New Century Hall

This week Out In The City members visited the New Century Hall to view a new photography exhibition: “Picture This: A Public Image” – a collection of previously unseen photographs from 1978 -1980.

The images were the individuals and groups from the Ska, Punk and New Wave era and included The Clash, Sex Pistols, Madness, Blondie and Patti Smith.

(Patti Smith at Sunset Strip, John Cale at Whisky A Go Go (30 April 1979), Blondie and John Lydon)

The New Century Hall has hosted iconic acts ranging from legends like Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Hollies, The Bee Gees and Tina Turner to Madchester bands like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.

The building has now been fully restored and is still a concert hall, but includes a food hall with independent food traders.

Alan Turing and Artificial Intelligence

It was in 1944, while stationed at Bletchley Park in hushed secrecy, that Alan Turing first spoke of “building a brain”. 

The man who brought Turing to Manchester in 1948 was called Max Newman. Newman was a mathematician who had taught Turing at Cambridge, then worked alongside him at Bletchley Park, and was now in Manchester where he had been given £30,000 by the government to build a computer.

While at Cambridge, Newman had posed his students a philosophical question about the limits of mathematics as a field. Turing (and this sort of behaviour was typical of Turing) produced in response a paper where he imagines a machine that works like a brain. It’s the first evidence we have of a theme that runs through Turing’s life – his fascination with the idea that a machine might be taught to think. 

The other notable thing happening in Manchester at that time was that three men – Frederic C Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill – were in the process of “having a baby”. The Manchester Baby was the world’s first-ever “stored programme” computer. The Baby was freakishly large. It filled the entire laboratory room: a dusty, dirty room in the old Victoria University of Manchester on Cooper Street. The Baby was also largely what made Manchester attractive to Turing: a testbed for his ideas.

Turing and Newman had a shared interest in the idea of a machine acting as a brain. Turing was more open about this, Newman less so (the latter weighed up the practical consideration of accessing grant funding, while the former did as he pleased) but a shared interest it was. In October 1949 the trailblazing female philosophy professor Dorothy Emmet hosted a seminar at the university, The Mind and the Computing Machine, which we can label, retrospectively, the first public intellectual debate on what came to be known as Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Also in 1951 an essay by Turing appeared in the philosophical journal Mind, with the opening line: “I propose to consider a question, can machines think?” A Manchester Guardian piece in 1951 talked about how Turing had “come to the conclusion that eventually digital computers would be able to do something akin to “thinking” and also discussed the possibilities of educating a ‘child-machine.’”

Free concerts at Manchester Cathedral

Take time out and enjoy free music in the beautiful surroundings of Manchester Cathedral – you might even discover the UK’s next big talent!

The cathedral, part of Manchester’s Medieval Quarter, has announced a new series of lunchtime recitals by students from Chetham’s School of Music. There are piano recitals and a programme called ‘Music for a While,’ which showcases the talent of individuals as they perform with accompanists. The music choices vary so there’s always something new to discover.

We believe that the true wonder of music is that it can bring people together and have a profound effect on quality of life. We aim to make music more accessible to more people so everyone can experience this, and the students are at the heart of this mission.

Concerts are free and no booking is required – just turn up, sit back and enjoy. You’ll also be supporting the next generation of musicians as they hone their skills.

Upcoming events:
20 April, midday – Piano Lunchtime Concert
18 May, midday – Piano Lunchtime Concert
11 June, midday – Music for a While

Rainbow Lottery

It’s time to put your feet up with a cuppa while the robots take care of your gardening and spring cleaning! One of our supporters could win this amazing Home Robot Bundle in our March Super Draw – and make spring cleaning a breeze!

You could be taking home a Roomba 405 Plus combo vacuum and mop for carpets and hard floors, and a Lawnmaster Ocumow to keep the garden under control – all while you focus on the important things!   Of course there’s always the £1,000 cash alternative too – or our winner can choose to go green, and plant 1,000 trees!

Play the Rainbow Lottery and support Out In The City

The Rainbow Lottery is the UK’s first and only lottery supporting LGBT+ good causes.

Welcome to the Rainbow Lottery, the exciting weekly lottery that raises money for over 200 LGBT+ good causes totally, openly and exclusively.

The hope is to make a difference to good causes so they can carry on their vital work – which helps us all. Play the lottery, support the community – it’s fun, it’s simple and everybody wins!

How the lottery works:

• £1 per ticket – that’s right, unlike many other lotteries, the lottery tickets are only £1 per week.

• For every ticket you play, 80% goes to good causes and prizes.

£25,000 jackpot prize

• Match all 6 numbers and you win the JACKPOT! There are also prizes of £2000, £250, £25 and 3 free tickets for following week.

• Every month there is a Super Draw. March’s Super Draw is a Home Robot Bundle (or £1,000 cash alternative or plant 1,000 trees).

Buy tickets here.