Open Call for Circuit Bending Artists/Performers

BENT2005
Circuit Bending Festival
CALL FOR WORKS

spaceworks @ The Tank is currently accepting submissions for the BENT 2005 Circuit Bending Festival. The festival will take place from April 27th - May 1st at The Tank on 42nd street in New York City. It is our hope that the festival will be as diverse in its programming as possible, with performances, installations, lectures, workshops, etc, and that it will represent as accurately as possible the interests and talents of the circuit bending community. In addition we are looking to expand this years’ festival to include work people are doing with software/hardware manipulation (i.e.- gameboys/computers/nintendos/etc).

Additionally, we are limiting this year's festival to a Wednesday through Sunday schedule instead of spanning two weekends. This will give a more even trajectory to the festivities and help us separate evening concerts and public free-for-all workshops from more focused, intimate and multi-part daytime workshops and events.

This call for works falls into three categories:
Musicians / Performance Artists
Installation Artists
Instructors / Volunteers

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Musicians / Performance Artists:
We are seeking bands, musicians, and performance artists who somehow incorporate the tools, aesthetics, or ideas of circuit bending into their live performance. We are putting together three nights of circuit bent performances and are interested in as diverse an array of performances as possible. Please send a brief description of your live show, and/or any links to mp3s/photos/websites etc. No attachments will be read or considered. Also feel free to mail us your info. See below for our contact information.

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Installation Artists:
The Tank includes a basement gallery space, and as such we are seeking 2-3 artists-in-residence who will each receive 15-20 hours of gallery/studio time and as many tools and resources as we can provide to complete a circuit bent installation during the festival. All studio hours in the gallery will be open to the public, and we are most interested in artists who don’t mind chatting about what they are doing and explaining circuit bending to gallery visitors who wander through. Please keep in mind that this is a smallish gallery space and your work and your working attitude will have to co-exist with the other artists and their work. Be excited about interacting!
We will have a wide assortment of standard circuit bending tools/equipment (soldering irons, pots/wires/capacitors/resistors/etc/etc/etc) and as much random materials as we can pull together. We will also facilitate a trip to Materials for the Arts to help gather more supplies. (www.mfta.org)

Please submit a written proposal of a circuit bent project that can reasonably be completed in the time allotted with a modest but flexible amount of supplies. See the floor plans of the gallery space at http://www.thetanknyc.org/spaceworks/floorplans.html

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Instructors / Volunteers
This year we are looking to find people that are interested in leading workshops, presenting talks, and being on-hand during public workshops to help beginners learn how to bend. This year we are considering doing a multiple-day type workshop for attendants that want to work in a more intimate setting and develop more complicated work. Also, when 100 newbies show up and start ripping apart toys (so fun! if you experienced the first day of the festival last year you know what we mean….) it would be great to have dependable people on hand that can help guide them.
Please tell us about yourself and what you do, and how you would want to be involved.

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FUNDING

A quick word on funding. We have applied for some grants specifically to cover stipends for artists coming to participate and perform in the festival. However, we do not hear the results of this until mid March. As such, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE FUNDING TO PARTICIPATING ARTISTS. As artists and performers ourselves, we realize this is a concern, and we would very much like to compensate you for your talent and your time. We hope this will be possible, but we cannot assure you of any funding until AFTER the open call deadline. Please act accordingly.

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Submission Deadline March 8, 2005.
Send all submissions to:
[email protected]
Or via mail at:
Spaceworks
C/O The Tank
450 W 42nd Street
NYC, NY 10036

http://www.thetanknyc.org
http://www.thetanknyc.org/spaceworks

For information on last year’s festival please see www.thetanknyc.org/bent2004/
To see the frame of this year's festival (still being assembled) see www.thetanknyc.org/bent2005

thank you,

Mike Rosenthal
Daniel Greenfeld
spaceworks @ The Tank
www.thetanknyc.org
www.thetanknyc.org/spaceworks