Expression of Interest (EOI)
Submission deadline: May 11, 2020
OBJECTIVE
Design and develop a new website that will function as an online exhibition platform. The site will be a modular, open-ended, and accessible platform able to feature digital and web-based artworks, live-streamed events, and playable video games.
This website will itself be a destination that festival-attendees can visit, and will integrate all festival events and activities into one location, creating a sense of shared place and community within an online space.
The website will operate as a discrete event space which hosts all festival content, and will not require users to ‘click off’ to go to another platform to view and participate in festival events.
BACKGROUND
InterAccess is a gallery, educational facility, production studio, festival, and charity dedicated to new media and emerging practices in art and technology.
Our mission is to expand the cultural significance of art and technology by fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess was founded in 1983.
One of many projects delivered each year by InterAccess, Vector Festival is an annual media art festival dedicated to showcasing experimental artworks that engage critically with digital technologies.
DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
We are interested in the platform operating as a conceptual artwork in its own right, and are most interested in applicants who are artists, or teams in which an artist will lead the design of the project.
The website should communicate the tone and spirit of Vector Festival through design. As a new media art festival that emphasizes emerging artistic practices, this website must demonstrate innovative design and coding.
TIMELINE
May 11, 2020 – EOI deadline
May 14, 2020 – Short-listed applicants contacted
May 15, 2020 – Virtual meetings with short-listed applicants
May 20, 2020 – Project contracted
June 15, 2020 – Website is completed
June 30, 2020 – Integration of all artwork completed
July 15, 2020 – Website goes live
BUDGET
Up to $7,000 for a completed, fully functional web site, including integration of all artworks.
EXPECTATIONS
The selected applicant will:
- Consult on the design of the new website with InterAccess staff and stakeholders
- Develop and propose a work back plan with design and development milestones
- Design the new website
- Develop the website platform, including a content management system
- Integrate and upload all 2020 artworks into the platform
- Provide a training manual and instruction for internal users
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
The final website will:
- Embed browser-based interactive content (such as HTML5, Java, or Unity)
- Be able to host live and archived video streams
- Be compatible on desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms
- Be fully accessible
Additional functionality to be considered for inclusion:
- Moderated chartrooms for real-time discussion of live events
- Sandbox for experimenting
- Virtual performance theatre / cinema
WEBSITE CONTENT
The types of artworks that will be presented on this platform include:
- Experimental interactive and time-based digital projects, generative artworks, or net art
- Experimental video games and interactive fiction (downloadable or to be hosted online)
- Experimental machinima and video works
- Virtual live performances (both participative and non-participative), including in-game performances
- Live-coding performances (sound-based and A/V works)
- Short critical texts or essayistic rich-media contributions
- Workshops that can be delivered online
- Short presentations that can be delivered online
- Small topical online exhibitions
- Machinima screenings
- Other experimental formats that resonate with the focus of the festival
MAINTENANCE
InterAccess prefers to handle most site maintenance in-house. It is important that web pages are easy to update, and that this platform can be used in future years with the insertion of new content by staff.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
The selected applicant must fit into one of these two categories:
- an artist born in, residing in, or having a significant connection to Toronto;
- a group or organization that, through either its mandate, objectives or activities, operates in and clearly engages the Toronto community.
APPLICATION
OVERVIEW OF THE 2020 VECTOR FESTIVAL THEME
In response to the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vector Festival co-curators Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger are redeveloping a virtual edition of the festival in order to feature digital artworks, support media artists, and facilitate critical conversations that engage with the unprecedented crisis we are collectively experiencing.
We are inviting our local and international community, and all artists, curators, and community organizers in the domain of digital art, to join us in exploring the following questions:
- What new forms of community, solidarity, and care has the coronavirus spawned, and how are they manifesting in digital art practices?
- What challenges (and what opportunities) does the crisis represent for practitioners and curators of media art?
- How must digital art respond to the new extremes of surveillance, control, and polarizing misinformation that this crisis is producing?
- How do the rich histories of web-based and computer-generated artistic practice connect and relate to the current situation?
- What new models of remuneration and reward could account fairly for the myriad ways in which digital art helps us bridge the painful social distances created by the pandemic?
- What new forms of digitally-bound performance art, interactive art, generative art, and participative art are developing in a moment at which computers seem to have become the only means of connecting with others?
- What role shall digital art play in the ‘new normal’ that we are heading towards?
We are interested in works that engage with the crisis directly or offer meaningful and much-needed diversion, as well as creative hacks that explore the implications of the global shift to “online,” and media art historical works that are relevant to the current moment.
EXAMPLES OF CURRENT DESIGN
The visual branding of Vector Festival has been led by the local design team Material Object (Ali Qadeer and Marisa Torres).
For more information contact:
Susan Kordalewski
Executive Director
Email: admin@interaccess.org
Web: www.interaccess.org
InterAccess
950 Dupont St., Unit 1.
Toronto ON M6H 1Z2
Canada
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.