Open Call for Art & Science Residency in Creative City Košice
Creative Industry Košice & KAIR Košice Artist in Residence announce an open call for media artists and scientists from UNESCO Creative Cities. The prolonged deadline to apply for the residency is the 1st of August 2022.
Open Call: Art & Science Residency in Košice – UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts
After the fruitful three years, here comes a follow-up! Košice – UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts offers media artists, and scientists a two-month stay in Košice in autumn 2022. The residency is organized by the NGO Creative Industry Košice – a focal point of UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, and by KAIR Košice Artist in Residence.
About Košice
Never a place of the biggest names, insane cash flows or Top 10 Lonely Planet’s places to visit. Some say it’s just the last ten years since Košice changed its mindset, became open to different ideas and started to define itself as rather cool and vivid. A hundred years ago, it was a mere speck of a creative centre compared to what defines the city today.
Slovakia’s second city stands firm on its foundation for a bright future. The European Capital of Culture 2013 literally redesigned the cultural infrastructure of the town, spread culture to the suburban areas and formed exquisite places for the exhibition. Diverse bottom-to-up and up-to-bottom locations, emerging galleries displaying young art, active citizenship initiatives, world concerts and over 15 cultural centres piled with interesting people and nutritious talks.
Gone are the days of being known as a steel city. Now with a booming ICT industry and a growing creative sector, Košice has been slowly transforming into a cauldron of culture. Although we wouldn’t dare to guess what one-quarter of a million people here do, one thing we know for sure. The creative and cultural scene here is small but pretty solid and zealous.
In 2017, Košice joined the prestigious UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the field of Media Arts to develop this niche industry on the local level. If you are an artist flirting with an idea to come to Košice – do come in autumn. The last months of the year tend to be most generous for the media arts and digital culture showcase, starting off with White Night, followed by the festivals Art & Tech Days, and DAAVS, the city as the Creative City of Media Arts has much to offer. Its cultural life is widely supported by the activities of independent galleries such as Šopa Gallery, and VUNU; institutionalized East Slovak Gallery; Kino Úsmev – a cinema, offering residencies for filmmakers and writers; or the project Košice 2.0 which demonstrated Košice’s dedication in support of CCIs.
About CIKE & KAIR
The NGO Creative Industry Košice (CIKE) is a focal point of UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, which aims to inspire new generations through the interdisciplinary and innovative language of media arts. The organisation started as a daring project Interface – European Capital of Culture 2013 and brought a major transformation to the city. One of its key projects was KAIR Košice Artist in Residence, which started in 2011 and got a stable ground to develop the international activities and network of partners. In 2016 KAIR became an independent association.
KAIR is an international Artist-in-Residence programme for artists from all over the world and out of all artistic disciplines and expressions. It is strongly focused on international cooperation between Slovak and foreign artists and art organisations. Artists have the possibility to work in the inspiring environment of Košice‘s singular cultural surroundings to realize art projects, collaborate with the agile local art scene and present themselves to the local and national public.
Media Arts Residency 2022
It is not unusual that art goes hand in hand with science. From the renaissance until the complex world of today, they’ve supported each other, and helped each other to be more understandable to people – the beauty ‘’rationalized’’ and the research accessible through the emotions. There are several reasons why we should support such important connection and interdisciplinarity and hence it is apprehensible, that the most known media arts festival, institutions and cities follow that path. Košice doesn’t want to stay behind.
This specific residency seeks to create space for one media artist and one scientist from a city designated as UNESCO Creative Cities to develop their art & science project. The residency is an opportunity to create a new project or to continue work on something in development by shifting its perspective and embracing the open call’s topic.
The open call is limited to the artists, and scientists who are either born, live or work (residency permit and/or ID card) in any of UNESCO Creative City.
During the residency, the collaborating duo will be asked to create a media art piece of their suggested form within the given production budget (a digital piece of VR, AR, or immersive artwork; an AV installation, for example) to be presented as part of the international festival of media arts, technology and digital culture – Art & Tech Days; participate in Open Studios Night to introduce themselves to the local audience and to provide one workshop or lecture. The residency will take place in the city, hence the duo’s physical presence in Košice is inevitable.
Topic: Behavioural Change
In 2022, the residency program focuses on exploring the ways that technology brings and/or could bring a change in human behaviour, how it affects the very notion of our understanding of behavioural norms, expectations, and actions in both physical and digital worlds of our everyday existence.
The collaborating duo can search for answers to questions:
What changes does technology bring to our understanding of moral, social, and political actions?
How does it affect the body of action itself, the perception of activity, the horizon of perceived possibilities – what is possible, what is moral, what is desirable, and how are we expected to act, interact and engage in our lives and lives of our communities, because of technology and by technology?
How does this change of behaviour powered by technology affect the notion of our communities, of our togetherness, of our humanity?
The deadline to apply for the residency is the 1st of August 2022, 23:59 (CEST).
Timeframe
Open call announcement: 21 June 2022
Deadline for the applications prolonged: 1 August 2022, 23:59 (CEST)
Results announced: 15 August 2022
Residential stay in Košice: 16 October – 16 December 2022 (9 weeks)
Project Result’s presentation: from 21 November 2022 as part of the Art & Tech Days
What we offer
Scholarship 2000 EURO (gross)/ person
Covering transportation costs to and from Košice
Providing accommodation in Košice
KAIR studio, curatorial, production logistics, and technical support
Budget for technical production spent locally (up to 4000 Euro)
An opportunity to participate in the art and community life of the city and to promote own work in Košice
FOR APPLYING TO THE RESIDENCY, THE DUOS ARE SUBMITTING A SINGLE APPLICATION USING THE FORM ONLINE, WHICH CONTAINS THE CONTACT INFORMATION, BRIEF BACKGROUND INFORMATION, PROJECT PROPOSAL AS SUCH AS WELL AS SPACE FOR UPLOADING CV AND PORTFOLIO.
May you have any questions or problems with the online form, please contact us at ivana.rusnakova@cike.sk
In a case of an unfavourable situation in regards to COVID- 19 or another vis major, the residency or its parts will be taking place online. It will be agreed individually with the selected artist, and scientist-in-residence.
The residency program is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. The residency is also supported by Košice City.