Digital Earth | fellowship call

Digital Earth is a 6 month-long fellowship for artists and designers based in Africa or Asia, working across a variety of media, who would like to investigate our current technological reality. It is a unique research support programme, which supports experienced artists to reflect, research, experiment and produce work. The fellowship consists of a monthly stipend for work and production costs, mentorship and other various resources. The final results will be exhibited in a roaming exhibition.

Duration: September 2018 until February 2019

Number of participants: 15

Digital Earth calls upon divergent artists and designers to embark on a journey to examine, challenge and respond to the material and immaterial condition of the current technological reality. For the duration of the programme the fellowship provides a subsistence allowance and production budget to forward-looking practitioners interested in independently creating work within a specific place, context or institution. The fellowship is aimed at artists and designers at a stage in their career wishing to take 6 months for reflection and research.

The geographical focus of the fellowship is on the entanglement of old and new routes that connect Asia to Africa, crossing the Middle East and Central Asia. For centuries, these land and maritime trajectories shaped regional and intercontinental balances of power and culture. Today, similar routes are crossed by goods, people and data at speeds faster than ever, through a circuit of ports, mines, airports, refineries, high speed railways, fibre optic cables and mobile antennas. Perhaps here more than anywhere else, digital and material trails can be followed through different sovereignties, cultures, latitudes … and are hopefully unravelled.

The Digital Earth Fellowship provides:

1. A stipend to enable research, experimentation and to produce work in a specific geographic location in Africa or Asia, for 6 months. The exact amount of the stipend will be based on the cost of living of the country where the research will take place.

2. Access to a research and production infrastructure consisting of a network of researchers, (online) theory and practice courses, research institutes, exhibition venues, creative hubs, art biennales, residencies and companies.

3. A mentor, who will support you in your research. The Digital Earth mentors are internationally-renowned artists, designers and researchers.

4. The chance to discuss your practice with other fellows during sessions on Google Hangouts;

5. Final works and research findings will be exhibited in 2019 or 2020 in a roaming exhibition.

Deadline for proposals: 19 August 2018

Eligibility

Projects should be based in one of a long list of eligible countries (see website). The ASEM member countries which are eligible are: Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, UK, Viet Nam

Digital Earth is a fellowship for research and experimentation with and around the materiality and immateriality of the digital reality.