Open call, Signal Festival

Signal Calling 2024: PrusaLab and Signal Festival announce joint open call for the sixth time

Signal Festival and PrusaLab, Josef Průša's prototyping workshop, are jointly launching an open call for artists for the 12th edition of the Signal Festival, which will take place from 10 to 13 October 2024. The aim of the call is the design and realisation of an installation that will be included to the main programme of the Signal Festival 2024.  

Who is the call for

The call is open to Czech authors, or authors long-term based in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Applications are welcome from professionals in both creative and technical fields. We welcome all architects, designers, programmers, artists, and technical engineers. We are equally open to students of all the aforementioned fields. Applications can be submitted as an individual or as a group.  

Task

An artistic work is considered to be object installation, which in a creative way working with light as an important technological component of the work. Projects that present contemporary advanced technologies in a novel way or reflect current scientific concepts and theories are welcome. Given the festival's setting in the evening city, it is desirable that light nonetheless remains a present element in the work. Important for the assessment of the project is the manner in which the capacity of the PrusaLab creative workshop is utilised.

Inspiration

If you are struggling with an initial idea, we offer some starting concepts you can draw inspiration from.
The twelfth edition of the Signal Festival continues the three-year project under the overall theme Ecosystems. Nature, technology, society, culture, personal space – all of these together form the ecosystems in which we live and seek traces of joy, beauty and the excitement of new discoveries, as well as solutions to critical questions. 

This year's programme is entitled Ecosystems II: Quest. The quest will consist of four parts: Machinery Missionaries, Deep Travellers, Into the Universe a Play.

  • Machinery Missionaries with the subtitle Machine Ecosystems, the installation presents works utilising the principles of robotics, mechatronics and autonomous systems. Key words are: the ambivalent nature of artificial intelligence, the transformation of the human-machine relationship.
  • Deep Travellers it has the subtitle Ecosystems of Wanderers and will feature installations and works with the theme of the journey. The keywords are: speed and time, the unknown, expedition, wanderer.
  • Into the Universe with the subtitle Ecosystems of Universes, the large-scale installation will feature keywords such as parallax, energy, data, transcendence and universe.
  • Play with the subtitle Ecosystem of Games, it means interactive projects that rely on the direct participation of the viewer, a natural element, or other energy that alters the form of the work in real time. The theme of the game is open.

Take a look at last year's winning entry Nexus by authors Lukáš Dřevjaný, David Minařík, Michal Mitro and Luboš Zbranek

Location

The selected work will be placed in outdoor location city centre, which is why it should for at least one week withstand the autumn weather conditions. When creating an interactive piece, it is necessary to consider the high attendance at the festival, and therefore the installation must withstand the onslaught of thousands of spectators. The lifespan of the work should not end on the final day of the festival. If the installation is conceived with potential transport and frequent (de)installation in mind, this will be viewed positively by the committee.

Realisation and technical costs of the work

PrusaLab will provide a budget of CZK 180,000 for materials to produce the installation, as well as workshop facilities and the production capacities of the machines and master craftsmen.

An overview of PrusaLab's technical facilities can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14oMW80m8FGcIzrjHAl5DirnwOvc4EztYBzyIvClMi64/edit?usp=sharing.

To give you a better idea of what PrusaLab offers, we recommend consulting your concept with us in advance. It is possible to use materials and components from Prusa Research that are no longer used in the production of current 3D printers for making the installation. An illustrative list with photographs of component examples can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/3/folders/1RquQX-MWzC8u34h6DPvbzmbS1l0pLrP0

(These are mainly displays, stepper motors, sensors, power supplies, etc.)

Competition rules

The call will take place in two rounds. In the first round, we will accept project proposals until the application deadline. After that, projects will be selected to advance to the second round, and authors will be recommended topics to elaborate on and refine. All projects will be rewarded for participating in the second round. a sketching fee of CZK 5,000. In the second round, the committee will decide on one project to be selected for implementation. The creator of the selected installation will be rewarded for creating the artwork with a fee of CZK 40,000 and an Original Prusa 3D printer a three-month project membership in PrusaLab.

The resulting work is considered as co-authored – so like joint work of the Signal Festival (organiser), PrusaLab (contractor of the work) and artist's / artists' (concept author), and it is treated as such even after the end of the Signal Festival, unless agreed otherwise in advance.

Application

Submit your projects using this online questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSem3E7azsUeMzE1GFCjkVvWhHTs_oHmz5iMUcQJvr7RYIIkdw/viewform 

Schedule

Application deadline – 29 February 2024

Contact

  • dan@signalfestival.com – information and consultations regarding the open call
  • info@prusalab.cz – information and consultations regarding the capabilities and equipment of PrusaLab

Notice

The Signal Festival and PrusaLab reserve the right not to select any winner of the challenge.