19 Dec 2014

Nomadic Village 2015 Call for Proposals

****Call for Proposals Nomadic Village 2015, May - August****

***Northern Italy, Cerkno/Slovenia, Northern Balkans, Sofia/Bulgaria, Austria***
**Deadline for applications: 30th of January 2015!**


[Artists on the road]
Artists, researchers, activists, hackers, those who intentionally displace themselves to seek encounters that not only influence their work but form it; those who work without borders and constantly respond to situations, places and people along their journey, those who have an autonomous working and living mobile setup

[Village]
2 weeks settlement for artists on the road, providing basic facilities, food and contact with the local community

Since 2009 the Nomadic Village has been a 2 weeks annual settlement of artists on the road. In 2015 it will become a swarm of people on the move for 4 months, travelling across several European countries and stopping along the way to establish 3 different Villages. The artists on the road are invited to propose projects for the entire trip, or parts of it. They will determine their own travelling schedules and use GPS tracking devices to create spontaneous meetings on the road. The Villages are conceived as meeting points as well as production and presentation opportunities.


For 2015, all the artists in charge of projects should be equipped with mobile Internet, and will be asked to update their whereabouts daily. Participants will have to mark the good spots to stay, document them and exchange with the other artists on the road. These exchanges will create a map that will expand over the years and will be provided to the Nomadic Village participants of future editions.

The Nomadic Village is run by Captain Klaus (lead artist and founder) and tinski (directing artist) from On The Road Productions (ORP), Austria.


Apply/Facts

Some selection criteria:
• Projects favoring themes such as: nomadism, displacement, dislocation, working without
borders, exploring places, encouraging meeting and interacting with strangers, and
seeking the unexpected.
• Work influenced by the location and reacting to the situations.
• Artists on the road sharing their creations with local communities.
• Access to live/work mobile space for the travelling stages of the trip
• Access to live/work space for the Villages
• Have a look at Nomadic Village's Ethos at the end of this document

The Villages will provide:
• Facilities, including electricity, toilets, running water, wireless connection.
• Food: dinners will be prepared either by our hosts or the
 participants; breakfast and lunch
on a DIY basis.
• Contacts with the local community.

During Travel-time we will provide:
• GPS tracking of the projects, which will enable spontaneous meetings on the road.
• ORP's infrastructure of places where artists on the road can stay (in Northern Italy)
.
• Projects are asked to add to the collection of places to stay.

How to apply:
• Give us a comprehensive description of the project you are planning to realize.
• Make sure that we get a good idea of who you are.
• Let us know exactly who you'll bring or involve (partners, assistants, friends, family,
children, animals).
• Describe clearly how you will live and work.
• Make clear which part of the trip you plan to join
• Applicants are welcomed to discuss their projects with us before applying.
• Send your application to the Captain: klaus@maehring.at
• Deadline: 30th of January 2015
• We will inform of the selection results on the 10th of February 2015.


Timing/Parts

Northern Italy, May 1st - 20th
1st - 5th of May - optional meeting in northern Italy
6th - 21st - Travel Time/Roaming/Tracking
Travel-time to work on projects that will be finished at the first Village. Projects can travel anywhere, but the majority will travel across Northern Italy, enabling spontaneous meetings on the road through GPS tracking.

1st Nomadic Village @C.M.A.K./Slovenia, May 21st - 30th
The first Nomadic Village 2015 will be a meeting/production place for participants to produce work originating from their trip to that Village. We will create the Galeria Nowhere, a travelling exhibition that will be shown in Cerkno at the end of the Village. Then it will hit the road and travel across the northern Balkans.
The place is situated in the center of Cerkno - on a meadow by the creek. Right beside the place is a house of the Youth center C.M.A.K. (cmakcerkno.net/). There are toilets, a dark room, a small gallery, provided Internet, a place for concerts... There is also free wireless in town.

Galeria Nowhere/Travelling Exhibition across Balkans, 31st of May - 19th of June
Experimenting with ways to approach small communities/villages
This is the research-part of the Nomadic Village 2015. We will experiment with different set ups for the exhibition in small villages, ranging from the simple coffee & cake gathering to a big circus-like performance/installation/spectacle. We expect to be a small group that will mostly travel together.

2nd (Urban) Nomadic Village @ Water Tower Art Fest Sophia, 20th - 28th of June

On behalf of the WTAF we are curating a grand scale urban installation. We are especially looking for projects working with light, projection, sound and installation. For the first days, the Village will allow public access during the afternoons to give the audience the possibility of following our process. Towards the end of the Village and for the presentation, public access will then take place in the evening, after sunset.
Water Tower Art Fest is an artist-run initiative that originated from a handful of like-minded, freethinking individuals based in Sofia, Bulgaria. The festival encompasses the usual ideas of art and creativity, and the locally-innovative concepts of looking at post-communist urban renewal and the use alternative art spaces – the old water tower, old mineral baths and remnants of the ancient city of Serdika, whose ruins practically lie beneath the feet of Sofia citizens.

3rd Nomadic Village @ Hohe Wand Austria, 3rd - 17th of August
The final Village 2015 will be invitation-only (but you can ask for one!).
Hohe Wand is a natural reserve and a weekender's destination 50km south of Vienna. It is one of the last efforts of the Alps towards the east and is elevated to approx. 900m above sea level. Even though it is no alpine terrain, it sometimes is quite windy, and can rather cool at night. It is a destination for hiking, climbing, paragliding and hang gliding.


Ethos

The digital age has seen the emergence of a new kind of artists on the road; using production and communication tools like computers, mobile Internet, GPS, digital video and more. They can stay connected and follow each other through their works, from beginning to end, while being on the road. It has become possible to take the contemporary conceptual approach out of the galleries and institutions that used to be perceived as the only acceptable platforms.
In contrast to the widely spread discourse, in which art theory, history and the urban-social context are the main inspirations, the artists on the road's discourse is about being close to people and nature, and dealing with reality and oneself, while still being in contact with the world through the virtual community, the World Wide Web. The vehicles are ateliers and homes, facilitating a constant movement that brings about endless experiences and inspiration, and the artistic discourse is carried around to include audiences previously too remote to profit from it.


In contrast to the widely spread anti-society 'get-away' idea of recent travelling-movements, those modern artists want to emancipate from these ties for the benefit of the professional artist on the road, that keeps in touch with the world through modern communication medias. For sure, we want to venture out there to discover new things, since our curiosity is what makes us bored with the old ways. But we are also eager to communicate and integrate our findings and feeding them back into society through exhibitions, in hope of reviving the contemporary cultural and artistic discourse.

Links

www.nomadic.cd
unfortunately always under construction....

www.facebook.com/NomadicVillage
quite extensive documentation of the last Villages


hope to see you on the road!
Captain Klaus & tinski