Frequency Festival Call Out For Artists: Postern Gate Exhibition Site
Postern Gate exhibition site: Durational or performative digital and hybrid art works
Introduction
Frequency 2015 represents the third iteration of Lincoln’s Festival of Digital Culture. For ten days in October we take over the city, placing digital and hybrid art works in the city streets, venues, galleries and heritage spaces, including the Castle, the Cathedral, the Roman Postern Gate, and various churches and pop-ups across the cityscape.
Call Out
We are looking for performative or durational site-specific works that are suited to intimate audience groups for a very special site on the festival trail. Interactivity is of interest but not essential.
The Artists’ Canvas
Down a flight of steps you find the ruins of the old Roman side gate to the city. Three times a year, The Collection hold guided tours of part of Lincoln’s Roman South Wall, which is now housed in a locked cellar beneath a high street bank. The site houses the Postern Gate of the original Roman city of Lindum; the gate is believed to have been used to access the River Witham, which was closer to the area than it is today.
The Postern Gate is an exciting space and a key signature site on the Frequency Festival trail where we open it up to the public for ten days housing a piece of digital or hybrid work creating new and surprising experiences for audiences. With queues to get in to see the work and the Postern Gate itself coupled with the unique challenges to the space, makes it essential that we choose exactly the right kind of work.
The space can be made completely dark so projected and light works are particularly effective in the space. The Postern Gate itself dominates the space and is listed so cannot be changed in any way but it can be the stage and backdrop for your work.
Shows/demonstrations/performances of 10 minutes duration can run every quarter hour, or 25 minutes durational works can run every half hour.
Works that contrast with the cellar space and the Postern Gate itself are particularly effective. We are particularly interested in works that allow the Postern Gate to be seen.
Restrictions and challenges
Space is limited so only ten to twelve people are admitted at a time, so short durational pieces work well here. There is no seating so shorter shows are preferred. Audiences are not permitted onto the Postern Gate itself.
This is a listed space so no changes can be made to the fabric of the space.
Due to the layout and the underground nature of the site health and safety is a key challenge and of the upmost importance. The festival Production Manager and technical team will work with the selected artist to overcome key challenges but please do make mention of your approach to this challenge within proposals.
Frequency 2015 Theme
Liberation is Frequency’s focus for 2015. This central theme has echoed throughout our conversations with curators and artists this year and a great deal of the works on display emerge from creative inquiries into three key aspects of the digital realm. The artists in this year’s programme, either overtly or covertly, playfully address these themes:
1. Direct Lives Never before have we been able to step so completely into the lives of others. We learn about each other via social media, the stories unfiltered by the established new media portals. If Knowledge is Power then this transference of knowledge represents democracy at work, shifting ownership and authorship from the few to the many.
2. The Enhanced Imagination Our imaginations have been turbo-charged by the powerful digital tools at our disposal. What was just a notion quickly becomes a digital simulacrum accurate enough for others to understand. The technology catches up fast. It took centuries for Da Vinci’s concepts of a parachute and a helicopter to become physically possible. We digital humans have seen more accelerated and profound change in a single generation.
3. The Liberation of the Digital Human Our minds and bodies, and the physical world are seamlessly integrating with the digital realm. We have transcended our physical limitations via the digital portal, enhancing the vocabulary of the body, extending our senses, our real-time social reach.
Download the full brief for further details including timescales, process, format considerations and fees: http://bit.ly/FreqBrief2
If you would like to arrange an informal chat please contact: info@frequency.org.uk