Optical Sound Opportunity for 10 Artists
** This opportunity is now LIVE. Applications deadline is 11:59 Sunday 14th January 2018! For more details and application forms, please see here.
Over the course of eleven adventurous years, Flatpack has evolved in numerous ways, but despite various changes to the festival and the year-round work we do, there are some things which have remained undisturbed and ever-present. One of those constants is the love affair with music, and a keen interest in the relationship between moving images, sound and performance. In recent years we’ve started to package this stuff up in our Optical Sound strand - music docs, interactive sound installations, synth workshops, and live audiovisual shows.
In our quest to put together an exciting programme for Optical Sound each year, we’ve seen an amazing array of artists use various means in which to create sounds and images, from the brilliant Japanese duo Usaginingen who are just about as ‘flatpack’ as performers get (see video on their site), to Optical Machines who use lights, cut-out templates, specially-made projectors, and sensors to create their electronic shadow shows, to UK-based Sculpture, whose kaleidoscopic live turntable animation show is a beguiling multi-sensory treat.
After years of seeking out mind-blowing and innovative AV shows, we thought it about time we gave something back to this community and contributed to its growth by helping to facilitate the making of new work. So with the support of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, we’ll be launching a new Optical Sound programme for 10 artists based in the UK to develop a sound and image performance over the course of a year, two of which will get fully commissioned and will be premiered at the 2019 Flatpack Film Festival. The programme will see the artists come together for two residentials during the final weekends of both the 2018 festival (20-22 April) and the 2019 festival (dates TBC), with two dates in Birmingham in the intervening months for talks, workshops, and work-in-progress performances. Each artist will be given £1000 to help them create their work.
We’ll be open for applications in November, but if you’re keen to register your interest and to make sure you don’t miss the full details when we do open, drop us a line at info[at]flatpackfestival.org.uk and we’ll send you an email when the full details are up online.