Online Micro Residency with BOM (UK) and Videotage (HK)
Application deadline: 15 July (Friday 15 July, 5pm UK time / Midnight HK time)
Shortlisting of artists: 25th July
Residency: Mon 5 – Fri 9 September (there is no flexibility with these dates)
Sharing event: Late September / early October (date TBC)
Fee: £1500 based on 5 days at £300
About the Project
As part of the 2022 Peer 2 Peer Festival BOM & Videotage are launching an intensive 5 day virtual residency for two artists (one based in the UK and one in Hong Kong) who are working in or inspired by game art. This includes a wide range of practice including building in Sandbox games, animations, live games, interactive and text based games.
The prompt / theme Virtual Bodies offers practitioners a wide ranging and generous starting point to expand and develop work. Your work could touch on dis/ability, gender, communication, AI, bio art, body politics and more. We encourage diverse and personal responses to the prompt.
The digital platform you use to experiment / make work in is up to you although we are looking for those platforms to be within the realm of video / digital game art.
Possible Platforms:
- Animation / 3D modelling
- Sandbox games: Fortnite Creative, Minecraft, Second Life, Sandbox, The Sims, etc.
- Game Creation System (GCS): Twine, Roblox, etc.
- Or other video / digital game art platforms that enables creative development.
Both new or developing projects will be considered, but the residency should be a remarkable contribution to the whole or part of the project development.
The artists chosen will work closely with BOM Curator Louise Latter and Videotage Curator Angel Leung who will guide them through an intensive week of working where we will encourage and support experimentation and development of ideas rather than focusing on a final artistic output.
The selected artists must document their creative process for social media (BOM and Videotage accounts) and the presentation of the project during the Peer 2 Peer Festival in September/October 2022 (date TBC), which the artists must attend.
Artists applying must be available Mon 5 – Fri 9 September (unfortunately there is no flexibility with these dates)
For more information (for the UK side) please email info@bom.org.uk
For more information (for the HK side) please email info@videotage.org.hk
Applications
To apply please email info@bom.org.uk by 5pm (BST) on 15 July including the following:
– A line stating that you can commit to working on this project full-time for 5 days the week of 5 – 9 September 2022. See sample here
-A statement (no more than one side of A4) describing how you would approach the Residency including your chosen platform to make work in and specifically how you will work with the ‘virtual bodies’ theme. Please be clear on whether the idea you want to develop is a new one or an existing project (we welcome both).
-A form of portfolio; either online or PDF to show us previous work you have delivered. We love visuals! Please provide images and videos if possible.
More context
This collaborative residency is inspired by Videotage’s residency programme Leave Your Body and BOM’s artistic programme Virtual Bodies. Leave Your Body has been delivered in several iterations since the Summer of 2020. The programme invites artists across the contemporary art landscape in Hong Kong and beyond to leave their mark in the one-to-one scale, sandbox game Minecraft. Virtual Bodies is a line of enquiry BOM are developing, themes include trauma, technology, gender, queerness and mental health.
Established in 2014, BOM is an arts organisation that exists to inspire and empower communities through transformational digital experiences. We explore how creative technology can be used as a tool for change, to make society a better place. Our interests and expertise are in neurodiversity and technology, how creativity can unleash the potential of under-represented communities and how creative innovation can address environmental challenges. Whilst we are based in Birmingham, we cultivate a community of highly skilled creative practitioners locally, nationally and internationally with whom we create groundbreaking interactive experiences with strong social impact. We collaborate across sectors, bringing together artists, scientists, technologists, universities and community organisations to co-create collaborative innovation that engages communities through a grassroots experimental approach. Our Creative Digital Skills programmes develop diverse talent, predominantly neurodivergent, Black, Asian, mixed ethnic and LGBT+ creative practitioners across the Midlands and beyond. Our learning programmes engage under-represented children and young people through arts-based interventions. These programmes fuel learning and creativity for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and young people excluded from mainstream education who face multiple barriers at the start of their career pathways.
Videotage is a leading Hong Kong-based non-profit organisation specialising in the promotion, presentation, creation and preservation of new media art across all languages, shapes and forms. Founded in 1986, Videotage has evolved from an artist-run collective to an influential network, supporting creative use of media art to explore, investigate and connect with issues that are of significant social, cultural, and historical value.
Dedicated to nurturing emerging media artists and developing the local media arts community, Videotage has organised numerous media arts events and programs while developing an extensive offline and online video art archive (VMAC).
Videotage has been working with different organisations such as the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong, the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Hong Kong and Macao SAR, the Goethe-Institut, Clockenflap, SOGO Arts and Culture, K11, Art Basel, Oi!, and Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre to showcase interesting and important video and media artworks to the general public.
Peer to Peer: UK/HK is a digital programme and platform encouraging meaningful cultural exchange and forging enduring partnerships between the UK and Hong Kong’s visual arts sectors. The programme launched with an online festival of international exchange and collaboration that took place 11-14 November 2021, featuring panel events with UK and Hong Kong artists, curators, academics and arts leaders discussing topical themes affecting visual arts sectors across the world.
The Festival also included an online exhibition of new and existing digital artworks from UK and Hong Kong based artists, including five new commissions by artists nominated by UK and Hong Kong based partners. There are also a series of digital residencies taking place across partner organisation’s social media channels.
The Festival was led by Ying Kwok (Festival Director and independent curator, HK), with Lindsay Taylor, (University of Salford Art Collection), Open Eye Gallery and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), supported by a project team.