Chris Joseph Electronic writer and artist

Call for Ideas: Jailbrake – deadline 26 February 2010

As part of its ‘Reboot Britain’ programme, The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has now launched a series of cutting-edge new projects that will explore innovative ways in which collaborative web technologies can be applied to some of society’s biggest social challenges.

The experimental ‘Reboot Britain’ programmes will explore how web technologies, with their focus on collaboration, self-organisation, openness and sharing of knowledge, allow people to engage and interact more easily with public service providers and have more of a say in the design and delivery of services. The aim is to cut bureaucracy, increase response times and demonstrate new solutions to public service delivery which complement traditional approaches.

Call for Ideas : Jailbrake

The first project to launch, ‘Jailbrake’, run in conjunction with Social Innovation Camp aims to find ways to use simple web and mobile tools to help break the cycle of re-offending by the many thousands of young people who get caught up in the criminal justice system each year. The call for ideas is now open and the closing date is 26th February 2010.

Ideas are welcomed from anyone with an interest in this area, whether you are part of a Local Authority, youth offending team, service user or a software developer, designer or funder who can help turn the ideas into live projects.

For further information and to enter an idea online visit: http://www.jailbrake.org or contact katherine@sicamp.org

Call for applications – Edith-Russ-Site Artist in Residence Programme – deadline 28 February 2010

The Foundation of Lower Saxony will award three six-months work stipends (10.000 € each) from July to December 2010 at the Edith-Russ-Site for Media Art in Oldenburg. The announcement is addressed to artists working in New Media. There are no age limitations. Submitted project proposals will be reviewed by an international jury. A minimum residency of one month is required. The artists will be integrated into the institution’s activities.

details: http://erh.alnovi.de/applications
deadline: February 28 2010 (date of postmark)

Residency program LE VILLE MATTE, Italy – deadline 28 February 2010

International call for the residency program
LE VILLE MATTE – visual arts
first edition

Villasor, Cagliari, Italy
14 April – 15 May 2010

Open call from 11 January 2010 to 28 February 2010

The program is part of
LE VILLE MATTE – artist residencies

The international call for the first edition of the residency program LE VILLE MATTE – visual arts is open; the program will take place in Sardinia from 14 April to 15 May 2010 in Villasor, a town a few kilometers from Cagliari. This edition’s visiting professor will be Giancarlo Norese, with Chiara Agnello as guest curator.

This initiative is part of LE VILLE MATTE – artist residencies, a wider project promoted by the Province of Cagliari, through the Cultural Policy Office, with the purpose of offering artistic study and research residencies in Sardinia, stimulating new productions in the field of music, writing and visual arts. An actual network of residencies, located in small centers of the highest environmental and landscape value, that may provide a profitable exchange between the local community and the artists of the national and international art scene.
The main goals of LE VILLE MATTE are: to involve the cultural institutions of the Region, create occasions of exchange through a program of conferences and meetings with the local cultural scene and the professionals in this field, activate fruitful collaboration with the artists in residency and offer them visibility, stimulate innovative and stimulating centers of artistic production in Sardinia that may contribute to improving the Region’s image and foster cultural and sustainable tourism.

The call is open to artists from all over the world, with no age limit (but the applicants must be over eighteen); the ten participants will be selected from the applications by a commission whose members are Giancarlo Norese, Chiara Agnello and Francesca Sassu.

The project designed by Giancarlo Norese – Supercalifragilistic (Mistaken Landscapes) – addresses the theme of architecture and landscape, reflecting on the contradictions between the spaces that have been transformed by man and those that have been self generated by chance and necessity. “‘Architectural erratums’ – explains the visiting professor – are anomalies that bear a symbolic value capable of resisting homologation, question our certainties, but at the same time generate warmth, closeness and sense of belonging to the community”.

Besides the daily activity of study and experimentation, the residency program schedules workshops and laboratories with guest artists invited by Giancarlo Norese: Ji?í Kovanda (Prague), Luigi Negro (Lecce), Umberto Cavenago (Milan), Luca Scarabelli (Como) and Mauro Cossu (Cagliari); with them the participants will investigate the themes of space, the relations between environments, the true nature of debris, the influence of urban action on our daily existence and the sounds that dwell and shape a place.

Chiara Agnello – artistic director of the contemporary art organization Careof, and curator of DOCVA, Documentation Center for Visual Arts of Milan – has been invited to follow the project, by supporting the training activity of the artists in residency and organizing moments of exchange with the local art scene (studio visits, meetings with collectors, etc.).

The goal of the project is not only to offer the participants a chance of professional growth, but also to put forward an occasion to address the theme of social practices in contemporary art: through the use of different media, social practice puts relations between people, idea exchange, and interaction between artist and the audience at the centre of the artistic process. By giving creativity total freedom from any structured aesthetic theory, social practice in art fosters the development of collaborative projects.

At the end of the residency program in May 2010, the works produced by the artists in Villasor will be exhibited in a show set up in the former Convent of the Capuchins of Villasor (opening 15 May 2010). The exhibition will be documented by a bilingual Italian and English catalogue.

Participation in the residency program is free, and includes the following services: a studio with internet connection; open space area for group activity; town library and multimedia library for documentation; production expenses managed by the visiting professor on the basis of each artist’s requirements. Travel expenses are to be covered by the participants that are also required to bring their own personal equipment such as camera, video camera, laptop etc.

Applicants must be over eighteen, have at least three years’ professional experience in contemporary art, a good knowledge of English and attitude towards collaborative projects/social practices. The selected artists will include one from Sardinia.

Applications can be sent in from 11 January 2010 from the website www.levillematte.it
Applications must be filled in online in the specific area of the website by 28 February 2010 and must be accompanied by the following material:

- digital ID
- filled in application form
- pdf portfolio including a cv, images of one’s work and texts
- 5 images of past works
- up to 3 audio files for sound artists
- up to 3 videos or excerpts (with links to youtube, vimeo, google video etc.) for video artists

LE VILLE MATTE includes other two residencies: one dedicated to music, from 25 June to 24 July 2010, and one dedicated to writing, scheduled between September and October 2010. At the end of the entire project a final publication will be released.

Title: International call for the residency program LE VILLE MATTE – visual arts
Visiting professor: Giancarlo Norese
Guest curator: Chiara Agnello
Promoted by: The Province of Cagliari – Cultural and Sport Policy Office
In collaboration with: Careof DOCVA
Coordinators: Giorgio Murtas, Francesca Sassu
Opening of the call: 11 January 2010
End of the call: 28 February 2010
Dates of the residency: 14 April – 15 May 2010
Exhibition opening: 15 May 2010
Where: Villasor, Cagliari, Italy
Info: tel.+39 070 4092329, fax +39 070 4092312, info [at] levillematte.it, www.levillematte.it

National and International press office: Marta Colombo +39 340 3442805 martacolombo [at] gmail.com;
Regional press office: Stefania Giganti +39 329 3604710 sgiganti [at] provincia.cagliari.it