Deadline 10am Wednesday 31 July 2024
Somerset House Studios in partnership with UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI) open applications for our latest Creative Technologies Fellowship. The fellowship offers a unique development and commission opportunity for an artist who is looking to explore the ways in which computational systems can be used as part of a critical practice exploring social or environmental questions.
Over a 12-month residency across both sites commencing September 2024 and running in parallel with the academic year, the artist will receive practical and technological support to develop a new work which will be presented at Somerset House in Autumn 2025. The opportunity includes access to workspace, labs, technical expertise, and academic support to facilitate practice-led research, along with curatorial advice, producer support and studio facilities. Artists are invited to demonstrate an interest in one or more of the creative computing research areas outlined below, highlight how this opportunity might benefit their practice, and propose a project they would like to develop over the course of the fellowship, with relevant and achievable aims using the chosen technology.
WHAT THIS FELLOWSHIP INCLUDES
- £7,500 artist fee, £7,500 production budget
- Shared studio at Somerset House and access to workspace and labs at UAL
- Research mentorship and academic expertise from CCI: Creative ML / Robotics, XR, Philosophy of Technology, Critical Design
- Technical support from CCI including access to Slack / UAL channels
- Curatorial support for the development of the new commission at Somerset House
- Project development support from relevant UAL Postgraduates
- Access to project space (including rehearsal space and recording studio), and year-round artist development and social programmes at Somerset House Studios
- Participation in public outcomes at UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI) which could include a symposium, public lecture, workshops, etc.
MAIN AREAS OF CREATIVE COMPUTING RESEARCH:
CCI has a diverse range of research activity allied to the creativity afforded by computational practices. It explores the possibilities of new technologies to transform the world at both the macro scale and the scale of the individual. There are three pillars that frame the research agenda:
- Creativity, Machine Learning and AI: This platform explores how a foundational technology of the 21st century can be used in creative ways and examines how people will act with such technologies in deploying their personal and collective creativity.
- Human Computer Interaction: This platform explores how we behave with emerging technologies and what they will mean for products, services and culture.
- Platforms, Big Data and Digital Citizenship: This platform explores how the huge amount of data aggregated to the key platforms of our time can be understood, explored and contribute to a public discourse of a globalised and networked society and associated equalities dynamics.
OPPORTUNITY CRITERIA
This Fellowship is aimed at artists who have an established practice and who would like to deepen their engagement with contemporary computing technologies. With an ongoing focus on artists who are pushing bold ideas, engaging with urgent issues and pioneering new technologies, we are particularly interested in those making socially engaged, and inclusive work, activists and critical thinkers; the experimental; those interested in cross-disciplinary working and / or collaboration.
We are particularly interested to receive applications from women, trans or non-binary artists, as well as from those who identify as people of colour or those of the global majority.
Artists must:
- be over 18 and London-based
- have an established practice: eligible artists will need to have been practicing for 5+ years
- be able to demonstrate some established engagement with technology as part of their practice and an interest in deepening that experience
- demonstrate a clear engagement with critical social or environmental practices
- propose a project that they would like to develop with a public facing outcome. This may be the evolution as an existing project or a project already in development, but the outcome presented at Somerset House must be distinctive from any previous presentations
- not be in formal education for the duration of the support (including part-time and post-graduate education). We are interested in artists who have not progressed through formal art training routes
Selection panel includes Marie McPartlin (Director, Somerset House Studios), Dr Eva Verhoeven (Programme Director, Creative Computing & Robotics (UG), UAL Creative Computing Institute), Murad Khan (Course Leader & Senior Lecturer, UAL Creative Computing Institute), along with artist panelists to be announced.
TIMELINE
- 8 July 2024: Applications open
- 31 July 2024: Application deadline – midnight
- September: Fellowship artist selected & fellowship commences
- Autumn 2025: Presentation of new work at Somerset House
