Deadline: July 17, 2020
Are you a creative engaged with the growing presence of the digital and its impact? Apply for the Digital Earth Fellowship 2020/2021. The Digital Earth Fellowship will focus on investigating The Planetary Sensorium and how we can imagine a humane digital earth to come.
The Digital Earth Fellowship welcomes eight artists and/or duos from different practices who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits, and are committed to ideas of resilient futures, equitable societies, and critical diversity, showing a marked capacity for self-direction.
Background
Planet Earth senses itself through a gigantic swarm of satellites and a multitude of smart city sensors scans the flows below and above its surface. The mechanical viewpoints of our phones observe, sense, and analyse our bodies and biologies while tracking our movements. As algorithms influence our behaviour, real-time surveillance technologies are shaping politics in a profound way from Harare to Beirut, and from Lagos to Beijing.
A ‘sensorium’ describes the combined system of perception that an organism has to sense its surroundings. Has a planetary sensorium emerged in which a worldwide technological megastructure of cameras, sensors, laser lights, and ultrasonic waves gestures towards new organic and synthetic entanglements?
To imagine a Planetary Sensorium is to both acknowledge and re-imagine our conception of Planet Earth. As increasingly sophisticated technologies are created to sense the world, the Planetary Sensorium is drastically shifting people’s worldview in return. Infrastructural networks and logistics of pipelines, high speed rails, and fibre optic cables have informed the worldview of earth as an interconnected and globalised whole in service of a specific mono-culture of technology. This in turn produces its own geopolitical realities, impacting how people’s lives are governed across the world.
The current planetary sensorial apparatus — sonic, tactile, visual, affective, and embodied — can help us to imagine alternate possibilities for the digital planet and new ways of living together. As the planet flows through human, technical agents, and other beings, a question then emerges: for which Earth do we create our intellectual, cultural, and artistic interventions?
The theme is inspired by the philosophical work of Lukáš Likavčan.
Benefits
- Monthly Stipend: A total of €13,500 per fellow for the entire fellowship.
- Consultations with acclaimed artists, curators, and scholars.
- Online research groups with other fellows.
- Online sessions with our faculty.
- Presentation during partner events, symposia and exhibitions (online and in real life, when possible).
Eligibility
- The Digital Earth Fellowship welcomes eight artists and/or duos from different practices who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits, and are committed to ideas of resilient futures, equitable societies, and critical diversity, showing a marked capacity for self-direction.
- Applicants should have five years of work experience.
- Fluency in English is required.
- Applicants should be 25 years and older.
- Minimum 24 hours per week availability from September 1, 2020 until May 31, 2021.
Selection Criteria
- Demonstratively qualitative artistic practice and exceptional creativity.
- Motivation to become a part of Digital Earth’s network.
- Quality and criticality of the proposal.
- Alignment with the curatorial theme of The Planetary Sensorium.
Application
Applicants are asked to prepare their application using the template which combines the research proposal, portfolio, and CV into one document. Download the template.
Save your completed application as a PDF, max. 10 MB. An application can be submitted before July 17, 2020 by 9am Central European Time Zone.
For more information, visit Digital Earth Fellowship.
