open call for the Long-term residency

15.08.2021

The inauguration call of AIR InSILo is inspired by the ideas of Leopold Kohr (1909 – 1994), a prominent but underrated Austrian philosopher, whose concept ‘Small is Beautiful’ has saturated the thinking of subsequent researchers and influenced the notions of decentralization with inclinations to localism and post-development theory, degrowth theory, bioregionalism, and the principle of sustainability.
The recent research by Gaya Herrington approving the 1972 MIT system dynamic model which predicted a societal collapse in the mid 21st century due to the rapid economic growth, imposes not only frustration and the concerns about the appropriateness of any new production, encompassing artistic production, but also gives a clear timeframe to reconsider social, political and economic action for giving new orienteers in supporting human’s creative potential instead of exploiting it like a resource.

Understanding artistic creation as a basic need, we are inviting artists, curators, and researchers to contribute their thoughts and energy to conceptualise the takes on the sustainability of individuum’s lives and ethical challenges and boundaries of sustainability of artistic production; to think of artistic production as non-commodity; to imagine alternative economic systems to sustain artistic production; to define boundaries of living space and workspace, leisure time and work time; to meditate on open-source appropriate technologies and open-design; to find the ways of collaborations of disjoint decentralized communities.
We want to continue rethinking the Umwelt for artistic production, withdrawn from the hindering and repressive frames of cognitive capitalism and commodification logic of the art market.
On the level of the early development of the artist-run AIR InSILo, we keep its shape open to contributions, modification, and criticism, allowing the space to be useful, welcoming, and supportive for experimental thinking and practice; as well as to create a showcase, a template which can be used on different territories under different circumstances. We embrace projects on different stages of development in different media: media art, visual art, sound art, new media, science art, performance art, artistic research, and any possible and impossible hybrid incarnations of human and posthuman creativity.

GUIDELINES
• A proposal letter must match a curatorial statement's conceptual direction and envision. Extra consideration will be given to disarming creativity and irrestrainable experimentation.
• AIR InSILo pays big attention to the principles of inclusivity and diversity. Our main focus is on late-emerging/ early mid-career artists; the artists coming to the “critical” threshold – age of 35, when institutional support is already fading.
• Special attention will be given to:
- Working mothers
- Underrepresented artists
- Artists from countries with minimum/ non-existing support for art and culture
- LGBTQ+ representatives
Unfortunately, so far the residency is not equipped for wheel-chairs access and is not considered to be entirely safe for children under 3 y.o.

LONG-TERM RESIDENCE
• 1,5 months residency in November – December 2021
or January – February 2022 in AIR InSilo
Opportunity to choose from different forms of participation and involvement:
- be it an accomplished project which one wants to test or present,
- be it an idea which demands field research,
- be it a pile of drafts that need time and space for conceptualization,
- or a hypothesis that can turn into a bigger project in future.
• A fee of 975 Euros (regardless, individual or collective)
• Production costs up to 525 euro
(regardless, individual or collective)
• Coverage of travel costs up to 600 euro
(regardless, individual or collective)
• Coverage of transport costs up to 150 euro
(regardless, individual or collective)
• The possibility to make an exhibition/ presentation/ public talk in one of our partnering institutions in Vienna or in Lower Austria (not obligatory/ discussed additionally)
• Opportunity to stay with a partner and/or 1-2 children
(travel and per diem for the guests are not covered)
AIR InSilo
Deadline
September 15
15.00 CEST
• Usage of the facilities provided by the AIR InSILo (full list)
• Featuring in the InSILo Digital Magazine
• PR support by the digital means of AIR InSILo
• Visa support (ATM it can only be done in a manual mode and we cannot guarantee a positive result. If you have permission to enter the country, please mind the entrance and quarantine rules here)

SELECTION PROCESS
• The shortlist selection will be made by September 20. After the first selections, the applicants will be contacted for further clarification. The final selection will be made by September 25.
• All applicants will be notified of the results by September 30.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
A submission proposal should be put in one PDF file (10 MB).
It should contain:
• A proposal letter with a conceptual direction and envision of a proposed open call topic. It should be submitted in two versions: short – up to 1000 characters and long – up to 4000 characters
• BIO – up to 1000 characters
• Portrait – b/w, vertical, 1500 px on a longer side
• CV – 2 pages maximum
• Portfolio of realised projects – up to 10 pages
• A presentation of the main proposal with illustrations, drafts, sketches, links, etc.
For IMAGES: artist name, artwork title, year, medium, dimensions, additional description. For VIDEO/AUDIO: URL links for video and time-based work. Vimeo is better for video. Soundcloud is preferred for audio + password, artist name, artwork title, year, duration, additional description.
The working language of the Residency is English. Additionally, we communicate in German and Russian.
We do not demand any accomplished project to be presented in the end, on the contrary – we want to provide a calm and peaceful environment without pressure and working obligations. Creativity is a process that should flow naturally. But if you have a demand for a presentation, please, let us know in advance about the preferable format.

The submissions are no longer accepted.

The results will be announced by September 30

Thanks to all the participants!