THE SPACE PROGRAMME
INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCY – PARIS SUMMER 2024 – FOCUS ON AI AND IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES.
The Performance Corporation’s 2024 edition of the SPACE Programme was set in the heart of Paris at the Centre Culturel Irlandais. Our focus for 2024 invited creatives on a pioneering journey into AI and immersive technologies for artistic exploration and collaboration, challenging the boundaries of human connection, imagination, and artistic expression in the digital age.
Applications for The SPACE Programme 2025 will open in January 2025. Sign-up to our newsletter for updates.
2024 Objectives
- To encourage diverse artistic voices to develop processes without the pressure to present.
- To focus on Research and Development: exploring interdisciplinary collaboration through cultivating creative collisions and cross-cultural collaborations.
- To build and facilitate International Networking.
- To explore Generative AI, Large Language Models, cloud and immersive technologies.
Residency Experience in Paris
Combining Creative Freedom with Technological Innovation.
Based in the heart of Paris, The Performance Corporation’s 10 day residency offers access to one of the world’s best cities as part of The SPACE Programme 2024. Staying and working together during this period, we aim to provide a nurturing environment for artists from all art forms including Theatre, Visual Arts, Sound, Dance, Music to experiment with various technologies, delving into their potential to redefine artistic expression in an era marked by rapid digital innovation. Our unique residency merges the creative freedom of traditional artistic residencies with the energised innovation characteristic of a tech ‘Hackathon’.
Interactive Meet-ups and Collaborations.
Our approach is further enriched by interactive meet-ups and structured encounters with leading artistic practitioners and presenters in the field of AI, Cloud and Immersive Technologies. These professional encounters and collaborations are designed to facilitate idea exchange, networking, and learning opportunities, allowing you to engage with, and gain insights from, established artists and technologists.
Exploring Artistic Expression in the Digital Age.
Outcomes will include enhanced competence in Generative AI, Cloud and Immersive Technologies, deeper understanding of varied artistic ecologies, and enriched collaboration and innovation skills as well as potential future collaborators. This blend of experimentation, professional interaction, and collaborative exploration forms the core of The SPACE Programme 2024, fostering a dynamic environment for creative growth and innovation.
Partnership with BETA
We are partnering with the BETA Digital Arts Festival in Dublin as part of the programme this year to create a pathway for participants to present works in progress alongside bespoke networking opportunities as part of the festival.
Leadership
Created and led by The Performance Corporation. Facilitated and curated Jo Mangan and Hanna Slättne, with technical support led by Guillaume Auvray. Supported by the Centre Culturel Irlandais.
The SPACE Programme: A Legacy of Innovation
Since 2008 The Performance Corporation has been pioneering the SPACE Programme, a unique residency that brings together artists from diverse disciplines for intensive collaborative and creative experimentation. Almost 100 Irish and International artists have benefitted from The SPACE Programme – Ireland’s longest running International Multi-Disciplinary Artists Residency. The SPACE Programme ethos does not require finished works to be generated as part of the residency. Each year however sees connections made and learnings that accelerate ideation, often resulting in works being presented subsequently. We experience vastly different outcomes based on the unique combination of art forms, artists, and since 2018 additional technological explorations.
Eligibility
Open to artists and creatives who have some experience of AI, VR, AR, or other immersive technologies and its current or potential application in their work. You should also have a commitment to exploring how these technologies can expand and intersect with traditional artistic practices as well as an interest in joining a diverse, interdisciplinary group of creatives in Paris this Summer.
What We Provide: Travel, Accommodation, and Technology
- Access to expertise, technology, resources and spaces in which to work collaboratively.
- Travel, Accommodation and meals.
Selection
- Applications reviewed by a panel from The Performance Corporation, the Centre Culturel Irlandais, and external assessors.
- Shortlisted candidates may be invited for further discussion.
Contact Information:
For queries, please contact morgan@theperformancecorporation.com
PRESENTED BY – The Performance Corporation
FUNDED BY – International Residencies Initiative from The Arts Council of Ireland
PARTNERS: Centre Cultural Irlandais, Department of Foreign Affairs, The Irish Embassy in Paris, Kildare Co Council, BETA Festival.
