggested she try it and Bamgboye is always experimenting, incorporating clowning, multimedia forays and different personae into her performances. She “grew up between London and Lagos” and gives a unique twist on observational comedy: “I’m looking at everything as if I’m on safari. I’m a curious silly billy.” Bamgboye says her comedy has sometimes been “confrontational and caustic” with spicy punchlines on racism and colonialism, but with her debut she’s ready to be more vulnerable, too: “Audiences should expect something bittersweet.”
Pleasance Courtyard, 30 July–24 August

Sharon Wanjohi: In the House

She first tried standup at university in Southampton (“We had a comedy society where all the nerds went”) and quickly racked up finalist spots at the Funny Women and BBC new comedy awards. Now, Sharon Wanjohi is making her fringe debut with a show about self-help culture and the zeitgeisty coping mechanisms that are “shoved down our throats” every day. “I’m presenting myself as this 90s talkshow host, in the mould of Trisha and Oprah”, Wanjohi says. “I’m satirising self-help, but also breaking out of character to do standup.” You’ll get a gen Z spin on societal issues like the housing crisis, but something “goofy, silly, less grounded in reality,” Wanjohi promises.
Pleasance Courtyard, 30 July–24 August

Roger O’Sullivan: Fekken

This 90s-tinted debut from Irish comedian Roger O’Sullivan explores his relationship with his farmer father via Tekken and the rest of young Roger’s favourite PlayStation games. He started out on Cork’s small comedy scene eight years ago, where “there weren’t really any stakes, so any gig you’d do something new and try the weirdest thing. That’s the mentality I’ve had from early on.” He’s had success online with lo-fi animations, which he works into the show to great effect. “I wanted to end with a callback to retro video games and thought it would be really funny if I learned 3D animation just for that.” Expect warm standup that melds “a little bit of heart with absurdism”.
PBH’s Free Fringe @ Carbon and Hoots @ The Apex, 2–23 August

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It’s 6:30am in Moshi, Kilimanjaro region. The sun is starting to rise daily at the same time as it is near the equator. The singing of roosters and other birds blends with the sounds of beeping boda bodas from the nearby road. The snow-covered top of Mount Kilimanjaro is coming out from the clouds. The security guard keeps talking loudly on the phone near the home windows, keeping some volunteers awake. It is another day of teaching at Daraja Music Initiative, the programme that bridges music education and nature conservation.

The programme was initiated by Michele Von Haugg under the name ’Clarinets for Conservation.’ She got the inspiration to come to Tanzania after seeing a documentary Mpingo – the tree that makes music. Now the programme is run by executive director clarinetist Ian Tyson from New York. First, it was a clarinet-only programme, but later on, the violin was added to it. Some of the students can play both the violin and the clarinet. 

Mpingo, the African Blackwood tree, is special – it is the national tree of Tanzania. Not only are beautiful carvings made of this durable and expensive tree, but also musical instruments such as clarinets, oboes, and parts of the string instruments such as fingerboards, chin rests, pegs, and bow frogs.

The tree is over-harvested and not enough replenished, but during the 15 years of the programme, many trees have been planted at local Moshi schools, and students are being taught about the environmental and economic value of the tree and how to take good care of it.

The programme is truly building community and empowering students and local families in many ways. A former student of the programme, Michael Boaz, opened his own NGO non-profit organisation in Dar es Salaam called ’Music for Hope’ three years ago. Many older students aspire to travel abroad for the first time and have dreams to come to study in foreign universities to obtain music education degrees.

Every Thursday, students, together with volunteer teachers, perform at the local coffee shop ’Union Coffee’ owned by a parent of a student. These performances are very special as all students can showcase their skills, like a new scale or just the new three notes that they have learnt on the D-string.

A touching moment for me was playing together my arrangement of Mbuga Za Wanyama Tanzania. One of the seven-year-old violin students was conducting our little ensemble, and the whole audience joined in singing and cheering at the end. We were using my battery-operated lantern because the lights were so dim that we could barely see the music, but luckily, I also brought many spare batteries for the stand lights.

Weekly Friday performances of the programme take place in the Courage Cafe. This cafe is special because it supports women who have been victims of sexual abuse and trafficking. Women who are recovering from these severely challenging circumstances make clothes, bracelets, earrings, and other souvenirs that are sold at the store of this cafe.

