Submission Deadline: 30 November 2020
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“The aim is to create a better world where we can get on with each other, where we can develop our living and caring relationships rather than our aggressive antagonistic ones. As broad goals who will disagree with these ideals?”
   Vilém Flusser

With the Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research we are calling for artistic research projects that actively explore the capabilities and limitations of transdisciplinary and transmedial situations in contemporary culture. We therefore understand artistic research as an exploration of the links between aesthetics, materiality, and politics.

For Vilém Flusser, theory and praxis are intrinsically tied to each other. His nomadic thinking was shaped by a philosophy of positions; experimental testing of different ways of thinking and the linking of different disciplines and methodologies played a significant role in his work. Not the search for the truth but rather the playing around with the aesthetic constitution of truth characterized his thinking, often developed in dialogue with others. A fundamental principle of his philosophy is the dialogue between disciplines, points of views, and methodologies. Knowledge production as a dialogue between different standpoints (between science and art, laboratory and applied research, old and new media, local and global forms of organization) is therefore the guiding principle for the concept of artistic research, which is supported by the Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research.

Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research

With the two-month residency programme, we would like to support projects and works in different stages of development, from first conceptual steps up to significant advancements of already existing projects and works. A comprehensible research interest is of importance for the jury’s decision; the relation between the work and issues and questions addressed in its research with the context of our society as a whole; first ideas regarding the approach during the period of the residency (strategy, workshops, presentations etc.); and the connection to the focus of the Vilém Flusser Residency Programme for Artistic Research. The residency will take place during transmediale festival.

This is not a production grant. During the period of the residency at least one workshop and public presentation in the framework of transmediale and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) is expected from the selected resident. However, there is no pressure to present finished works. Where applicable, the support of publications, exhibitions, interventions, and other results of the residency may be negotiated on a project-to-project basis. One month before the start of the residency, details will be prepared/discussed in regular meetings between the resident, transmediale, and the Vilém Flusser Archive at UdK (also possible via skype). Due to restrictions around travel, the residency can be conducted remotely. In the selection process, special priority will be given to young and/or emerging (of any age) artist-researchers. The jury for the Vilém Flusser Residency 2021 consists of Anita Jóri, Nora O Murchú and Nelly Y. Pinkrah.

Note

The period of residency is two months, between May and July 2021. The details of the final period will be defined in agreement with the selected resident. The residency covers:

– travel costs to Berlin

– stipend/grant of 1,300 EUR per month

– workspace at the Vilém Flusser Archive at the Berlin University of Arts (UdK) 

Depending on the project, collaborations with classes and studios can be arranged at the UdK Institute for time based media and other UdK institutions. Where applicable, transmediale will seek to integrate the residency project into its schedule of its all-year programme. Throughout 2021, transmediale will map out the political agency of refusal, examining its potential to form new socio-political realities grounded in care, hope, and desire. Proposals are encouraged to engage with the festival theme.

Further details of the project presentation at transmediale and Vilém Flusser Archive will be negotiated directly with the applicant.

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2020 | Conditions of Entry
Submit here

The residency programme is a cooperation between the Vilém Flusser Archive at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and transmediale – festival for art and digital culture Berlin.