Friday 23 October: 12:00pm - 12:00pm

A 24-hour event, various locations, around Cambridge, CB1

For its 40th anniversary, the BBC arts series Arena has created a 24 hour film experience from its archive of over 600 programmes. The film is in exact sync with the time of day; for one day and one night Arena infiltrates Cambridge in a series of pop-up locations showing the likes of Bob Dylan, Francis Bacon, Sister Wendy, Harold Pinter, Bob Marley, T.S. Eliot and Luis Bunuel to name just a few.

Broadcasting just got broader. From the fish and chip shop to the lecture theatre, from the hospital waiting room to the pub, the twenty-four hour arts film “Arena Night and Day” will be infused into the electronic blood stream of a city for twenty-four hours in October.

The BBC’s oldest and most influential arts programme, a team of academics and artists based around the Cambridge University Film Centre will infiltrate the digital networks of the city with a specially made “Arena Night and Day”. 

Arena Night and Day is a 24 hour non-stop film especially cut together by the The program’s longest serving editor Anthony Wall, has used material exclusively gathered from the 1000 hours of programming shot by 50 directors over 40 years in every time zone and continent on earth. One of those directors, Frederick Baker, a member of the Cambridge University Film centre, has worked with a team of academics and students to bring the longest Arena of all time to screens across the city, starting at noon.

This event is a media experiment that gives a new meaning to the notion of broadcasting, casting its visual net beyond the realm of traditional venues like TVs but spreading its images to screens large and small in professional and non-professional networks, infiltrating electronic passageways, hubs and outdoor projection spaces.

Confirmed venues are: King's College Shop, King's parade Selwyn College - Chadwick Room and Bar St. John's College - College bar and Central Hall Wolfson College - Lee Room, Karen Spark Jones Room and Porters' Lodge The Alison Richard Building - Ground floor The raised faculty building, Sidgwick Site - outdoor projection Corpus Christi - College Bar and Porters' Lodge Long Road Sixth Form College - student common room Central Library - information screens Microsoft Research - on Station Road and Tenison Road Cambridge Junction The Mill Pub The White Swan Pub Hot Numbers café The Alex Pub Cafe Arena, 8 Burleight Street Cafe Arena, Regent Street

This event is part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.