MANCHESTER.- Celebrating its 20th anniversary with a major group exhibition in Manchester, do it 2013, an ongoing series of artists’ instructions reinterpreted every time they are enacted, is taking up residence at Manchester Art Gallery for the duration of the festival. do it 20 13 has been curated for Manchester by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Richard Wentworth and Peter Saville, and features new works by artists including Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Tino Sehgal and Olafur Eliasson (5 – 21 July 2013).

This Friday digital arts service The Space will host a live stream from the ‘do it 20 13’ exhibition from 10:30-18:00 BST (09:30-17:00 GMT) with a day of live interviews and performances. The Space will celebrate twenty years of ‘do it’ plus show the best responses from the public. http://thespace.org/items/e0001phj

One of the leading lights in a new wave of Indian art, Nikhil Chopra presents Coal on Cotton, an epic 65 hour performance exploring Manchester’s historical trade and cultural links with India, in the empty shell of the yet-to-be-completed Landscape Gallery at Manchester's Whitworth Gallery (5 – 7 July 2013).

The programme also sees the UK premiere of Turner Prize 2013 shortlisted artist, Tino Sehgal’s This variation (12 – 20 July 2013) as part of Mayfield Depot, a collection of works in a former train station by artists including Dan Graham and Mette Ingvartsen. The Depot also forms the backdrop for Massive Attack v Adam Curtis, a meeting of music, film and illusion in ‘a collective hallucination’.

Matthew Barney will conduct a special Q&A and show exclusive clips of his upcoming work, River of Fundament, a seven-part film cycle based on Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and John Buffalo Mailer alongside Barney himself in a reprisal of his character from his previous work, Cremaster 3 (13 – 14 July 2013).

Elsewhere in the city Kenneth Branagh returns to the stage as Macbeth, The xx are in residence in a secret space, Maxine Peake presents Percy Shelley’s epic The Masque of Anarchy, Josie Rourke directs The Machine, the story of Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue, and the groundbreaking Biospheric Project transforms a derelict mill on the River Irwell into an experimental agricultural space.

Manchester International Festival 2013 (MIF13), the world’s first and only festival of new works and special events, runs this year from 4 – 21 July 2013.

Leading artists including Tino Sehgal, Matthew Barney, Nikhil Chopra, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Olafur Eliasson, Dan Graham, Ernesto Neto, Richard Wentworth, Peter Saville, Ai Wei Wei, Gilbert and George, Suzanne Lacy, Theaster Gates, John Baldessari, Ryan Trecartin, Lawrence Weiner and Maria José Arjona are among those who have been commissioned to created new works for this year’s Manchester International Festival visual arts programme.