Open call for Digital AIR 2022
Deadline for applications – October 2, 2022
Center for Creative Industries Fabrika is announcing an open call for artists to participate in the program of virtual residency Digital AIR 2022
The Digital AIR programme was created by the Center for Creative Industries Fabrika together with the APXIV art group in the first post-pandemic year when the general situation of lockdown and cultural tightness made it obvious that artists can no longer develop their practice and engage in international dialogue as before. It seemed to us that the purpose of the virtual platform could be to overcome – at least at the cultural level – the extension of the geopolitical situation, which could not and cannot contribute to the development and strengthening of international relations in the field of contemporary art.
Since February 2022, the issue of cultural interaction has ceased to be the main agenda. The common discussion "how to work together?" was complemented by questions about the ethics of continuing one's own activity and possible means of articulating one's position in the language of art.
We have lost common ground, and more than ever we feel the need to find ways to keep talking to each other, even in times of catastrophe. Six months after the start of the war, we decided to restart the Digital AIR programme in order to continue doing what we always considered important – to support Russian and foreign artists, to find something in common even in a situation of global/political/cultural instability.
We invite artists to take part in the Digital AIR in order to create a discursive platform and community built on mutual respect and interest in the digital practices of contemporary art. As part of a two-month residency, artists will get acquainted with the process of working on the 8XR platform, work with the technical team (https://app.8xr.io/), each other and the curator of the residency in order to present a virtual art project in December 2022, both online and on the territory of Fabrika.
The work of the artists will be based on the “building a common” principle and will consist of a series of thematic and curatorial zoom meetings, during which participants will discuss the theme of the residency and the projects that they want to implement.
Also, meetings with the technical team of the 8XR platform will be organized for the participants, where everyone can get technical support on the implementation of their project in the digital universe. Each participant of the residence will have administrative access to the platform for all two months.
For residents, a budget for the production of virtual work (creation of a three-dimensional object/budget for assets) and a small fee are assumed.
Fabrika’s Digital AIR platform (8XR) consists of three main exhibition spaces that were transformed from the physical space at the actual cultural center to the digital art studios. The examples of the previous projects we made last year can be seen here:
https://app.8xr.io/space/joseph-boys
https://app.8xr.io/space/digital-air
https://app.8xr.io/space/edel-extra
Digital AIR 2022 Theme: Life-Size Model
Pandemic, self-isolation, several lockdowns, travel bans transformed our common experience, changed our relationships with people, the territory around us and ourselves. In a situation of vacuum, we created our own reality, in which something familiar – for instance, the space of Fabrika – would receive a time-appropriate entity.
What is this space today – an independent environment or a replica created to compensate?
How does it change a historical building of Fabrika, which served as a founding platform for virtuality and which is now reduced to a system of abstract signs? How can we work with the theme of memory in the mediated digital world? And what do the memory and this architectural monument occur – an abstraction from the past or a myth that we do not get tired of reproducing?
Deadline for applications – October 2, 2022
Residence dates: October – December 2022
Programme curator: Christina Pestova (CCI Fabrika)
Technical curator: Mark Korshakov (8XR)
The winners of the call will be announced on October 7, 2022
The creation of the Digital AIR programme was supported by the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021 of the German Federal Foreign Ofiice, the Goethe Institut and other partners.
The programme is supported by:
Address: Perevedenodskiy pereulok 18,
Digital AIR aims at continuing the collaboration of artists and curators from different countries in order to create new ways of cultural communication that more accurately meet the needs of a changed world.