[spectre] CALL FOR PROPOSALS Funware Shared Artist in Residence

[Marieke Istha]

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Funware Shared Artist in Residence:
Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam (NL)
BALTAN Laboratories, Eindhoven (NL)
Piksel, Bergen (NO)


CALL

BALTAN, NIMk and Piksel have launched an open call for proposals as part 
of the exhibition project Funware. We are looking for interesting new 
software art projects that can be developed in the period of June – 
November 2010 through a shared residency. The new work developed during 
the residency will be presented in the Funware exhibition at MU in 
Eindhoven, at HMKV in Dortmund and as part of the Piksel festival 2010.

This residency is a collaboration between three labs, based on a desire 
to investigate the ways and potential of working within a network of 
labs that support the exchange and sharing of resources and knowledge. 
The form of this collaboration aims to provide the most specific and 
relevant support to artists working on art and technology projects in 
residence. Knowing the capacities and competences of each 
lab/organisation, the residency exchange will offer targeted support (in 
the form of resources, space, technical support, local context and time) 
to be provided at different stages of the research and development of 
the project specific to each organisation. Off- and online dissemination 
of form and content via this partnership and the building of structural 
relationships are crucial to the collaboration.

FUNWARE

Funware, conceptualised by Olga Goriunova (runme.org), is an exhibition 
about the fun in software. Making and using what has become known as 
software is experimental, humorous, and eventful. However improbable it 
might sound for today’s all encompassing dullness of forms, databases, 
schedules and processors, “fun” has informed and guided the development 
of software from its very inception. The rise of net art and the changes 
the Internet and desktop computers brought to culture gave rise to 
software art at the turn of the millennia. Performed by amateurs, 
artists, alternative coders or professional programmers for “fun”, 
software art as an aesthetic practice questions, tangles and experiments 
with the materiality of software has subsequently lost its visibility 
again, as attention is turned to the social web and software 
applications for third generation mobile phones, which all harness some 
of the energies constitutive of aesthetic software. Funware reflects on 
the history of engagement with software, that demonstrates its 
non-industrial, non-professional, non-commercial, or non-academic character.

The exhibition demonstrates the trajectory of humour and affect as 
constitutional to software and computing. The exhibition aims to make 
such an ‘obscure’ technological object as software, open, palpable and 
approachable, bridging a gap between ‘serious’ production such as 
technology and ‘non-serious’ production such as different forms of art. 
The exhibition has a few distinct threads: games; ASCII; code art; a few 
vectors of AI; computers in popular culture; spyware, conceptual 
software, hardware modification, hacker/virus approaches, sound, 
software modification, pranks, participatory web. And as software is 
intertwined with the hardware it runs upon and the networks that 
construct the society in which it rules, the exhibition features a lot 
of projects dealing explicitly with computer hardware or the materiality 
of hardwareas well as engaging projects experimenting with sound.

We offer:
- Residency period at each of the different labs (residency time at 
location will be project dependent) in the period of June – November 
2010. Specific dates at each location are to be determined in 
collaboration with the selected artist.
- Artist(s) fee.
- Production budget (including support of travel and accommodation, 
accommodation is not provided for in Amsterdam).
- Presentation of the project in the Funware exhibition in Eindhoven 
(MU) and Dortmund (HMKV).
- Public presentation of the results of the artist’s research at BALTAN 
Laboratories, NIMk and Piksel;
- Support for the documentation of the research and final work, and 
dissemination of this documentation.

Requirements:
- Proposals are welcome from professional artists worldwide;
- The concept should fit within the theme of the exhibition Funware, in 
which it will be presented;
- The work should be created using free/open source software;
- The artist should have experience working in collaborative settings 
with people from different disciplines;
- The artist must be willing and able to travel to Eindhoven, Amsterdam 
and Bergen for residency periods (exact dates and period will be made in 
accordance with the artist);
- The artist must be willing to openly and thoroughly document the 
artistic process.

What are we looking for:
- Outline of the concept underlying the work that you wish to develop 
(200 words max).
- General outline of the scope of the final work (200 words max – please 
include visual sketches).
- Outline of the research and development plan for the work (250 words max)
- Motivation for why you would like to work in the context of this 
particular residency as well as an overview of your interest in the 
technologies mentioned above (250 words max).
- Indication of your planning divided between the three labs, i.e. what 
would you like to develop where.
- Up-to-date CV including links to previous work.

Please send your submission to call at nimk.nl
Deadline for submission is Friday 23 April 2010.

The candidate is chosen by representatives from the three partner 
organisations. Applicants will be informed by May 10th.

ABOUT THE DIFFERENT VENUES

Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam, NL)
http://www.nimk.nl
The Artist in Residence (AiR) programme at the Netherlands Media Art 
Institute supports the exploration and development of new work in 
digital/interactive/network media and technology based arts practice. 
The residency provides time and resources to artists in a supportive 
environment to facilitate the creation of new work that is produced from 
an open source perspective. We encourage a cross disciplinary and 
experimental approach. This is a practice based residency designed to 
enable the development and completion of a new work. The Netherlands 
Media Art Institute offers an open environment with technical assistance 
and an active advisory board which will give feedback and support in 
technical, conceptual and presentation issues. There is access to studio 
and exhibition equipment, technical support from the Institute's staff 
and production help from interns. We expect the artist to have knowledge 
and insight in the technical realisation of the concept.

BALTAN Laboratories (Eindhoven, NL)
http://www.baltanlaboratories.org
BALTAN Laboratories initiates, supports and disseminates innovative 
research and development activities in the field of art, technology and 
culture. A two-year pilot initiative located in a space of 500 m2 at 
Strijp S in Eindhoven, it is a first step towards a broader Art Science 
Lab in the former NatLab (Philips physics laboratory). BALTAN is a 
laboratory in-the-making that aims to ‘do things differently’, providing 
space, a critical framework and support for artistic research into 
technological culture. The pilot phase is intended to develop a radical 
and sustainable identity for the laboratory of the future in relation to 
the current state of technological art and culture, and the total 
context of BALTAN Laboratories (including its local context, history and 
peers). The Funware residency exchange with NIMk and Piksel in 2010 is 
an integral part of this research. BALTAN offers an open and flexible 
residency context in which we dialogue closely with the artist 
throughout the development of their project. Interaction with other 
research projects being undertaken at BALTAN is key to all residencies 
at BALTAN. We provide support for documenting, disseminating and 
reflecting on the research process and results of the residency, and 
offer a unique local context in which to work. BALTAN’s core team 
includes four artistic advisors: Marc Maurer (Maurer United Architects), 
Geert Mul, Gideon Kiers and Lucas van der Velden (Telcosystems).

Piksel (Bergen, Norway)
http://www.piksel.no/
Piksel is an annual event for artists and developers working with free 
and open source software, hardware and art. Part workshop, part 
festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, and involves participants 
from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting 
art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions 
on the aesthetics and politics of free and open source software.
The development, and therefore use, of digital technology today is 
mainly controlled by multinational corporations. Despite the prospects 
of technology expanding the means of artistic expression, the commercial 
demands of the software industries severely limit them instead. Piksel 
is focusing on the open source movement as a strategy for regaining 
artistic control of the technology, but also a means to bring attention 
to the close connections between art, politics, technology and economy.

Netherlands Media Art Institute
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
T 020 6237101
F 020 6244423
http://www.nimk.nl

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