The programme has run for 15 years, and many of the small students have grown and now are in need of the full-size violins. There is a lack of full-size violins, and many students need to play on violins that are a size or two too small. Even though there are many violins donated to the programme, the challenge is how to transport them from the US to Tanzania. I was able to bring three new violins to the programme, generously donated by my student Shwetha Manimaran and her mom, Nivetha. 

In Tanzania, there are no shops where you can buy violins or strings, and no luthiers. One day, I was checking Makumira College student Fraterin Shayo’s violin to see if it had no open seams and was changing his three-year-old strings to a new set, and I noticed that his bridge was very crooked. I had a brand new spare bridge with me from America, and we decided to put it on. In the process of changing the bridge, the sound post fell down. I had never put in the sound post before that. After watching a YouTube video tutorial and one and a half hours of trying and failing, I managed to put the sound post back in with the tools that the programme luckily had. A few days later, the sound post fell down again. With another hour and a half and a more careful try, I was able to put it back in, and the violin sounded so beautiful with an open and ringing tone. I was extremely relieved that we managed to do it without access to any of the luthiers, and I only ended up with one bloody finger because of pinching it with the sharp edge of the tool. 

Tanzania is a country to fall in love with and return to, and music is a universal language that can bridge and build international communities. Planting seeds of mpingo trees and planting the seed of education, kindness, and resilience in each and every student, and then watching it grow and flourish.

There are important lessons to learn from the community of Daraja Music Initiative – in a world full of hatred, conflict, and division, there is something beautiful and more important, which is the future of our planet and children. It’s in our daily steps that we can either build or destroy. With every note we play, with each lesson we teach, and with each tree we plant, we can create a compound and sustainable effort that will make an impact on our future generations.

All photos courtesy Aija Reke.

About BBC Radio 1 Dance: Ibiza

Since the summer of 1995, BBC Radio 1 has touched down annually on the Spanish party island of Ibiza. Conceived by veteran broadcaster Pete Tong, the legendary weekender has become an institution which shows no signs of slowing down as it reaches its 30th anniversary milestone.

Taking place in peak summer, with school, college and university holidays well underway, the island is already firing on all cylinders, the temperature is at its hottest and the dancefloors at their craziest. Just like every summer, the weekend spans multiple locations.

Here’s what is going down across the entire extended weekend from Friday to Monday.

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Schedule

1 August
16:00 – 23:59 | BBC Radio 1 Dance: Ibiza | 528 Ibiza | BUY TICKETS
23:00 – 06:00 | BBC Radio 1 Dance X After Party | Amnesia | BUY TICKETS

2 August
15:00 – 23:00 | ANTS x Radio 1 Dance X | Ushuaïa Ibiza | BUY TICKETS
23:30 – 06:00 | elrow x Radio 1 Dance X | [UNVRS] | BUY TICKETS

3 August
23:30 – 06:00 | Glitterbox x Radio 1 Dance X | Hï Ibiza | BUY TICKETS

4 August
13:00 – 20:00 | BBC Radio 1 Dance X Pool Party | Ibiza Rocks | BUY TICKETS

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Friday

BBC Radio 1 Dance: Ibiza | 528 Ibiza | 16:00 – 23:59

From 16:00, BBC Radio 1 commences its esteemed extravaganza at outdoor venue 528 Ibiza in the Benimussa Hills. Marking the start of an incredible weekend ahead, this party is curated solely by Radio 1 itself and will of course be broadcasted live back in the UK and online.

With multiple stages scattered throughout the picturesque site, roster highlights include performances from top DJs Sonny Fodera, Disciples, Chris Lake, Miss Monique, Alok and plenty more.

A free shuttle bus takes partygoers to and from the venue, via the San Antonio bus station – so no need to spend money on a taxi!

If last year is anything to go by, then this hotly-tipped party is one for your calendar. Tickets are very limited, so don’t delay if you want to attend the main event.

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

BBC Radio 1 Dance X After Party | Amnesia | 23:00 – 06:00

Following the daytime festival, the celebrations continue just down the road as the official BBC Radio 1 Dance X After Party takes over super-club Amnesia. While most of the bill remains under wraps, we do know that Josh Baker is set to go back-to-back with Kettama.

