Low lives: occupy! – Call for artists and presenters

Low Lives launches new program in partnership with Occupy With Art and The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

On March 3rd, 2012, Low Lives: Occupy! an international platform designed to enable artists, audiences, and presenters in alliance with the Occupy movement to support the occupation, will transmit live performances, actions, and happenings online as they occur in real time around the world. Participating artists, artist collectives, Occupy groups, and presenters worldwide will expand the reach and visibility of the Occupy protests by broadcasting to an international community and audiences. The Occupy protests, and the myriad of perspectives and experiences related to this unique moment, will be amplified, explored, and experimented with, through Low Lives’ internet-based creative platform. Low Lives: Occupy! recognizes the powerful opportunity that is the presentation of performances from around the world, and invites artists to open eyes and minds by presenting a radical re-imagining of possible ways of existing and relating.

Over the past 4 years Low Lives has developed a platform that invites and enables artists, audiences, and presenting venues to « plug in and participate » from anywhere an internet connection exists. This technological platform brings a history of supporting artists’ full creative freedom to imagine new worlds and is now offered to artists interested to present work in solidarity with #OWS. Online documentation of the live event will allow Low Lives: Occupy! to inspire online audiences far into the future.

Eligibility:
Low Lives: Occupy! seeks projects including, but not limited to, performance art, public actions and interventions, happenings, acts of protest and civil disobedience, taking place in both real and virtual spaces.

Only proposals for live actions will be considered (streaming pre-recorded videos will not be considered). Preferred duration of proposed works is 5 minutes or less, however if the work proposed is impossible to present in 5 minutes, up to 12 minute performances will be considered.

All artists, artist collectives, individuals, and groups in solidarity with the Occupy protests are invited to submit proposals. Artists who have participated in previous Low Lives projects are eligible to participate.

Submission Requirements:
– Submit a written proposal for work to be considered, including: a description of the work; duration; how the works supports the Occupy movement; location where the work will be presented; and if the work proposed has been presented before
– If possible, include links to artist website/s or other relevant sites
– Include up to 3 jpeg images, no larger than 300 dpi, that support your proposal and/or up to 2 links to video work samples (videos should be 2-3min each, or note desire start time for 2-3 min of review of longer documentation) 
- Include an Artist / Individual / Group Bio
– Optional: CV or Resume
– No entry fee

Email complete materials to lowlivesoccupy@gmail.com with Low Lives: Occupy! in the subject line. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Selected artists/individuals/groups will be given instructions and guidance on how to transmit their performance through a live online broadcasting network. Performances will be projected in real time across the Low Lives network of Presenting Partners and venues.

Selections Committee:
Jorge Rojas- Low Lives Founding Director, Producer, Curator, Artist
Christina deRoos- Low Lives Co-Producer, Artist, Activist, Nonprofit Administrator
Juan Obando- Low Lives Co-Producer, Artist, Professor of Art and Art History at Elon University

Presenting Partner and official NYC venue:
Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
New York University
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor, New York, NY
www.hemisphericinstitute.org

Presenting Partner and Online location:
Occupy With Art – www.occupywithart.com

Important Dates:
February 6: Submission deadline
February 10: Submitting artists/Individuals/Groups notified
March 3: Low Lives: Occupy! 6:00pm – 10:00pm EST

Process:
– Artists/Individuals/Groups broadcast performances from their location of choice (e.g., art venues, studios, public spaces) using live video streaming networks such as Ustream.tv
– Performances are presented consecutively, each immediately following the previous
– All performances are fed through one channel and projected at presenting venues, and available for online viewing in real time and after the event
– Online chat allows artists and online audiences to interact and comment on the work as it occurs

Co-Presenters:
– Low Lives: Occupy! invites any person, group of people, and presenters to “plug in and project” the broadcast in their homes, venues, building facades, and other public spaces for their local communities
– Technical support is provided in advance of the event date to facilitate Co-Presenters preparation and to coordinate overall production
– No fee to participate

Technical requirements:
– Computer to transmit and project the show
– Broadband internet connection
– Digital projector
– Projection screen/wall
– Sound system

Anyone interested in co-presenting Low Lives: Occupy! please email: lowlivesoccupy@gmail.com with Low Lives: Occupy! Presenter in the subject line.

About Low Lives
Founded in 2009, Low Lives is an international platform for live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time. Low Lives examines works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting, viewing, and archiving performances. Low Lives offers local and global audiences a contextual frame from which to consider live performance in both the physical and virtual space.

The platform celebrates the transmission of ideas beyond geographical and cultural borders, and opens multicultural and intergenerational dialogue through visual language, new technologies, and contemporary expressions. Low Lives is about both the presentation and transmission of performative gestures from a particular place and time. Low Lives produces an annual Networked Performance Festival.

About Occupy With Art
Occupy With Art (Formerly Occupennial) is an affinity group of the Arts & Culture working group. We are artists, writers, curators, and art professionals lending our skills to produce art, cultural events and projects, with a particular focus on OWS itself as a social art process. We work with organizations and artists that require a focused team to facilitate their projects. We produce art projects, large-scale events, and exhibitions. Our website, www.occupywithart.com, serves as an information hub for current and past art-related activities in the OWS movement. We are committed to building relationships within OWS and with outside arts organizations.

About Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics
The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics is a collaborative, multilingual and interdisciplinary network of institutions, artists, scholars, and activists throughout the Americas. Working at the intersection of scholarship, artistic expression and politics, the organization explores embodied practice—performance—as a vehicle for the creation of new meaning and the transmission of cultural values, memory and identity. Anchored in its geographical focus on the Americas (thus “hemispheric”) and in three working languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese), the Institute’s goal is to promote vibrant interactions and collaborations at the level of scholarship, art practice and pedagogy among practitioners interested in the relationship between performance and politics in the hemisphere. www.hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/

Note- the annual Low Lives 4 Networked Performance Festival is scheduled for April 27 – 28, 2012. A separate call for proposals will be issued in late January 2012.

Event Date: 3 March 2012
Deadline for proposals: 6 February 2012
www.lowlives.net
lowlivesoccupy@gmail.com

*Logo designed for Low Lives by Juan Obando: www.juanobando.com