[rohrpost] Call: Berlin Artist Residency: Kunst der Verschränkung (Art of Entanglement) - with a focus on art and artificial intelligence (AI), deadline: April 25, 2022

[Ingeborg Reichle]

Berlin Artist Residency: Kunst der Verschränkung (Art of Entanglement)

BIFOLD (Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data) and 
Science Gallery at Technische Universität Berlin (TU) are excited to 
announce the new artist-in-residence program Kunst der Verschränkung. 
The residency seeks to entangle artistic and scientific perspectives by 
bringing an artist into the realm of cutting-edge research in the fields 
of artificial intelligence (AI) and the relation between big data 
management and machine learning. The chosen artist* will be provided the 
opportunity to realize an artistic project as an artist-in-residence at 
BIFOLD, the preeminent center for artificial intelligence and big data 
in Berlin.

We are looking for an artist based in Berlin who has the capacity to 
dive into BIFOLD’s research fields, have engaging discussions with 
scientists and the broader public, and who aims at creating an 
inspiring, insightful, and innovative new artwork. We welcome 
applications from artists who work individually, in teams or in small 
collectives (≤5 people).

About BIFOLD and the Research Themes for this Residency

BIFOLD was formed in 2019 from the merger of two national Artificial 
Intelligence competence centers dealing with two pillars in the 
development of AI: big data management and machine learning. Their 
entanglement is central to BIFOLD and its endeavors to create new 
infrastructures and tools, to address open questions in diverse 
disciplines as well as to develop approaches for explainable AI. As 
such, BIFOLD explores the application of AI in the fields of digital 
humanities, physics, chemistry, medicine and remote sensing. While 
scientific knowledge and the potential of new technologies is growing, 
societal, cultural, and artistic reflections on these areas may provide 
an enriching case for their critical and further development.

Kunst der Verschränkung thus seeks to examine cutting-edge technical and 
technological developments through artistic perspectives. These 
perspectives may shed light not only on how AI systems are implemented 
in problem solving, but how they may equally subvert or highlight 
asymmetries and inequities found in various large-scale systems that 
drive society. The residency program thus provides a framework to 
explore the role of the artist, art and culture in the rapidly 
developing wave of innovation in AI, and to reflect on the status of the 
interaction between implicit (tacit) and explicit knowledge in an 
artistic praxis in the post-digital age.

The implications for big data and its management and analysis through 
machine learning is at the heart of the residency. This is exemplified 
through the core focus of BIFOLD’s various research groups and labs. We 
thus expect the chosen artist to actively interface with the research 
expertise currently developed at BIFOLD.

The scientists at BIFOLD work in an interdisciplinary context and across 
research groups and labs, developing and curating an ever-growing 
collection of shared datasets. We envision that the artist-in-residence 
will tap into this growing knowledge ecosystem and further their own 
artistic research by sharing their motivations for such science + art 
collaborations as well as the results from their cross-disciplinary 
discussions.

Further Details about the Residency and Artwork Presentation

The winning artist will be invited for a residency at BIFOLD between 
September 2022 until the expected presentation of the artwork in 
February 2023. The artist will be informed by the end of May about the 
results of the selection process. They will be supported by local 
facilitators and will be working with curator Dr. Claudia Schnugg 
throughout the process of the residency leading up to the exhibition or 
final presentation of the artwork in Berlin in February 2023.

The residency proper starts in September 2022. We anticipate offering an 
introduction and initial working contact in summer 2022 depending on the 
artist’s availability. At the start of the residency, the artist will be 
invited to give a presentation of their work and proposed project or 
project themes at a BIFOLD research symposium. During the residency, the 
artist is expected to collaborate on research topics of BIFOLD, reflect 
on their artistic praxis, and engage with the PhD students at BIFOLD’s 
Graduate School.

The artwork realized during the residency will be presented and 
exhibited by Science Gallery at TU Berlin and BIFOLD starting in 
February 2023.
Schedule

Call opens: 16th March 2022
Call closes: 25th April 2022
Results by: End of May, 2022
Start of residency: September 2022

Budget for the Residency

The winning artist will be awarded a gross total of 30,000.00 EUR that 
covers an artist fee, time spent at BIFOLD, fees for presentations and 
workshops during the residency phase, all expenses for materials, and 
production costs for the artwork. The payment will be facilitated 
through three installments.

See for more info about the call:

https://sciencegallery.submittable.com/submit/219443/berlin-artist-residency-kunst-der-verschrankung-art-of-entanglement