Amnesia is a legendary club on Ibiza for many reasons. Here is your chance to experience it on the hottest weekend of the year. Just take our advice: keep your eye out for those explosions of CO2.

Who knows, there might also be some unannounced appearances…

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

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Saturday

ANTS x BBC Radio 1 Dance X | Ushuaïa Ibiza | 15:00 – 23:00

On Saturday afternoon from 15:00, Ushuaïa Ibiza‘s famed all-black ANTS party will be live streamed, as Radio 1 Dance patriarch Pete Tong leads the pack. He will be joined by an incredible line-up of talent including John Summit, Franky Rizardo, Cloonee and Max Styler.

We recommend saving money on entry by considering either of the two early-entry discount options.

Unlike the previous day’s parties, this takes place on the opposite side of the island. Ushuaïa is located on the east side of the island in the resort of Playa d’en Bossa.

Taxis can get expensive, so we recommend using the very reliable disco bus service, which departs San Antonio bus station regularly. Single tickets cost €5 each way.

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

elrow x BBC Radio 1 Dance X | [UNVRS] | 23:30 – 06:00

Chances are, you already have at least a passing understanding of what elrow is, given its the most visible clubbing brand on the planet. But in case you don’t, let us bring you up to speed…

With larger-than-life characters in full cos-play, interactive games, confetti explosions, giant inflatables and its renowned Tech House sound, elrow has easily become one of the most recognisable party brands on the planet. It’s massive.

Known for its solid roster of residents and the huge special guests that they reel in to each party. It’s no different for this collaboration with Radio 1, as HUGEL, Arielle Free, George Privatti and Matroda all take to the stage.

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

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Sunday

Glitterbox x BBC Radio 1 Dance X | Hï Ibiza | 23:30 – 06:00

Sunday night will commission the sounds of Disco and authentic House music from 23:30 at Hï Ibiza, as Glitterbox hosts Roger Sanchez, Dan Shake b2b Myd, Dames Brown (live), DJ Minx, Eli Escobar, Floorplan, Gok Wan and Mike Dunn.

There will of course be more magic in the Wild Corner too. For those that don’t know, that’s the crazy toilet rave! You’ll want your phone fully-charged for that one.

Hï Ibiza is DJ Mag’s reigning world’s number one club after picking up the accolade for the fourth consecutive year. What a great opportunity to see the club in full flow and understand why it is so highly regarded amongst the legions of clubbers who voted for it.

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

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Monday

BBC Radio 1 Dance X Pool Party | Ibiza Rocks | 13:00 – 20:00

Mondays just hit different on Ibiza – and Radio 1 knows it! What more excuse do you need to extend your weekend?

Close things out in the most spectacular way possible, by heading over to Ibiza Rocks for a day in the sunshine with the BBC Radio 1 Dance X Pool Party. Here you can find Radio 1 Dance DJs as well as Ibiza Rocks residents taking over the “home of the pool party” all day long.

Weetabix-munching viral sensation Fish56Octagon is the headliner, with on-air talents Charlie Hedges and Connor Coates joining the action.

MAP | MORE INFO | BUY TICKETS

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What you can expect

BBC Radio 1’s annual pilgrimage is a rite of passage for Radio 1’s young listener base. For many of them, this will be their first experience of Ibiza – and what an introduction. There’s a reason why this is the busiest weekend of the summer.

If you’re visiting for the first time, be prepared to fall in love with the island.

Of course, you’re not strictly limited to only hitting the parties happening within the weekend programme, there’s plenty more going on aside. For a comprehensive overview of everything going on and those all important tickets, please visit our world famous party calendar.

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Useful quick links

WORDS | by Lissy Lübeck and Stephen Hunt

A quarry has received the go-ahead to install solar panels and a battery storage system in a bid to cut energy costs.

Dorset Council approved the planning application from Portland Stone Firms Ltd, which will see 140 panels installed at the southern site of Coombefield Quarry on Southwell Road.

The panels are expected to generate up to 61KW of electricity per hour at peak output.

Installation is scheduled for this summer and is expected to take one to two weeks.

The generated power will be delivered to the mine via a cable laid and backfilled along the quarry floor.

Any surplus energy will be stored in on-site 20KW batteries, with excess power exported to the National Grid.

