Open Call: Microgrants 2024

by Bri Griffin,

Now through September 15, Rhizome is accepting submissions for our 2024 Microgrants (ranging from $500-$1500), offering support for new artworks on the web!

Artists, thinker/tinkerers, game-makers, creative hackers, digital archaeologists, code poets and dreamers: Rhizome gives small annual grants to people like you, to support new online projects. No experience is necessary – just review the guidelines, submit an idea, and we will review it in collaboration with guest jurors (Mindy Seu, Chia Amisola, and Tega Brain).

It's been 10 years since we began offering microgrants as a part of our Commissions program.  When the program first began, 'microgrants' was described as “a commitment to browser-based art at a moment when art contextualized within the frame of digital culture fill(ed) galleries worldwide.” Ten years on, we've seen many new waves of communities that develop around an interest in art on the web. Rhizome wants to make it feel possible for anyone to host their own website or learn to use the web to tell their own stories.

A creative web for everyone.

   

Apply by September 15th, 2024

Awarded grants will...
● Receive Feedback from peers, rhizome staff, and jurors ●
● Share progress via our email list, social media, discord, etc. ●
● Be considered for future rhizome programming ●

Who can apply :
Anyone, anywhere in the world, of any experience level or background
who is interested in gently expanding upon their practice and community.
  
We encourage proposals from people who are historically
underrepresented in art and technology spaces. 

 

               

 

               

 

Submit to one of the following categories !

*If you aren’t sure if your project qualifies or if it overlaps with multiple categories,
please submit anyway !  <3


  • Imagining lighter alternatives to an over-developed and resource intensive web, inspired by rhythms found in nature.

    “Natural Cycles”, in collaboration with Solar Protocol, rewards the creation of resilient resources, minimal use of external dependencies, open source development, non-predatory attention environments, and repairable network structures that escape the commercial internet. Imagining technology that’s held accountable for its physicality, including geopolitical issues, environmental emergencies, and levels of access.

    Inspired by rhythms of nature, “Natural Cycles” encourages the web to go local, take a moment to rest and recharge, to expand and contract, to repurpose and translate.

    From “slow tech” to “low tech”, from “tiny web” to “solar web” 

    Inspiration Board for "Natural Cycles " ►

  • Gathering experience or research-based stories of “lost” media, forum discoveries, niche communities, and personal collections.

    “Lost Web Histories” is dedicated to uncovering and preserving hidden narratives of the internet's past, with a special focus on non-commercial websites, “homemade” webpages, and personal histories and collections.

    Lost Web Histories gathers stories of “lost” media and discovered files from sources such as forums and blogs and diverse community-driven digital spaces and communities that have been overshadowed by commercial platforms.

    The program encourages a variety of approaches, from academic research to personal storytelling.

    Inspiration Board for "Lost Web Histories" ►

  • Diving through file structures, browser windows, and automated triggers for the purpose of live performance via a screen.

    We’re in the age of performance; from webcam ballets and to the worlds of live steaming and VJing. Even a screen-recorded lecture can dive in and out of our file systems in ways we could never imagine. The cursor as an actor that traces along the paths of the internet. Experiences that only happen when ‘played’ within the complex ensembles of hardware and software, audience input and feedback, and external libraries and APIs.


    Do we need cursors? Keyboards? Can we script narratives for operating systems?

    “Desktop Performance” seeks applicants interested in performance that involves components such as sound, images, browsers, folder structures, application windows, etc.

    Inspiration Board for "Desktop Performance" ►

  • Breaking out of dominant global systems of exchange and value to bring into focus narratives related to alt-systems.  

    Money as a “universal” system for expressing value has long prioritized speculative views of the world based on antiquated methods of measuring and storing information. Types of exchange and value creation between people and communities become increasingly complex as people express themselves across networks that blur the boundaries of what a “community” is. What do we collectively value that escapes the traditional marketplace?

    As our current notion of individual ownership and intellectual property becomes overwhelmingly challenged by modern technologies, how do we begin to negotiate new forms of trust and value-creation on both local and global scales?

    What are our new modes of survival?

    –

    For this microgrant, Rhizome is asking our community of artists to either imagine smaller, more-private, and localized layers to our dominant global system of exchange or to translate and bring into focus narratives of how these types of systems already exist.

    Inspiration Board for "Money as Medium" ►

               

 

Projects will be selected with the help of a Jury! 

               

 

Graphic Identity and Animations by : Darius Ou

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The Rhizome Commissions Program is supported by Teiger Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York legislature. The 2024 Microgrants are made possible by the Rhizome community <33.

We'd also like to thank all of the incredible individuals who have contributed towards our microgrants program in the past year !

If you would like to contribute directly towards microgrants, please visit our support page.