The festival “musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst” is a founding member of the festival network ECAS/ICAS, the European and International Cities of Advanced Sound. Supported by the European Union’s Culture programme (2007–2013), nine European festivals have come together to realise the network project “ECAS – Networking Tomorrow’s Art for an Unknown Future” from 2010 to 2015.
The next five years will be divided into four work phases, each of which will focus on a common theme that ties the festivals together. The theme of the first phase is “Festival as Lab”. It will run to the end of December 2011, overlapping with the second phase which is due to start in June of 2011.
Each phase will commission a work of art along with an endowment of 10,000 euros. Everyone connected with the musikprotokoll, musicians and artists alike, are eligible to submit proposals for projects that take the form of an experiment, a prototype or a trial of a new type of art object, technology or form of participation, and that make use of the setting of the festival in an inventive way.
The winning project will be shown at the festivals CTM (Berlin, February 2011), FutureEverything (Manchester, May 2011) and CYNETART (Dresden, November 2011) – and maybe at other ECAS/ICAS festivals as well.
The deadline for submissions is 24 October 2010.
The theme “Festival as Lab” is inspired by the FutureEverything festival, which is conceived and designed as a “living lab” for prototyping the future. The ECAS/ICAS festivals are experimental spaces or laboratories where we can experiment and play with future art, music and ideas. We are looking for projects that engage the festival audience and artists in a participatory experiment that creates a new kind of artwork, a new form of participation, new understanding of art or technology, or a new and innovative way of presenting inspirational art. Proposals should experiment with the festival format, transforming the festival environment into a lab or experimental space.