No User Manual
The first GTP forum takes place 20–21 November 2025 at Bergen Kjøtt, featuring two days of talks, panel discussions, performances, and networking.
Technologies are central to how music is created, performed, recorded, and experienced. Yet research shows that technology-based gender disparities persist across many areas of music and sound practice, with women, LGB, trans, and non-binary practitioners often underrepresented. From instrument choices to production, from songwriting to streaming, technologies are not neutral tools but active gatekeepers of musical participation—central to how gender imbalances are produced and sustained, but also potentially transformed.
The No User Manual forum takes up these questions by bringing together leading voices from music and sound research, artistic practice, education, music therapy and health, community music, and the wider music sector to share knowledge, debate urgent issues, and explore new perspectives on the relation between gender, technology, and participation.
The event will run from 10-16:30 each day with a special event on Friday evening in collaboration with AKKS Bergen featuring live performances and DJs in the Bergen Kjøtt Bar.
Confirmed speakers:
Katie Ambrose (external link), University of York
Joanne Armitage (external link), University of Leeds
Jude Brereton (external link), University of York
Grace Goodwin (external link), University of Liverpool
Eva Navarro López (external link), Digital Fems Network
Amandine Pras (external link), Le Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris
Marie Thompson (external link), The Open University
The event is open to all. Free admission