[artinfo] readme 100 software art factory - call for submissions

[olga goriunova]

README 100: Temporary software art factory
http://readme.runme.org

Call for proposals: Deadline August 8, 2005

What:
Readme festival in the year 2005 aims at supporting the production of 
software art projects and texts critically engaging with software 
art. Readme 100 will support up to 6 projects and up to 6 articles on 
the competition basis. Each project will get a budget from 500 to 
3000 euros (depending on the project complexity) and each article - 
500 euros. The completed or close to completion works and texts will 
be presented at the off-line event scheduled for November 4-5, 2005 
in the State and City Library of Dortmund, Germany. Completed works 
will be honorably published at Runme.org repository.

How:
Proposals for projects and texts should be sent to og {at} dxlab.org 
and inke.arns {at} hmkv.de no later than August 8. Readme 100 only 
supports new projects and texts. The decision will be publicly 
announced on August 15, 2005. Please prepare the material in whatever 
format you see fit. Make sure you include the concept / outline 
(around 1 page of text -approx. 1.800 characters), a short CV, links 
to your previous projects, the estimate budget, and any material you 
find appropriate.

Focus:
Different ways of software art production, including self-employing, 
hiring, using open source solutions, interfacing with IT economy 
sector and educational/cultural institutions.

Outsourcing:
Besides ways of production common for art and open source, we suggest 
to consider outsourcing solutions (more details on Readme website) as 
they are proven to be efficient and adequate for the modern 
globalized economy.

Factory - idea and location:
Readme 100 wishes to use the potential of the idea of production. 
Software art is often produced using conventional software production 
models; sometimes pragmatic software tools get regarded in terms of 
software art and vice versa: software art projects get used and sold 
as tools. One could hire an Indian programmer to code a piece of 
software art; one could get rich from selling well-advertised 
unconventional software, one could discover that an author of a 
conventional software piece always felt it was something "different". 
Readme temporary software art factory would like to focus not only on 
the product itself, but on the way of its production, and experiment 
with different models of production in relation to art, including 
outsourcing, work within IT companies or self-production.

Readme 100 regards texts as essential parts of the production 
process; critical texts are welcome to be produced at the temporary 
software art factory.

What makes Dortmund particularly interesting as a venue for Readme 
100 is the fact that the city and the whole region of the Ruhrgebiet 
is in full transition from a former heavy industrial city (coal, 
steel) to a city/region focusing on new technologies.
This setting symbolises exactly the transition from a fordistic / 
industrial production model to a post-fordistic / post-industrial 
one. The fordistic production model is represented by, e.g. Hollerith 
calculating machines, machine processing, "mechanization takes 
command", batch processing. The post-fordistic, globalization-related 
model which started to evolve in the 1970s, is characterised by 
upcoming concepts of timesharing, offshore outsourcing, borders 
transparent for capital but not for human resources, the introduction 
of object oriented programming languages, the increasing networking 
of computers and the first multimedia computers. The "temporary 
software art factory" as a concept relates both to the originally 
fordistic calculating machine, the networked, interactive medium that 
emerged from it, and globalized modes of production.

Who:
Readme 100 is hosted by Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, 
Germany, and is organized by Inke Arns, Olga Goriunova, Francis 
Hunger and Alexei Shulgin. The organizers will also form a selection 
committee together with Amy Alexander and Alex McLean from Runme.org.

Readme is a travelling media art festival with a focus on software 
art. Its mission is software art development and critical 
contextualisation. Readme is closely related with Runme.org, the 
software art repository.

Readme festival history:
2002, Moscow. Beginning of formation of self-reflecting scene. 
Generating the first definitions of software art.
2003, Helsinki. Launch of Runme.org, the software art repository. 
Introduction of software art categories. Accumulating projects in the 
database.
2004, Aarhus. Further development of critical discourse: Software Art 
and Cultures Conference. Runme-Dorkbot city camp - a face-to-face 
meeting of "people doing strange things with software".

Why is the festival called "Readme 100" if it is just the forth edition:
4 equals 100 in the binary numeral system; we use this system here 
for the reason of beauty of the title.

Readme 100 is supported by:
-Ministerium fuer Staedtebau und Wohnen, Kultur und Sport des Landes 
NRW, "OffScene"
-Stadt- und Landesbibliothek, Dortmund
-LesArt Literaturfestival, Dortmund
-Kulturbuero Stadt Dortmund
-Runme.org

URLs:
Readme
http://www.readme.runme.org

Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund
http://www.hmkv.de

Runme.org
http://runme.org