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11 Mar 24 | Job & Opportunities
OPEN CALL for Immersive Assembly Vol 4: Dreams & Echoes
Inviting six early career UK-based digital artists and creators to participate in an innovative, collaborative artist development programme
What is it?
Immersive Assembly Vol 4: ‘Dreams & Echoes’ is the fourth annual talent development programme from Mediale. It is a multi-disciplinary residency focusing on learning, peer critique and developing new ideas and collaborations in and around immersive art and technology.
The residency will take place between May – November 2024 and will support six UK-based artists/studios to collaborate and develop proposals for immersive experiences. The cohort will be supported to develop projects which invite us to explore the potential of immersive media in interrogating consciousness and enabling new interpretations of ‘reality’.
IA4 is supported by the Cultural Programme at The Schwarzman Centre, University of Oxford, the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub at Jesus College Oxford, and Mediale’s talent development focus supported by Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation funding.
For more information on the previous three Volumes – participants, contributors, and project proposals/prototypes – please look here.
How does it work?
Immersive Assembly Vol 4 will bring together a cohort of artists, technologists and cultural practitioners to learn, share, network and play. It will run in a hybrid format, beginning and ending with in-person activity, punctuated by a series of online talks, sessions and workshops.
The residency will culminate with an in-person showcase of three new immersive project prototypes, developed by the cohort who will collaborate in pairs, alongside a dedicated University of Oxford academic research partner. The showcase will be an opportunity to present the project to both public and sector audiences.
This project should be the result of collaboration and learning throughout the Immersive Assembly residency, rather than the development of an existing prototype.
The artists should allocate approximately 20 days for creative development – consisting of eight compulsory in-person days, six compulsory online sessions (totalling three days), and nine self-led creative development and production days. Participation in the programme runs from April to November 2024.
The current schedule is:
April: Onboarding
May: Collaboration Kick-off (Dates TBC)
Two days of in-person communal and creative activity
August: Break
Time for reflection and meeting with cohort collaborator
Late August: Creative Development Day (date TBC)
A one day in-person workshop, focused on collaboration and ideation
November: Showcase (proposed 15-19th November)
Cohort places confirmed and 1-1s with the Mediale team
Approx four days in-person open studios showcase for public
A one day Immersive Salon presentation for sector
The artist fee is £4,000, to support your time. Accommodation, travel and per diem expenses for in-person sessions will be covered by the programme outside of this fee.
DOWNLOAD THE OPEN CALL PACK HERE
Theme
Immersive Assembly Vol 4: Dreams & Echoes, will explore the potential of immersive media in interrogating consciousness and enabling new interpretations of ‘reality’.
In the context of new technologies, as our understanding of consciousness evolves beyond human thinking, IA4 will provide participants with the opportunity to explore neuroscience, mental health, access and medical science research expertise, as well as cutting edge AI and ethics research, and globally leading immersive art.
Whether inching towards philosophical questions around the existence of free will, or more directly exploring the potential of XR technologies in terms of embodiment, empathy and widened perception, we would like to support artists creating projects that are seeking to ask questions, pose challenges, and look at some of the ‘elephants in the room’.
Drawing on the world-leading research of academics at the University of Oxford, we invite artists to consider the role that immersive experiences can play in the exploration of what consciousness means now, and what it could mean in the future. As described above, this could be through exploring the mind and mental health, non-human intelligence, sleep and the subconscious, or echo chambers and bias.
This summary is a guideline; we encourage artists to follow their own interests and inspirations, referencing the context of this theme.
Selection criteria
Key selection criteria will be:
- The mediums in which artists work
- Experience or desire to work with immersive art & tech
- A history of collaboration or co-production
- An exciting and considered approach to the theme: ‘Dreams & Echoes’
- Level of experience – we are looking for emerging and mid-career practitioners (with 2-10 years of experience) who are at a critical moment in developing their artistic practice
Please note that this programme cannot support artists who are in formal full-time education, international artists and those working outside the UK.
We will select a cohort who have a broad selection of skills and experiences to enable experimentation and learning to be as broad as possible. If you are a visual artist, animator, performance artist, creative coder, games designer, or digital practitioner – this opportunity is for you!
We would especially welcome applicants who identify as being from an under-represented group in the creative industries. This includes, but is not limited to, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates, people with disabilities, neuro-divergent people, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and members of the LGBTQIA+
11 Mar 24