Because the panels will be located at the base of the quarry, they will be largely hidden from view.

The planning documents note that while there may be “transitory” views through vegetation from a nearby right of way, the installation will not be visible from homes on Avalanche Road and Southwell Road.

To kick off this collaboration, and in celebration of the theatrical release of DC Studios’ ‘Superman’, the Lola T001 driven by Zane Maloney and Lucas di Grassi will be wrapped in the iconic blue, red and yellow of Krypton’s superhero, with the famous Superman shield adorning the chassis.

WATCH: Find out where to watch every Formula E race via stream or on TV in your country

Maloney and di Grassi will also wear custom made race suits, resembling Superman’s own unique uniform as they set about seeking out some on-track heroics in Berlin this weekend.

Patrick Maitrot, GVP Global Sales at Warner Bros. Discovery, says: “Superman is one of the planet’s most legendary and much-loved characters. By teaming up with one of the most world’s most exciting motorsport events and leader in motorsport engineering and technology in Lola Cars, together we will channel superhero energy and push the Lola T001 to the peak of its powers in Berlin .

“Our suite of global brands and IP is unmatched and by harnessing our creative capabilities through a unique activation that celebrates the electrifying action of both brands, we will amplify the excitement of Formula E and Superman fans around the world ahead of the race and film release.”

“This partnership with Warner Brothers is a great milestone for Lola Cars, utilising the motorsport platform to create engaging content not only for our mutual benefit but also that of our sponsors,” said Keith Smout, Chief Commercial Officer, Lola Cars. “It’s an example of how we can build partnerships that go beyond traditional models and generate added value to all parties.

“To kick off this collaboration with a celebration of a film centred around one of the most recognizable superheroes is a statement of the impactful activations we plan to implement together. This is a fantastic opportunity for not only Lola Cars and the team, but Formula E as a whole, to reach new audiences and build excitement around this growing sport.” 

DC Studio heads Peter Safran and James Gunn are producing ‘Superman’, which Gunn directs from his own screenplay, based on characters from DC, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. ‘Superman’ is DC Studios’ first feature film to hit the big screen and is set to soar into theatres worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures.

Warner Bros. Discovery is the Home of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Europe with exclusive coverage of every race in the UK on TNT Sports with streaming on discovery+, and on Eurosport and HBO Max across Europe, including exclusive coverage in the Nordics, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

SCHEDULE: Where, when and how to watch or stream the 2025 Hankook Berlin E-Prix Rounds 13 & 14

Free Practice 1: 16:00 local (14:00 UTC), Friday 11 July
Free Practice 2: 09:00, (07:00 UTC) Saturday 12 July
Qualifying: 11:20 (09:20 UTC), Saturday 12 July
Round 13: 16:00 (14:00 UTC), Saturday 12 July

Free Practice 3: 09:00, (07:00 UTC) Sunday 13 July
Qualifying: 11:20 (09:20 UTC), Sunday 13 July
Round 14: 16:00 (14:00 UTC), Sunday 13 July

Find out more

CALENDAR: Sync the dates and don’t miss a lap of Season 11

WATCH: Find out where to watch every Formula E race via stream or on TV in your country

TICKETS: Secure your grandstand seats and buy Formula E race tickets

SCHEDULE: Here’s every race of the 2024/25 Formula E season

HIGHLIGHTS: Catch up with every race from all 10 seasons of Formula E IN FULL

PREDICTOR: Get involved, predict race results and win exclusive prizes

HOSPITALITY: Experience Formula E and world class motorsport as a VIP

FOLLOW: Download the Formula E App on iOS or Android

 

How do artists build in broken times? Is artificial intelligence (AI) unlocking a better world—curing diseases and transforming education—or unleashing our destruction? When hype and fear drown out nuance and discussion, perhaps in art we can find a quiet moment for reflection—even resistance.

After all, artists have long guided society through uncertainty—think Dada amid the First World War or Jikken Kōbō in Japan following the Second World War. They do not offer solutions so much as new responses: ways of expressing curiosity, imagining alternatives or holding room for ambiguity. As the critic Hal Foster recently described, two tendencies have historically emerged when art confronts crisis: one rooted in Constructivism, aiming to create new order; the other more chaotic, echoing Dada, amplifying disorder.

