Open Call: Residency by the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab

The AI Lab (European ARTificial Intelligence Lab) offers international artists working in the field of AI to win a residency at a scientific partner institution and at the Futurelab of Ars Electronica.

Experiential AI is a new program at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, Bayes Centre and Heriot-Watt Robotarium in Edinburgh. Experiential AI aims to support the creation of significant artistic works, and to inspire radically new concepts and paradigms on ethical and responsible AI.

The theme for the Artist Residency is “Entanglements – fair, moral and transparent AI”. Fairness, morality and transparency are challenged by entanglements with autonomous systems that are in many ways unintelligible to humans. At the same time, increasing numbers of artists are today exploring artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotics, as both subject and tool.

• Explore concepts of fair, moral and transparent AI through artistic experiments engaging AI researchers.
• Test ways to dispel the mystery of algorithms and make their mechanisms vividly apparent.
• Develop early stage concepts for a new artistic work/performance based on the artistic and creative possibilities of AI.

The residency is split between Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Bayes Centre and Heriot-Watt Robotarium in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria. The residency is a fully funded opportunity for an artist, designer or artists’ collective to create new dimensions in their artistic practice through their encounters with the world of AI. The residency offers access to the world-leading AI community in Edinburgh, and an opportunity to showcase prototypes at Ars Electronica Festival. Edinburgh International Festival will have the option to present prototypes/works in progress in a live performance setting during their festival in 2020 or 2021.

The first part of the program includes a residency for a period of 4-8 weeks in first half of 2020. This will take place in Edinburgh.The second part is a production residency for a period of one month, after completion of the first residency, at the Ars Electronica Futurelab (Linz) until latest end of August 2020.The last part is a public presentation at the end of the residency at Ars Electronica Festival 2020. Edinburgh International Festival will have the option to present prototypes/works in progress in a live performance setting during their festival in 2020 or 2021.

The selected artist wins a residency consisting of 10,000€ artist fee and production cost*. The fee structure is: 3,000€ artist fee, 2,000€ production costs for which a proposal is required, 5,000€ which the artist can use for additional fees for themselves or collaborators and also for production costs. In addition, the residency program covers up to 5,000€ travel, accommodation and subsistence costs for the two cities.

*In case the winning party is an artist duo or artist group the artist fee, production costs as well as travel and accommodation costs need to be split between the members.