ThoughtWorks Arts, a global technology research lab, and CounterPulse, an experimental and interdisciplinary dance and performance space in San Francisco are partnering to launch a new artistic residency opportunity working with a customisable network on-site at CounterPulse’s facility in downtown San Francisco.
They seek an artist/technologist or collective working with the possibilities of a customisable network environment as material, concept, and collaborator, together with the creative community affiliated with CounterPulse. Currently, network topology is dominated by big tech/communication global conglomerates. What happens when an artist/creator(s) moves beyond established platforms, creating decentralised or never before imagined structures for building distributed yet connected environments? What is possible when the body, interconnectivity, visual and audio parameters, and liveness are brought together in new ways? Particular attention will be paid to creations that refrain from using readily available technologies and their vendors, and instead focus on putting the network back into the hands of artists free from the restraint of over mediated solution providers.
This residency will take place in collaboration with the CounterPulse artistic community, rooted in dance and movement practices with a strong legacy of improvisation. The lens of improvisation is often organised around scores (systems) built on collaboration, affirmation, and responsive spontaneity. Applicants do not need to be expert in computer network design or dance improvisation, but an understanding of these disciplines would enhance your application.
ThoughtWorks Arts will mentor, facilitate and help foster, through weekly meetings and its wide reaching cohort of developers, the artistic and technical needs of the selected artist(s), as well as the expertise of its Directors.
This sixteen week residency runs from 27 September 2021 – 4 February 2022 and comes with a stipend of $11,000, and assistance, if necessary, in supplying a letter of intent to any external funding agencies that might facilitate the residency.
The selected artist or artist group can be based anywhere in the world, and work either remotely or on-site at CounterPulse and at ThoughtWorks offices in San Francisco.