These historical impulses connect to the present day, mapping onto AI art. In this context, artists could be seen as builders and breakers. Builders imagine AI as a medium for collaboration and new aesthetics—even hope. Breakers critique, negate and disrupt. But leading makers and curators in the field see this as no simple dichotomy. Both offer strategies for reckoning with a world in flux.

Builders see possibilities

What motivates builders is not simply using the newest AI tool—or even fashioning their own from scratch. It is aligning multidisciplinary tools with concepts to produce works that were previously impossible—while urging us to imagine what else may soon be possible. Builders leverage AI to embrace the artistry of system creation, novel aesthetics and human-machine collaboration.

Take Sougwen Chung, the Chinese Canadian artist and researcher into human-machine collaboration. “I view technology not just as a tool but as a collaborator,” Chung says. Their work explores shared agency—even identity—between human and machine, code and gesture. In Mutations of Presence (2021), Chung collaborated with D.O.U.G._4, a custom-built robotic system driven by biofeedback: specifically, electroencephalogram signals captured during meditation and real-time body tracking. The resulting pieces reveal both performance and painting, a hybrid body co-authoring with machine memory. An elegant web of painterly gestures—some made via robotic arm, others by Chung’s hand—traces a kind of recursive duet.

The work demonstrates how Chung’s novel physical creations become interconnected with new conceptual frameworks—reframing authorship as a distributed, relational process with machines—inviting new forms of aesthetic exploration. It also reasserts a long-held, often feminist belief—dating back to Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)—that the distinction between human and machine is illusory. As Chung puts it, “I see combining AI and robotics with traditional creativity as a way to think more deeply about what is human and what is machine.”

Chung’s intimacy with these systems goes further still: “I’ve started to see them as us in another form.” That is because they are trained as extensions to Chung’s very self. “I draw with decades of my own movement data or create proprioceptive mappings triggered by alpha [brain] waves. These systems don’t possess agency in a mystical sense but they reflect back our own: our choices, biases, knowledge.” This builder tendency aligns with earlier avant-gardes that saw technology as a path toward reordering the world, including the Bauhaus and aspects of the 1960s Experiments in Art and Technology movement. Builders are not naïve. They are aware of AI’s risks. But they believe that the minimum response is to participate in the conversation.

“My artistic practice is also driven by hope and an exploration of the promises and possibilities inherent in working with technology,” Chung says. Their vision affirms a cautious optimism through direct engagement with these tools.

Breakers see warning signs

Where builders see AI’s possibility, breakers see warning signs. Breakers are sceptics, critics, saboteurs. They distrust the power structures underpinning AI and its predilection for promoting systemic biases. They highlight how corporate AI models can be trained on scraped datasets—often without consent—while profits remain centralised. They expose how AI systems exacerbate ecological challenges only to promulgate aesthetic homogenisation.

They are also label resistant: “Breaking and building have become indistinguishable,” the German artist, thinker and archetypal breaker Hito Steyerl says. “The paradigm of creative destruction merges both in order to implement tech in the wild, without testing, thus externalising cost and damage to societies while privatising profit.”

Breakers do not emphasise AI’s aesthetic potential; they interrogate its extractive foundations, social asymmetries and the harms it makes visible. Breakers take a far bleaker view of AI’s impact on art than builders: “Art used to be good at testing, planning, playing, assessing, mediating, sandboxing. That element has been axed—or automated—within current corporate breakbuilding,” Steyerl says.

But in Steyerl’s own work, such as This is the Future (2019), the meticulous co-ordination, criticality and sceptical spirit are evident. The artist uses neural networks to imagine medicinal plants evolved to heal algorithmic addiction and burnout. The work shows how machine learning’s inner workings, prediction, can be weaponised, satirising techno-optimism while exposing AI’s entanglement with ecological and psychological ruin.

Christiane Paul, the long-time digital art curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, underscores these issues: “In terms of ethics and bias, every artist I know working in this field is deeply concerned. You need to keep that in mind and engage with it on the level of criticality—what you would call the breakers, highlighting how ethics filter in.” An extreme breaker might reject AI entirely. But Paul suggests that artists working with AI are essential precisely because they inhabit that edge where culture and ethics are encouraged: “Art in this field, using these tools, making them, building on and with them, is deeply needed.”

