[spectre] Impakt Online: "Database Dilemmas" Call for Proposals

[derek holzer]

"Database Dilemmas" Commission Call for Proposals
http://www.impakt.nl/online/

Database Dilemmas
The third and final theme for this year's Impakt Online commissions will 
be 'Database Dilemnas'. The deadline for submitting proposals is 
September 15, 2003. From these proposals, two projects will be chosen 
for the commission, which will be publically launched on December 1, 
2003. Thematic and practical details follow:

The process of collecting, structuring and storing information and data 
is a phenomenon typical of digital times. Obviously, data are the 
fundaments of almost any digital platform. As an archiving tool, the 
database seems to be the most dominant form by which to organise and 
structure information. So far.

The obsession with organising and archiving information has also left 
its traces in contemporary digital art practices. Many artists have 
discovered the database as a new domain for artistic, social and 
aesthetic experiments. In the last decade, these artists have been 
developing several different approaches toward its specific 
characteristics. Their dilemmas concern, among others, the narrative 
[how to create narrative from a static collection of data?], the 
formal/structural [how to change the specific indexical form of the 
database?] and the socio-political [how to change its character from a 
closed, controlled system into an open, public one?].

Impakt intends to seek and show projects from artists that explore the 
phenomenon of data-collections and the particular structure of the 
database from a critical point of view. What are their poetics, 
aesthetics and ethics? How do they visualise collections of information 
in their projects? How do they approach the traditional model of the 
database? With which aims do they attack, transform and extend its 
static form and encyclopaedic structure?

'Database Dilemmas' was conceived by Deanna Herst for Impakt Online.

Call for Proposals

Deadline for Proposals: September 5, 2003
Project Completion Date: November 15, 2003
Launch: December 1, 2003

*Proposals must be written in English, and the project accessible to an
English-speaking audience
*Proposals should include a project description:
---description of content
---details of the technical implementation, including ALL server-side 
software required
---rough estimate of total project size in Mb
---time line
---relation to the theme
*Proposals should also include an artist[s] biography:
---short CV
---documentation + URLs of previous projects
*Projects should be accessible to users of all three major Operating 
Systems: Linux, MacOS and Win32.
*Previously exhibited projects will be immediately disqualified
*Please do not send any unsolicited large attachments [i.e. >400K], as 
they will not be opened. If you must provide us with large files, please 
send us a URL or FTP location for them.

Impakt will provide webhosting for the project for 1 year, and pay a fee 
to the accepted artist[s] of EURO 1000.

Address for submissions:
online at impakt.nl

Impakt Festival
P.O. Box 735
3500 AS Utrecht
The Netherlands

http://www.impakt.nl/online/