Open Call for ‘AI Anarchies’ Residency at ZK/U Berlin

Feb. 15, 2022

The Junge Akademie of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, will support six artists in developing new works on the topic ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethics’ during a six-month residency program at ZK/U in Berlin titled ‘AI Anarchies.’ Artists of the program will be invited to participate in an interdisciplinary and international autumn school in October 2022 with artists, scientists and members of the Akademie. The invited artists’ projects will be shown in a final presentation between May and July 2023 at Akademie der Künste. Each fellowship is awarded with 20,000 Euros. The program is funded by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Kaj Duncan David: Lecture about Myself, 2019, Konzert Junge Akademie, AdK Berlin // Photo by Stephanie Walk

‘AI Anarchies’ is a call for proposals open to artists in any field who work with AI as a topic and/or AI technologies in the broadest sense. The project seeks artists that contribute to the debate on AI and ethics through conceptual and aesthetically compelling forms. ‘AI Anarchies’ invites artistic, speculative, and/or technical practices and interventions that articulate and challenge approaches to power and ethics in the emergence of AI. It proposes artistic resistance through subjective and political actions and creative acts. Small AI, disobedient AI, unimaginable AI, counter AI, tricky AI, risky AI, fantasy AI, playful AI, mischievous AI, emotional AI, affective AI, or no AI at all could all be roads to ‘AI Anarchies.’

Emerging international artists of all disciplines may apply for a six-month residency with a project proposal (400 words) including sketches. An international jury of external curators and Akademie members will select the fellows. Each residency is awarded with a 20,000 Euro stipend including a project budget for developing a piece for the exhibition. Furthermore, a rent-free studio space for living and working in Berlin with access to communal spaces for six months will be provided by project partner ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik. If they wish, fellows can share their work during the bimonthly open studio format, Openhaus at ZK/U. The residency also covers travel and insurance costs. The Junge Akademie team of Akademie der Künste Berlin will organize and curate the program and assist with visa applications as well as the coordination of the residency participation.

Two residency time slots are possible, but fellows may start working on their pieces as soon as the selected artists are announced. The project budget may thus be used before arrival in Berlin:

Residency stay 1: July to December 2022 (three residents)
Residency stay 2: January to June 2023 (three residents)