The unplace project seeks artistic proposals that challenge the modes of creation and reception of works of art in a purely virtual and networked exhibition space, in a museum without a place.

Activist, melancholic, euphoric, nihilist – whatever your profile or artistic heteronym may be, whatever is your genre or privileged languages, you are all invited to submit your proposal for the virtual exhibition that will be developed in the context of the unplace project.

Drawing on the main topics of the conference Uncertain Spaces: Virtual Configurations in Contemporary Art and Museums, the unplace project proposes to discuss the changes and/or continuities that the Internet has produced in contemporary creation. Is the current transformation in cultural systems reaching a point where we can now refer to a shift from oral cultures to written cultures, and from those to cybercultures? Or is the Internet phenomenon just another innovative working tool?

Currently, the use of internet technologies in contemporary art has prompted significant changes, not only regarding the techné of creation, but also in its ways of production, dissemination and reception. The tactile dimension which is normally present in a substantial part of the visual arts – sculpture or installation, for example – seems to disappear from these new forms of contemporary creation, while a complex intimacy, often associated with networked interactions, is now assuming a decisive preponderance in the fruition modes. But perhaps the most radical aspect of this situation, which inspires the project title, is the absolute displacement in terms of space and time, of both creation and reception, of these artworks without a place.

With this call, the unplace project intends to gather artistic proposals for original web specific projects, in order to expand on the themes described in the conference call for papers. Therefore, the selected authors will be timely invited to develop their projects in close dialogue with the curators of the virtual exhibition, to be organized in 2015 by the Next Future Program of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

SUBMISSIONS
Please send an abstract, no later than 31th August 2014 to info@unplace.org , with the following elements (in English):

Full title of your artistic project;
Descriptive document of the project (ca. 300 words, with or without some representative images);
Your name and institutional affiliation (if applicable);
Postal address and e-mail;
Short biographical note of the author(s) (100-150 words) with links to previous works of the author(s) in the field of Digital Art and Internet Art;
Technical description of the project, indicating the requirements for the presentation / virtual exhibition.

For more information, please check the attachment or the website at: http://unplace.org/pt/