Breakers remind us that celebrating new tools without understanding their costs is a form of denial. Sometimes, to truly see a system, you have to dismantle it. That clarity brings insight—but contradictions as well.

Neither utopian nor dystopian

Is it really as simple as a builder-breaker duality? “My whole life, I’ve been very suspicious of dichotomies,” Paul says. Exploring the space between seeming contradictions can even be fertile creative ground. “A steering question for my work,” Chung says, “is ‘how do we hold fear and hope in our minds at the same time?’”

Steyerl, like a true breaker, rejects the contradiction to begin with: “Breaking is a cost-cutting element of building, taking out mediation; there is no more distinction between both.” Neither position suggests retreat. Instead, they ask us to face the paradox directly. Builder and breaker are not identities; they are strategies. The distinction is porous, performative. Most artists move fluidly between them or hold on to both at the same time.

Chung continues: “My art doesn’t strictly sit within either a utopian or dystopian camp. Instead, I actively navigate and explore the complex space between potential fears and hopes concerning technology and human-machine interaction.”

Michelle Kuo, the chief curator at large at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, says: “When artists intervene in existing technologies or systems, or take action in changing the outcome of technological development, they are not only building something—they are implicitly challenging the status quo.” Kuo links “builders” with “challenging the status quo”, reinforcing the roles’ fluidity. “It is this combination of challenge and experimentation that characterises some of the most exciting work at the intersection of art and AI today,” Kuo says. For her, the AI work that can achieve both breaking and building—challenge and experimentation—truly confronts our moment, neither retreating from technology nor surrendering to it.

Artists who speak out

So, what does this all mean for the viewer living through a future that arrived faster than we feel equipped to handle?

It means active engagement with AI—even to break it. Kuo says: “Especially when the pace of change—of AI in particular—is even more accelerated than in previous eras, it is all the more crucial that artists and others outside the tech sector learn, test, speak up and act out.” Further, we might take cues from the artists engaging with AI themselves. Kuo describes what they do: “Artists take a tool and make it do something it’s not supposed to do. They don’t reject technology wholesale. They embrace it—and then make it strange.”

The best artists urge viewers to keep an open mind, slow down, appreciate nuance, accept ambiguity and recognise that we are a crucial part of the final outcome; they break, then build.

• Peter Bauman is editor-in-chief of the digital generative art institution Le Random

Based on the best-selling books by Ian Rankin and filmed in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow, the new series will continue to explore Rebus’s complex world as he navigates Scottish crime and personal conflict.

Richard Rankin reprises the role of Detective Sergeant John Rebus, who will “explore the links between violent criminals involved in the drug trade in Edinburgh and the professional bourgeois world of law and finance, where police sometimes fear to tread”.

Ian Rankin, who serves as an executive producer on the show, said: “Season one of Rebus ended on a cliffhanger. Only screenwriter Gregory Burke knows what happens next.

“So I’m hugely excited that season two will soon be with us. Rebus is back – mean, moody and as magnificent as ever!”

Paula Cuddy, executive producer and co-CEO at production company Eleventh Hour Films, added: “After three wins at the RTS Scotland Awards 2025, we couldn’t be more thrilled to now share that we are reuniting with Ian Rankin’s celebrated Scottish detective, brilliantly portrayed by Richard Rankin, to bring a second series of Rebus to the BBC.

“No doubt it’ll pack a punch and there’ll be some sardonic Rebus comments along the way. We can’t wait!”

Writer Gregory Burke said: “I’m delighted to be given the chance by the BBC and Eleventh Hour Films to bring Rebus back to the nation’s TV screens once more.

“Ian Rankin’s character and body of work are the perfect materials with which to explore contemporary Scottish society and the turbulent world that surrounds it.”

The first series of Rebus is currently available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer.

(Don’t) Stop Crying Your Heart Outpublished at 09:14 British Summer Time

09:14 BST

Kaya Black
BBC News, Manchester

Emotions are already running high ahead of the show – with this mother shedding tears of joy to be here as she brought her son along.

Rachel Rann, 45, and Thomas, 16, have travelled from Liversedge in West Yorkshire.

Thomas says he is “absolutely obsessed” with Oasis and his room at home is covered in merchandise from the band.

Rachel became teary as she predicted it would be an emotional moment watching the band with her son.