About the Course
The JUNGE AKADEMIE, VISIT, the artist-in-residence programme of the E.ON Stiftung and E-WERK Luckenwalde are cooperating to offer four fully funded fellowships once again in 2025 for international artists, to fund projects operating at the intersection of art, science and ecology, concerning the topic of the human machine.
Artists from all disciplines can apply online for the 2025 funding round.
Application Deadline: 31 July 2024
The consortium of partners is calling all emerging artists to apply for a fellowship programme focused on the topic Mensch-Machine (Human Machine). The call particularly encourages applications from diasporic artists, affected by the poly-crisis, who need a safe and nurturing opportunity to propel their career.
The jury for the fellowships includes:
Anna Gritz, Director, Haus am WaldseeAnh-Linh Ngo, Vice-President of Akademie der Künste, Architecture Theorist and CuratorTiara Roxanne, ArtistSinthujan Varatarajah, Political GeographerLaura Helena Wurth, Art critic and Curator
Grant
Successful fellows will be endowed with EUR 20,000. This grant is intended to be put towards production costs of a new project, which may include research and development, travel and material costs.
Studio
Selected artists will have a studio space at E-WERK Luckenwalde or at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin from 1 April until 30 June 2025. During these three months, the fellows are expected to be living and working in the studios for at least 75 % of the time.
Event Programme
Furthermore, joint events will be planned at the Akademie der Künste and E-WERK, culminating in a joint exhibition at E-WERK Luckenwalde in Autumn 2025 for all fellows between 2023 and 2025.
Open Call
The complex relationship between humanity and machines has been the subject of art and artistic practice since the beginning of the Industrial Age, echoing the beginning of the modern anthropocene, which takes on new meaning in the face of the climate catastrophe and the emergence and development of digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. Fundamental and ingrained systemic, philosophical, economic, ecological and ethical concepts, as well as images of the world we live in, are being questioned. Following the Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford, AI here is not considered as artificial or intelligent, yet “both embodied and material, made from natural resources, fuel, human labour, infrastructures, logistics, histories, and classifications.” As Crawford also describes, it is one of the biggest myths in the field of AI, that intelligence exists independently of social, cultural, historical or political forces, whereas the concept of a superior intelligence has caused immense damage since centuries.
By discussing concepts, playing out scenarios and speculating on futures, the arts can generate a specific aesthetic knowledge in this area. Dystopian fictions around omniscient and sentient machines that turn against humans, develop desires and seek freedom in addition to fantasies of human immortality dominate the Western cultural imagination.
The Human Machine programme therefore funds international (emerging) artists, who work with, or address ideas surrounding digital technologies, the anthropocene, and/or Artificial Intelligence in the broadest sense.
Practitioners are invited to apply; who seek to question the political imaginary, challenge the Western story of “progress” and problematic dualisms of “natural” and “artificial” and offer new ideas of patterns, narrations and approaches to a world with machines and who explore urgent aspects of today’s societies and the planet and transform their research into aesthetically compelling forms.
Since 2022, the partnership between VISIT, JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste and E-WERK Luckenwalde specifically aims to deepen questions on sustainability in the field of digital technologies. How can we acknowledge or integrate our petro cultural histories into a landscaping of a renewable future? Where can humanity and machinery meet to ignite systemic change? How can we nurture more than human rights?
Timeline
31 May 2024: Open Call Opens31 July 2024: Call ClosesOctober 2024: Jury MeetingEnd of October 2024: Applicants informed
Programme
April – June 2025: Residency time at E-WERK or Akademie der KünsteSpring 2025: Open Studios at E-WERK & Akademie der KünsteAutumn 2025: Final Exhibition of all Fellows from the years 2024–2025 at E-WERK Luckenwalde & symposia at Akademie der Künste
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Contact JUNGE AKADEMIE:Clara HerrmannHead of the JUNGE AKADEMIEAkademie der KünsteHanseatenweg 1010557 BerlinT +49(0)30 200 57-2163 | herrmann@adk.deadk.de/jungeakademie
Contact VISIT:E.ON Stiftung gGmbH, Brüssler Platz 1, 45131 Essenvisit-energy.com
Contact E-WERK:Helen Turner, Director and Curator, E-WERK LuckenwaldeT +49 (0)1511 7694640 | Helenturner@kunststrom.comkunststrom.com
Akademie der Künste