"If you read me, we're going to attempt time travel."

Art The biannual press conference announcing the content of the Liverpool Biennial was held yesterday but I couldn't attend due to a work commitment in Manchester and a talk at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art about contemporary Hong Kong artwork inspired by the umbrella revolution.

They were good enough to send me a length press release which I've skimmed so as not to have too much of an idea of what to expect until it begins in July so here's the brilliant Vanessa Wheeler at The Double Negative with an excellent survey of what's to come:

"This Biennial will be based on the theme of Time Travel and be split into six episodes: Ancient Greece, Chinatown, Children, Monuments of the Future, Flashback, and Software. Each episode, said festival director Sally Tallant at press conferences in Liverpool and London, is a like a fictional genre: confined within itself, but still overlapping with other works to create a mesh of cross-disciplinary art in locations throughout the city. Visitors to the biannual 14-week festival can look forward to a wide-ranging and sometimes bizarre mix of ancient and futuristic sculpture, performance art inspired by medical marvels, a look into the art of smuggling, and an abundance of fantastic fringe events."

Which all sounds a bit more coherent and interesting than the last Biennial which I think you probably detected at the time I was rather disappointed with.  This edition feels more spread out and within the city in a similar way to Biennials of old when there was an excitement to discovering exhibitions and public art works in unusual spaces.