VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020: “ONLINE” EDITION
OPEN CALL FOR ARTWORKS, TEXTS, AND CURATORIAL PROPOSALS

Submission deadline: May 7, 2020

Festival events will take place virtually from July 16-19, 2020. Online exhibitions will run for approximately a month.

Vector Festival is an annual media art event dedicated to showcasing experimental artworks that engage critically with digital technologies.

As a result of the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, InterAccess has made the difficult decision to cancel IRL events scheduled for this summer. In response, Vector Festival co-curators Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger are redeveloping the 2020 edition of the festival as a modular, open-ended, and inclusive online platform in order to feature digital artworks, support media artists, and facilitate critical conversations that engage with the unprecedented crisis we are collectively experiencing.

We are inviting our local and international community, and all artists, curators, and community organizers in the domain of digital art, to join us in exploring the following questions:

-What new forms of community, solidarity, and care has the coronavirus spawned, and how are they manifesting in digital art practices?
What challenges (and what opportunities) does the crisis represent for practitioners and curators of media art?
-How must digital art respond to the new extremes of surveillance, control, and polarizing misinformation that this crisis is producing?
-How do the rich histories of web-based and computer-generated artistic practice connect and relate to the current situation?
-What new models of remuneration and reward could account fairly for the myriad ways in which digital art helps us bridge the painful social distances created by the pandemic?
-What new forms of digitally-bound performance art, interactive art, generative art, and participative art are developing in a moment at which computers seem to have become the only means of connecting with others?
-What role shall digital art play in the ‘new normal’ that we are heading towards?

We invite art and project submissions for the following festival categories:

Web-based projects and digital artworks that can be presented online. This may include:
-Experimental interactive and time-based digital projects, generative artworks, or net art
-Experimental video games and interactive fiction (downloadable or to be hosted online)
-Experimental machinima and video works
-Proposals for virtual live performances (both participative and non-participative), including in-game performances
-Live-coding performances (sound-based and A/V works)
-Other experimental formats are very welcome!

Short critical texts or essayistic rich-media contributions that respond to the festival focus outlined above. The submissions should engage these issues either from the current context of shifting programming to online spaces as a response to the pandemic, or from a media art historical context, exploring works that have been presented or created in virtual spaces.

Workshop proposals
Proposals for workshops that can be delivered online.

Presentation proposals
Proposals for short presentations that can be delivered online.

Curatorial submissions
We also invite curators/curatorial collectives to submit proposals for small topical online exhibitions, machinima screenings, or other experimental formats that resonate with the focus of the festival. If you are considering a curatorial submission we encourage you to contact the Vector Festival team for additional practical details.

We are interested in works that engage with the crisis directly or offer meaningful and much-needed diversion, as well as creative hacks that explore the implications of the global shift to “online,” and media art historical works that are relevant to the current moment.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit the following details using our online application form. Key information required for each submission includes:

-Project description (250 words)
-A short statement on how the submission relates to the questions outlined above (250 words)
-Documentation (maximum of five images, and/or links to audio/video documentation)
-Description of technical requirements
-Artist biography (approximately 100 words)
-Current CV

Please note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

All artists and curators selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with the up-to-date CARFAC Fee schedule, as well as support to apply for external funding.

If you have questions about submitting your application please contact vector@interaccess.org.

ABOUT VECTOR FESTIVAL

Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental media art practice. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. Vector Festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger.

ABOUT INTERACCESS

Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

For more information contact:
Festival Curators, Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger
vector@interaccess.org