open call for video art

Presented by Serial Box and There There Now

This open call deadline is Jan 27th 2017 for our next curated batch of videos. However, we currently have a hole between programming and are taking proposals for immediate screening.

Proposals are currently being accepted for video screenings in the Serial Box space. Existing videos can be submitted by links or by email to [email protected].

Videos are rear projected onto the plate-glass window in Columbia Missouri at night, glowing and accessible to viewers and passersby screened on intermittent nights, generally one video is screened on a loop for the whole night. When appropriate, an opening reception/screening is also staged, often of multiple videos in festival format.

The context:

The window: the window is 6 feet 2.5 inches (189 cm) high and 7 feet 8.5 inches (235 cm) wide with a 2 inch (5 cm) black bar running down the center (each half is 3 feet 9.25 inches (115) wide). We can run one video in the whole window (bifurcated by the black bar), or a video on either of the left or right side, or a two channel video running on two projectors with one video on each side. We have hidden speakers mounted into the air grates on the outside of the building so we can include sound/music for mood or atmosphere, though the building is set back from the street so the sound will not be heard clearly, and the piece should not be dependant on being able to decipher any spoken language for example. We also have a security camera that faces out to the street and can be optionally included as a webcam or projected itself into the window as a kind of mirror if the project calls for it. A red LED scrolling sign can present up to 61 characters of information or links about the project.

the building: is a small building that used to be a laundromat it is surrounded by large student housing buildings that have grown up around it.

the street: is a corridor between bars and campus of the University of Missouri. At night, particularly on the weekend, the street is busy with foot traffic that are not expecting to see something projected in the window of this nondescript building.

the town: a blue dot in the middle of red state America. The people passing by are a combination of people, some are from urban places such as Kansas City, St Louis or the coasts but a majority are from rural Missouri.

The videos are selected based on a number of criteria. They have to either do something interesting or unexpected when projected into the window, or do something interesting or unexpected with the form of video itself. They have to work in a non-linear-narrative way, so that they will communicate to someone who is walking down the street and glances up or pauses for a moment. Some, though not all, of the most successful videos in the past have been short and looped.

more info at http://serialboxprojects.com/