Call for artists – RADIATOR: Going Underground – deadline 14 November 2008

CALL FOR ARTISTS

RADIATOR: Going Underground *

* Sousveillance – the counterpart to surveillance, where the ‘observed’ turns around, to face and watch the ‘observer’, recording the observers actions and movements.

Radiator Festival & Symposium
part of the Performing Space series

Nottingham 13th – 18th of Jan 2009

WHEN AND WHERE

January 2009 in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester, East Midlands, UK

WHAT IT IS

Even as we enter a period of recession, there may be yet a glimmer of hope. Are we facing an about turn from the last 30 years of Milton Friedman inspired economics that has left our cities wastelands of corporate monoculture? If so, there are still a few questions left unanswered…

In an era when the phrase “affects a conservation area” has been no obstacle to the planning application for a shopping centre housing solely global brands; when 12 million pounds has been spent in the East Midlands for extending CCTV systems that have miserable figures for reducing crime; when urban regeneration means the extension of the corporate high street to the exclusion of independent, local communities; when half of the entire UK population now shops in barely 1000 giant superstores….

Where do we go for explanations?

Why are our everyday movements constantly monitored and the details of our lives banked?

How is where we live a reflection of our wants, desires and taxes or the interests of powerful outside forces?

Who are the self proclaimed guardians that watch over us in our cities and who are the gatekeepers to Fortress Britain?

To unpick these questions and more, Radiator will place 5 artists at the urban coalface – the offices and backrooms of companies and institutions – where the fates of our city spaces are stamped and sealed.

Architects, planning departments, telemarketeers, city council offices, surveillance and monitoring centres – just some of the types of agencies we want our artists to infiltrate as sleeper agents, biding their time in observation, gathering information, doing work for the agency and for us.

During this time we expect our artist agents to file daily copy, to write blogs, to post pictures and draw thought maps and to eventually give a thorough account of their activities and their discoveries at a debriefing meeting, otherwise known as the Radiator Symposium on Performing Space that will take place this Autumn 08 in partnership with Nottingham Trent University.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for proposals from artists and practitioners outlining ideas for covert research into the effect of everyday business and government on the technologies and architecture that shape our cities and working day environments.

Included in the proposal should be details of how these findings obtained could be exhibited to the public.

WHAT WE OFFER

– We offer a research stipend of £1200 plus production expenses towards exhibition

– Exhibition during the Radiator Festival in the East Midlands

– A position in the Radiator Symposium on Performing Space at Broadway

– A chance to develop work further for touring internationally in 2009

WHAT WE REQUIRE

– A proposal, which shouldn’t be more than 2 sides of A4 (excluding biogs, CVs etc) which includes details of:

– Organisation, institution, department or company your residency or research will be with

– What question, approach or method you plan to use as the axis of your research

– Details of how your research might be collected, collated and exhibited including budget.

– A biography and/ or CV of past and current work

– Visual material on DVD or CDROM or internet

– a filled in submissions form (link below)

DEADLINE: Fri 14th Nov 08

To download the submissions form please go to

http://www.radiator-festival.org/content/news.php?id_artist=63