SUBMIT to MEGAPOLIS

We’re looking for performances, presentations, and workshops featuring audio of all kinds to fill our weekend-long festival in New York City, April 19-21, 2013, with our headquarters at the New School. Circuit bending / noisemaker constructions, slumber parties, free-form audio editing sessions, interactive demonstrations, experimental musical practice and theory, film with a heavy audio component, musical performances, subversive audio tours, (un-boring) lectures, and whatever else your brain births.

Firstly, think about this year’s theme: TOURISM.

Like everyone else with some smarts, the New School celebrated the centennial of John Cage’s birth in 2012 (Cage was on the faculty of the New School). In the spirit of this centennial, we mark 2013 as an opportunity to dwell on one of JC’s musings:

“What I’m proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude – that you act as though you’ve never been there before. So that you’re not supposed to know anything about it.”

Additional special consideration will be given to:

NEW ARTISTS! We like new blood. If you presented at a previous festival you might not get to present this year. Sorry this hath been decreed, but yaknow, if you presented before you can attend the whole festival this year without having to worry all about that “making people happy” crapola.
Events that invite participation and active creation among attendees, with created works to be shared on this website and maybe even at the end of the festival weekend.

Proposal types:

Session: 90- or 45-minute-long presentations, workshops, and the like by one or more presenters. We provide the venue. Megapolis features five 90-minute blocks on Saturday and Sunday during which time multiple sessions will happen at once. Presenters may be asked to repeat their session over the course of the two days.
Tour or Soundwalk: One or more presenters leading 15 or fewer attendees outside of festival venues. You choose the length of time on Saturday or Sunday. Usually these meet in front of the festival headquarters.
Performance: Performances take place either Friday, Saturday or Sunday night OR Saturday or Sunday day. The nighttime performance are usually ~45 minutes and take place inside. The daytime performances take place inside or out and take place during a 90-minute block during other events. Daytime performances can be part performance/part presentation. NO HIPPIE MANTRAS.
Installation: Self-sustaining and sound-based (obviously) pieces that stay put. Electricity or not is fine. For presentation inside festival headquarters and associated spaces. We encourage a period of ‘activation’ or interactive audience participation with your installation during the festival.
Miscellaneous (our favorite): Booths inside and outside festival venues, temporary radio stations, 1-800 numbers, crowd experiments, overnight or lunchtime gatherings, big wheel races captured through contact microphones and broadcast through giant speakers – essentially anything else mind-blowing you can think of outside of the above categories.

A few other things to keep in mind:

Check out our festival archives to make sure you don’t ape a previously selected, previously amazingly original concept.
If you have questions before or after you fill out this form, ask us at contact at megapolisfestival dot org
While not required, it helps to submit well before the deadline.
Reimbursements MAY be available to those artists providing materials to attendees during a Session; other artists should plan to account for the lions share of Session and Installation materials. If you need standard audio gear (speakers, mixers) to make your idea happen, we may be able to help — but the more self sustainable you are, the better chance it works for us.
If you are with an arts organization in the NYC area and you would like to curate an event using your artists, you can apply as an individual within an organization and just note what you want to do in the proposal. But note that your event will probably occur at one of our spaces (or start there if it’s a tour) so we don’t split up our audiences, since NYC is a big place.

If your proposal is accepted, you get:

Free entrance to all festival events
Partial reimbursement for travel expenses from outside of NYC (VERY limited, and typically only up to $50 depending on our budget)
An invite to a supaexclusive event just for presenters and Famous People

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION IS 11:59PM, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2013. You’ll receive a response from us by March.