[PD] Call for proposals - Piksel/BALTAN Laboratories residency

[h220]

Open Call for Proposals

BALTAN Laboratories and Piksel collaborative research and development 
residency

++ Deadline: August 31, 2009 ++

As part of BALTAN Laboratories’ Blueprint research programme  investigating 
the roles and forms of the art and technology laboratory  of the future, 
BALTAN and Piksel are collaborating to explore the  relationship between hard 
and software developers working on free and  open source tools for artistic 
production, and the artistic use and  development of these tools in a 
laboratory setting.

One artist will be selected from this open call to produce an artwork  using 
tools developed in collaboration with local and international developers of 
the Piksel Community, together with BALTAN and Piksel, through workshops and a 
residency at BALTAN. The Piksel/BALTAN  collaboration will run from September 
until December 2009.

Specifically, we are interested in proposals to work with the tracking and 
mapping technology Open Computer Vision. OpenCV is a library of programming 
functions mainly aimed at real time computer vision.  
Example applications of the OpenCV library are Human-Computer Interaction 
(HCI); Object Identification, Segmentation and Recognition; Face Recognition; 
Gesture Recognition; Motion Tracking, Ego Motion, Motion Understanding; 
Structure From Motion (SFM); Stereo and Multi-Camera Calibration and Depth 
Computation; Mobile Robotics. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCV] 
There will also be opportunity for the artist and involved developers to 
connect to the BALTAN Tracker, a tool being developed at BALTAN for 
thermographic cameras.

Knowledge, experience, tools and artwork will be openly disseminated both 
online as well as in person through public events at BALTAN and at the Piksel 
09 Festival. Reflection on open processes and sharing knowledge throughout the 
research, development and production phases of an artistic work, beyond 
archiving, is an integral part of this collaboration.

For more information about BALTAN and Piksel see:
http://www.baltanlaboratories.org
http://www.piksel.no

We offer:

- a residency period of up to 6 weeks at BALTAN Laboratories in  Eindhoven, 
the Netherlands during the months of September, October and November 2009. 
Specific dates to be determined in collaboration with  the selected artist.
- an artist fee of 2000 Euro
- a production budget  to be discussed
- travel to and from Eindhoven and Bergen, Norway for the Piksel  festival, as 
well as accommodation in both locations
- a week-long development workshop with OpenCV developers and other 
participants from September 21-27, 2009.
- support from the Piksel community in the further technical  development of 
the selected project throughout the residency period.
- presentation of the project at the Piksel festival in Bergen, Norway from 
November 19-22, 2009
- public presentation of the results of the artist’s research at  BALTAN 
Laboratories in Eindhoven

Requirements:

- proposals are welcome from professional artists worldwide;
- the artist must have advanced technical knowledge allowing him or her to 
experiment with the above-mentioned technologies;
- the artist should preferably have experience working in  collaborative 
settings with people from different disciplines;
- the artist must be willing and able to travel to Eindhoven for a residency 
period of 6 weeks and to the Piksel festival in Bergen from November 19-22
- the artist must be willing to openly and thoroughly document the artistic 
process.

Proposal:

Please send the following (digitally) to the attention of both Angela Plohman, 
Director, BALTAN Laboratories at  angela[AT]baltanlaboratories.org and Gisle 
Froysland, Director, Piksel at info[AT]piksel.no by August 31, 2009:

- an outline of the concept underlying the work that you wish to develop (200 
words max)
- a general outline of the scope of the final work (200 words max -  can 
include visual sketches)
- a motivation for why you would like to work in the context of this 
particular residency as well as an overview of your interest in the 
technologies mentioned above (250 words max)
- an outline of the research and development plan for the work (250  words 
max)
- an up-to-date CV including links to previous work

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