[spectre] CALL: Piksels & Lines Orchestra Residency (PLO)

[Piksel infobot]

OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Piksels & Lines Orchestra Residency (PLO)

The Libre Graphics Research Unit is a traveling lab where ideas for creative tools are developed.
Its diverse activities range from the practical to the theoretical via writing, research meetings, experimental prototyping, conferences and workshops. The Research Unit is an initiative of four European media-labs actively engaged in Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Free Culture. At the core of the LGRU project is a series of research commissions that allow artists and software developers to work together at the same level, imagining and building future graphic and performative tools.

In this context, Piksel is offering a collaborative research residency for one artist and one developer, to jointly explore the interoperability and expansion of functionality in self-produced and/or existing libre graphic tools, placed in a performative setting. The free/libre graphics tools can include, but are not limited to the following technologies: GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, MyPaint, FontForge, Pure Data, Open Frameworks, Py-Cessing, Processing, The Underweb, Blender etc.

Artists and developers may submit proposals individually that suggest what compentences and perspectives they look for a residency partnership, or an artist/developer duo may jointly apply for the residency.

The collaboration should result in an artwork that extends existing Libre graphics software, following the guidelines of the Piksels & Lines Orchestra, a prototype developed during the third LGRU research seminar hosted by Piksel in Bergen June 6-9, 2012.

The guidelines are:

- Turn tools into instruments
- Explore the performative potential of Libre Graphics tools
- Use API interoperability between software for unexpected connections
- Experiment with format interoperability between software

Presentation and video of the Piksels & Lines Orchestra prototype:

http://blogs.lgru.net/ft/theme/piksels-and-lines/turning-tools-into-instruments

https://vimeo.com/44751183


The residency shall result in an artwork that will be shown at the Piksel festival November 22-25, 2012.


We offer:

- a residency period of up to 3 weeks at Piksel in Bergen, Norway during the months of October and November 2012. Specific dates to be determined in collaboration with the selected artists.
- an artist fee of up to 4000 EUR per person
- a production budget to be discussed
- support from the Piksel community and LGRU community, in the further technical development of the selected project throughout the residency period
- presentation of the commission and the resulting artwork at the Piksel festival in Bergen, Norway from November 22-25, 2012
- presentation of the commission at the LGRU Conference in Porto, Portugal in June 2013
- Support for the documentation of the research and final work, and dissemination of this documentation (i.e. code repository, web publication resources)

Requirements:

- the artist/developer must be willing and able to travel to Bergen for a residency period of up to 3 weeks, and to the Piksel festival in Bergen from November 22-25.
- the artist/developer must have advanced technical knowledge allowing him or her to experiment with the above-mentioned technologies
- the artist/developer must be willing to work in a close collaborative setting with a second person
- the artist must be willing to openly and thoroughly document the artistic process

Proposal:
- an outline of the concept underlying the work that you wish to develop (200 words max)
- a general outline of the scope of the final work (200 words max - can include visual sketches)
- a 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)
- an outline of the research and development plan for the work (250 words max)
- an up-to-date CV including links to previous work

Please send your commission proposal to info [at] piksel.no

Deadline for submission is Wednesday 26. September 2012.

The candidate is chosen by representatives from Piksel and the LGRU team.
Applicants will be informed by 10. October 2012.



About Piksel and LGRU:


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.


Libre Graphics Research Unit (LGRU)
http://lgru.net/

The Libre Graphics Research Unit is a traveling lab where ideas for creative tools are developed.
Its diverse activities range from the practical to the theoretical via writing, research meetings, experimental prototyping, conferences and workshops. The Research Unit is an initiative of four European media-labs actively engaged in Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Free Culture. This cross-disciplinary project involves artists, designers and programmers and is developed in dialogue with the Libre Graphics Community. The unit is co-organized by Constant (Brussels, BE), Medialab Prado (Madrid, (ES), WORM (Rotterdam, NL) and Piksel (Bergen, NO).