Open Call: HackAthens 2020
What Comes After

Onassis Stegi invites you to explore the ‘after’ of a city striving to be reborn. Athens, forever lingering between a permanent crisis and a desire for stability, is looking for its next day. But what is that, when the now feels suspended in midair?

The Covid-19 pandemic revealed a series of problems and possibilities in the contemporary way of life and our societies. States seek to overcome the fragmented nature of globalization and strengthen interstate collaboration. The crisis demonstrated the critical importance of public health systems and the necessity to put human life above economic indexes. Paradoxically, social distancing did not lead to social indifference. On the contrary, new forms of digital and physical solidarity practices and common goods were created in the Athenian neighborhoods and ‘polykatoikies’, which produced a strong feeling of respect between the same and the ‘other’, the known and the unknown, the young and the elderly.

At the same moment, the generalized global slowdown offers some relief to all other inhabitants of this planet. Pollution levels are visibly down. The global buzz is being replaced by our common breath. Can the prolonged silence curfew teach us something about how to transform our cities into more sustainable human-nature ecosystems?

Additionally, physical distancing has reinforced our algorithmic, post-human existence. People communicate, shop, work and socialize on constantly mediated algo-platforms seeking to substitute the void of the physical public space. Communications, despite the distance, are more intense than ever. If you belong to a species feeding off data, then this is your time.

Maybe the current silence is the chance we were seeking in order to articulate something really important. Can we become the inventors of a new frugal abundance and of a new art of sustainable living? Can Athens prosper? How would Athens be after?

We invite artists, designers, developers, musicians, lawyers or anyone else interested to apply for a four-week e-research program aiming at developing digital works addressing the question of “what comes after?”.

Proposals may include fiction or non-fiction essays, games, photo-essays, 3D visualizations, video, net art, net installations, apps, and other experimental digital media. We ask for prototypes to be created as open-source material, so that they can be shareable and accessible by other creators, maximizing their benefit to the community.

Four proposals will be selected through the application process and each will receive a grant of 1,500€. We welcome applications by individuals, as well as groups. The creators will have four weeks to develop their works in collaboration with the curator, which will be presented to the public through the Onassis Foundation website and its social media platforms, and will be considered to be included in a collective publication about the outcomes of the program.

Two of the selected proposals will have the opportunity to qualify directly for the second phase of the 11th round of the Innovation & Technology Competition by the National Bank of Greece Business Seeds program, provided they fulfil the program's terms and conditions, and their work falls within the scope of the competition.

A look at the timeline

Application deadline: May 20, 2020

Selection announcement: May 27, 2020

Deadline for final works: June 24, 2020