NOISE, the bi-ennial ‘virtual’ talent festival for artists up to the age of 25, returns this year. Launched in the UK in 2006, and based on a format developed in Australia and continued in Singapore, the NOISE Festival showcases work across a range of disciplines, including visual art, fashion and music. The best is judged and short-listed by a team of curators, with the aim of giving the next generation of young talent the exposure and boost they need to break into the creative industries.
This year’s judges include Mercury Prize-winning musician Badly Drawn Boy, acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid and Turner Prize-nominated artist Richard Billingham. A registered charity, the NOISE Festival is Arts Council-funded, so there’s no big sponsor looking for maximum brand exposure with minimum substance. Instead, the festival has been designed to celebrate talent.

To establish a very deliberate counter-balance to the allure of London, NOISE launched online: as a ‘virtual’ festival, it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what your post code is. In explicitly rejecting artists who’ve benefited from family links – like it or not, the likes of Stella McCartney and Lily Allen will never be involved – the festival ensures curators are hand-picked as much for their abilities in their fields as for their maverick spirit and consistency when it comes to going against the grain.

NOISE CEO Denise Proctor, Alistair Darling MP and Badly Drawn Boy, one of the Curators for the 2008 festival, at Number 10 Downing Street this year.

In an industry where nepotism is truly rife, it seems that unless your parents are celebrities, or rich, it’s getting tougher to get a foot in the door. But for most people, art is something to be done during down-time, with the ‘McJob’ acting as an inconvenient yet altogether necessary cover for an alter-ego as a zeitgeist-defining fashionista or future Rock God. So, in addition to acting as a showcase for the next generation of creative talent in the UK, the NOISE Festival gives young artists a lift after they’ve submitted their work.

In year two of the festival, the NOISE website works as a professional network – think two parts Facebook social networking and one part Linkdin professional profiling, with a dash of MySpace’s musician-friendly approach thrown in for good measure – where artists can get in touch, viewing people’s profiles and portfolios. In this way, a graphic designer can link up with a band that’s after cover art for a demo to tout to labels, while a St Martin’s-shunning fashion designer can attract a hungry young photographer in need of eye-catching pictures to build up their book.

The NOISE Dream Jobs project is another way talented young people can break into the art and fashion world. It offers the best of NOISE hands-on experience and the chance to work with a company at the top of its game. Previous dream jobs have included placements at MTV Brazil, Wayne Hemingway’s Hemingway Design and MacKinnon & Saunders, model makers for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Placements for 2008 include Zaha Hadid Architects, James Sommerville’s Attik Design and ‘mentorships’ at the BBC.

NOISE is only two years old, but it’s the festival’s ethos that is its major strength. In rejecting the fetish for celebrity and trust fund DJs that have come to dominate the arts world, and remaining resolutely independent, the festival echoes the spirit of affirmative action, giving young people the opportunity to grab the microphone and take centre stage. This is to be celebrated. Because with mainstream culture gone anodyne, never before has it been so vital that this generation stands up and makes some noise.

Submissions deadline is midnight on 1 September 2008.

www.noisefestival.com