Workshops for advanced users pt. 3: Thresholds of the Algorithmic

Call for Applications: Workshop-in-Exposition – Thresholds of the Algorithmic

Bergen (NO), 8.-17. of June 2018.

Algorithms have been used in music and sound art even before the emergence of “computer music” in the 1950s, but today we witness an entire new wave of interest, reflected in festivals, genres, publications and research projects. It is the very notion of algorithms that is shifting. They are no longer an abstract formalisation, but emerge from artistic praxis and experimentation and become entangled in it.

Almat and BEK are happy to announce a call for participation in a workshop-in-exposition taking place Bergen, Norway, June 2018. This will be a part of Notam and BEK’s ongoing series of workshops for advanced users. It is a hybrid format that places the workshop inside an exhibition context, where the exposed works and artefacts form the basis of the workshop’s activity. Instead of “closed works”, what is exposed to the general public are objects, sounds or installations that are open to engagement and reconfiguration during the workshop.

Algorithms that Matter (Almat) is an artistic research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, PEEK AR 403-GBL, and based at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) in Graz, Austria. BEK and Notam are centers for innovation and use of technology in music and the arts in Norway. Both Notam and BEK have education as a core focus, and strive to establish new goals and provide new impulses for current music technologists and artists.

Download Full text of the call
Download Application form

Theme and Format

Thresholds are locations of transitions, points where one modality becomes another, where a qualitative change occurs. In physics the point where an aggregate state changes—the phase transition—is a distinguished transitional location were the properties of the adjacent states become evident. Similarly, in this workshop-in-exposition we want to study the properties of the algorithmic by putting ourselves in threshold positions and actively shape them. More than merely separating two sides, one can spend time on a threshold, move along a ridge, performing a tightrope walk and trying not to fall to either side.

Situated within the Almat artistic research project, this event aims at bringing together practitioners and researchers in the field of digital art, sound art and computational aesthetics. The hybrid format of workshop-in-exposition shows works of the participants pertaining to the theme, and at the same time avails them for interrogation, discussion and reconfiguration during the week long workshop.

Applicants should identify at least one of three types of thresholds listed in the full call, as something that is addressed by their work, and which acts both as a point for further exploration during the workshop and as a bridge towards audience perception.

Application

Please read carefully the call and fill out the form provided in the links above and send it to almat@iem.at along with the required accompanying documents.

We aim at a balance of gender and background of the applicants.

Conditions:

  • Duration of exhibition: from 08 June to 17 June 2018
  • Start date (in situ): 04 June 2018 (preparation and set up from 04 June to 08 June 2018)
  • End date: 17 June 2018
  • Applicants must be present during the workshop.
  • Workshop fee must be paid by confirmed participants (see form)

Application deadline: 16 February 2018 (e-mail reception, 24:00 CET)

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at almat@iem.at.