Open Call for The Future of Memory Residency

“未来记忆”公开征集


As the pandemic persists, and travel to China remains complicated, we continue to host and organize remote, virtual artist residencies as a way to safely weave new connections.  China Residencies is excited to partner with Future of Memory to launch a new open call on algorithmic resistance.

疫情还在继续,中国的边境情况依旧十分复杂。因此,我们将继续主办和组织远程的线上艺术家驻地项目,在这样的特殊时间安全地编织新联系。中国艺术交流很高兴能与未来记忆实验室合作,发起一个关于算法抵抗的新的公开征集。


All over the world, our words and online expression are being harvested for data, privatized for profit, and wielded to manipulate people’s ability to assemble in a truly public space and speak truth against injustice. Words online can spark hope, resistance and refusal — so who gets to shape the future of memory? For example, in the United States, companies such as Microsoft and Amazon train machine learning algorithms on biased data to create software that perpetuates entrenched inequality. Elsewhere, in the People's Republic of China, private tech companies such as Tencent and Huawei embed automated tools such as OCR (optical character recognition) into their software. Images that contain text also become censorable, flattening events and collective histories into a single narrative. In light of increasing automated control everywhere, digital platforms have become an arena in which creative forms of opacity arise as people scramble to “fool the machine” through clever use of homophones, memes, images, text, and new ways of writing to bypass OCR and evade specific censored keywords. 

在世界各地,我们在线上的文字与表达正在被数据化收集,由于利益而被私有化,并且成为了枷锁,被用来限制人们在真正的公共空间集会以及说出反对社会不公的现实的能力。与此同时,网上的文字可以激发希望、抵抗和拒绝——那么,记忆的未来由谁塑造?在美国,微软和亚马逊等公司正在具有偏见的数据库的基础之上训练机器学习算法,创建出的软件复制和延续了根深蒂固的社会不公。在中华人民共和国,腾讯和华为等私营科技公司将OCR(光学字符识别)等自动化工具嵌入其软件中。含有文字的图像也变得可以被审查,事件和集体历史被压缩平铺入单一的叙事中。在世界各地越来越多的自动化控制手段导致线上电子平台成为了一个舞台,其中出现了极具创造性的不透明表达形式,人们争先恐后地通过机智地使用同音字、备忘录、图像、文本和新的写作方式来绕过OCR和逃避审查关键词来 “欺骗机器”。


At the core of it, we can not have fair and free digital expression online without having it offline. We are offering a three month online residency program in mid-June to mid-September for media artists, around the theme of resisting and interrogating algorithmic surveillance & control. The residency will culminate in a public facing online digital arts festival where residents will showcase their work and lead  public workshops. 



其核心是,线上公平和自由的数字表达不能脱离了线下。我们将在6月至9月为媒体艺术家提供一个为期三个月的线上驻地项目,主题是针对算法监视和控制的反抗以及质疑。此次驻留项目最终会举办一个面向公众的在线数字艺术节。驻留者将在艺术节展示作品,并主持公共研讨会。


We are accepting fiction and nonfiction media arts projects.

我们征集的是使用科技或是讨论科技的虚拟或写实媒体艺术项目。



Each resident or collective will be awarded an unrestricted stipend of USD $2,000 for their participation, receive mentorship from Qianqian Ye and Xiaowei Wang, the two artists who created The Future of Memory as an online toolkit and provocation in 2019, and support from the China Residencies team. We will select 4 residents. Each resident will receive:

✨USD $2,000 stipend

✨Optional artist talk, workshop & virtual open studio

✨Project support from the China Residencies and Future of Memory team

 

每位入驻者或集体将获得2000美元的无限制津贴,并获得于2019年创建了作为在线工具箱和挑衅行为的“未来自由实验室”的两位艺术家Qianqian Ye和Xiaowei Wang的指导,以及China Residencies团队的支持。我们最终将挑选出4位驻留者。每位驻留者将获得:


2000美金的津贴

✨选择性的艺术家讲座、研讨会和在线开放工作室

✨来自中国艺术交流未来自由实验室的项目支持


Everyone is encouraged to apply, especially if you have never applied to anything in the past. We are calling for individuals and collectives working in all types of creative practices, of all passports, ages, gender-identities, backgrounds, abilities, and interests to send us proposals. 


我们欢迎来自所有人的申请,尤其过去从未申请过任何机会的初次申请者。我们呼吁从事各种类型的创造性实践的个人和集体,所有的护照、年龄、性别认同、背景、能力和兴趣,向我们发送提案。



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 APPLY 申请 

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Deadline: Wednesday, April 24th, 2022 


申请截止日期是2022年4月24日

Midnight in your timezone, wherever you are.

你的时区的午夜,无论你在那儿 


Send us any questions you have to shahong@chinaresidencies.com.

如果有问题,请直接发电子邮件给shahong(@)chinaresidencies.com.




About China Residencies:

At China Residencies we believe that diplomacy should not just be left up to politicians and that artists are cultural and social change-makers. We are passionate about creating and sharing equitable opportunities in the arts, particularly for those historically excluded and underfunded from the arts and culture field, to participate in exchanges among mainland China, Hong Kong, the greater Asian diaspora, and the rest of the world. 

关于中国艺术交流:


中国艺术交流(China Residencies),我们相信外交不应该仅仅由政治家来决定,艺术家是文化和社会变革的创造者。我们热衷于在艺术领域创造和分享公平的机会,特别是为那些历来被排斥在艺术和文化领域之外且资金不足的人,参与中国大陆、香港、大亚洲移民区和世界其他地区的交流。


About Future Of Memory:


The Future of Memory is a collaboration between Qianqian Ye and Xiaowei Wang. As a project, The Future of Memory is a place of provocation: a collected toolkit and a text-based adventure game that looks at the tensions that emerge when corporate platforms around the world have centralized power over speech online, and deploy automated moderation systems which prioritize profit over care. Using the toolkit, visitors can create new languages that ‘fool the machine’ through resistance and refusal, and new vocabularies for yet to be named worlds of possibility. 


关于未来记忆实验室:


“未来记忆实验室”是Qianqian YeXiaowei Wang的合作项目。作为一个项目,"未来记忆实验室 "是一个充满挑衅的地方:是一个收集而成的工具包和一个基于文本的冒险游戏,用于探讨当世界各地的企业平台对网上的言论拥有集中的权力,并部署自动审核系统,优先考虑利润而不是人文关怀时出现的紧张矛盾。通过使用这个工具包,来访者可以创造新的语言,通过抵抗和拒绝来 "欺骗机器",并为尚未被命名的充满可能性的世界创造新的词汇。



This initiative is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Thank you! 谢谢