Call for ideas: NEXT THINGS 2014 – PERSONAL
Global art & technology challenge
Open hardware fellowship
Submission deadline: January 16, 2014
Telefónica R&D and LABoral are proud to organize NEXT THINGS 2014 – PERSONAL, the third global art & technology challenge.
The goal of the challenge is to bring together art and technology, artists with technologies, and to unleash the huge potential of mixing the creativity and perspective of artists with the nowadays powerful open hardware technologies.
NEXT THINGS 2014 – PERSONAL pursues innovative and breakthrough ideas on the internet of things in the context of art and technology.
In this edition we focus at the personal level, trying to go beyond the implications of personal data, understood strictly as data and software.
Participants are invited to explore the extent and implications of the existence, collection, use and distribution of personal data, also from the point of view of physical devices—internet of things and M2M.
In particular we want to explore the balance or imbalance, symmetries or asymmetries between privacy and control of personal data. Participants are encouraged to question and amplify the very definition of “personal data” itself. Participants are encouraged to explore the management of personal data in centralized or distributed fashions and the balance, confrontation or collaboration in this area between public and private approaches. Also the relationships between transparency and control, including the personal and collective management of personal data. The relationship between opportunities opened up by protecting or sharing personal data is also a field of exploration. Participants are invited to explore these dimensions with respect to the actions and reactions around technology (including the internet of things) that can be actively developed by individuals themselves considered as isolated entities or as organized groups or movements.
It is important to reflect on these frameworks and to explore the impact that the internet of things, and interactions machine to machine (M2M) can have on the lives of people, on a scale that spans from individual to whole societies.
It will be appreciated in the proposals:
–That may be converted in manufactured objects, employed by people and societies.
–Connected wirelessly to the internet.
The call is open to all creators in the space between art and technology. The selected project will be awarded with a six-month artist fellowship, split between LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (through Plataforma 0. Production Centre) in Gijón for two months and Telefónica R&D (Telefonica’s technology research and development arm) in Barcelona for four months. The goal of the fellowship is to enable the fellow to bring the chosen idea to life. The fellowship will start on April 1, 2014.
The artist will receive 12,000 euros gross as fees and a grant of up to 2,000 euros gross for travel, accommodation and expenses at LABoral.
Please send a one-page idea proposal, a one-page visual description and a CV in PDF format to produccion [at] laboralcentrodearte.org before January 16, 2014. The proposal should outline the project and describe—on a high level—the building blocks required to make it.
Check here for the rules.
For any additional information or queries on the proposal, call produccion [at] laboralcentrodearte.org.
Telefónica is one of the world’s leading operators in the integrated telecommunications sector. With presence in 24 countries, the company provides infrastructure and communication, information, communication and entertainment to over 315 million customers. Telefónica Digital is a global business division of Telefónica. Its mission is to seize the opportunities within the digital world and deliver new growth for Telefónica through research & development, and digital services. Telefónica R&D is within this division.
Telefónica R&D is the research and development company of the Telefónica Group. Founded in 1988, its mission is to contribute to the Group’s competitiveness and modernity through technological innovation. To achieve this aim, the company applies new ideas, concepts and practices in addition to developing products and advanced services. It is one of the first private R&D centres in Spain as regards activity and resources, and is the first company on the continent by number of European research projects in which it participates. The main asset of Telefónica R&D is its staff, which is 97 percent composed of university graduates from 18 different nationalities.
LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial is an open platform for research, production, dissemination and interpretation of emerging cultural forms that result from the shifts brought by the creative use of new technologies. Inaugurated 30 March 2007, the Centre is located in Gijón (Principality of Asturias), within the framework of Universidad Laboral—today, Ciudad de la Cultura [City of Culture].
Plataforma 0. Production Centre
LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial has put its Production Centre. Plataforma 0, at the disposal of the cultural sector for the production of projects in the intersections of art, science and new technologies with the intention of facilitating the production of artistic projects and their introduction into professional circuits.
