Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and artists with "mythical potential" await Supersonic Festival

The organisers of Birmingham’s most ear-opening annual enterprise rarely do things in halves. With a musical line-up encompassing free-jazz, doom metal, dubstep, krautrock and – in a series of recordings responding to Digbeth and the creatures of the River Rea – electro-acoustic sounds, Supersonic is perhaps the British festival of choice for your discerning underground listener, and their art programme is equally distinctive for 2012.

They’ve just announced myths and rituals as a key theme in their tenth year, with the Rea taking centre stage at a specially-created shrine. Known as the House of Beorn, the building aims to recreate the Pagan and religious ritualism of the ancient Festival of the Rea, inviting artists with “mythical potential” to create “offerings” inside a “ramshackle, weathered and sacred cabin”.

An accompanying walking tour of Birmingham city centre explores the hidden history of spirits and beasts still evident in age-old architecture, culminating in a channelled mass of energy and sound aimed at awakening the natural powers of the river, the lost spirits of the city and the magic of the festival itself on the closing night.

Things get spookier in Sian Macfarlane’s exploration of the Victorian séance and its deathly roots, harking back to the heyday of spiritualism through family snaps, slides, super 8 footage and found sounds. And super 8 will also be the medium of participants in Imperfect Cinema, a free workshop exploring DIY modes of filming and cinema in which visitors become part of a performance by contributing their own footage.

Their inspiration might come from Jason Forrest, a curator from Network Awesome. Forrest has gathered a load of film, documentaries and video collections from broadcast history in a salute to those who “did it themselves, made something up or just did it like no-one else.” Six new shows a day aim to create a social archive to be rummaged through. Musicians, photographers and costume designers combine for Moonn, a performance honouring the elements, and Stephen Fowler uses a semi-tame Wild Man as the model for a series of life-drawing classes summoning the inner illustration beast within.

There’s more we could mention, not least Kim Gordon’s Reverse Karaoke, in which the Sonic Youth star has collaborated on a painted Yurt-style tent housing a guitar, microphone, bass and drums which visitors can use to add their own tune to her vocals on a CD they can take home. Regardless of the dubious resulting records, audio installations are rarely as exciting as this.

• Supersonic runs October 19-21 2012. See our Preview.

More pictures: