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.
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.
Examples of possible research topics are: the infrastructure of Mongolian crypto-mining, the performativity of the robot-ports on the Siberian coastline, the soundscapes of the coltan mines in the heartlands of Congo, the cultural protocols of freeport zones, the aesthetics of satellite imagery, the agency of machinic vision, the political imaginations of geoengineering projects – and more.
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.
Get more information and apply here.