“Aaaaaaaaaghhhh such a great experience to connect people from very different disciplines at the intersections between our work. Like bashing atoms together in a super collider, to create weird and otherwise improbable new things.”
– Ciara Tamay [UX Designer – Virtual Reality / Virtual Experiences]
Access to mixed reality technology is prohibitively expensive for independent artists. This programme created a structured collaborative environment with state-of-the-art equipment backed up by technical experts, removing a huge barrier for entry into creative applications for VR/AR and kickstarting a whole series of artistic collaborations.
– Hugh Farrell [Writer, producer, dramaturg – immersive experiences / live events]
“The SPACE Programme was absolutely one of the best experiences I have had as a new media artist. With technology changing so fast it is very easy to feel overwhelmed. Having a space to just play and explore without any pressure is an immensely important opportunity for artists. I wish there were more residencies like that.” –
– Isa Juchniewicz [ Visual Artist – New Media/Performance Art ]
As a collaborative theatre maker who strives to create live immersive experiences, the chance to spend time learning and upskilling in the most up to date immersive technology, to experiment and play has been so inspiring. The networks and connections I’ve made both nationally and internationally are brilliant, along with feeling much more confident about where my practice can and will meet the digital world.”
– James Riordan [Writer & Theatre Maker]
THE SPACE PROGRAMME
The SPACE Programme is a professional development residency for artists and creative technologists with a focus on collaboration across form and medium. This highly successful residency has been delivered by The Performance Corporation in Ireland since 2008. Artists are given the opportunity to explore, re-examine and extend working practices, processes, ideas, partnerships and collaborations without pressure to create ‘product’ within a fixed time frame.
Since 2018, The SPACE Programmes has had a specific focus on augmented, mixed and virtual reality technologies, as well as binaural sound exploration, Motion Capture and more; allowing the artists involved to develop skills in storytelling and immersive interaction in these new and exciting media.
In 2023 we brought The SPACE Programme to Paris and to the Centre Culturel Irlandais – and will return to Paris to deliver The SPACE Programme 2024.
As well as hands-on work with the technology on offer, guest facilitators, artists and cultural leaders from France and further afield will guide the professional development and inter-disciplinary collaborations. Participants will engage with local artists, programmers and cultural leaders, with the aim of engaging with different cultural and artistic contexts, thus opening up new creative horizons and allowing for new connections and collaborations.
BACKGROUND
Since 2008 The Performance Corporation has created an opportunity for artists of all disciplines to come together for an intensive residency of collaborative, creative experimentation. The residency gives participants space to connect and collaborate with a wide range of creatives from different backgrounds, challenge and develop their personal artistic practice, experiment with new ideas and forms, explore the potential of new technology in artistic creation. SPACE is an opportunity to explore what happens when artists have space to experiment without the expectation of delivery.
This opportunity is being offered at a time when immersive tech is revolutionising human connection, the imagination, and how we express ourselves. As corporate interests actively seek dominance of the VR world, there is an urgent need for artists and creatives to carve out a distinctive virtual space where individual creativity can flourish unmediated by the big names of the tech world. SPACE seeks to foster a spirit of independent artistic exploration in this rapidly developing field.
The residency for artists working in the realm of immersive technology is the closest thing in the arts to a tech ‘Hackathon’. It will be designed and led by The Performance Corporation director Jo Mangan, dramaturg and facilitator Hanna Slättne, VR Producer Camille Donegan, and Technical Facilitator Guillaume Auvray.
Over the past 16 years over 100 artists from all over the world have benefitted from the SPACE programme. Each year’s outcome has been vastly different due to the hugely varied alignments of artforms, artists and interrogations involved.
The consistent takeaway for participants has been that they have gained new expertise and understanding of the different ecologies we are all part of, a deeper knowledge of different work practices as well as new connections. Participants leave with stronger starting points from which to initiate and facilitate collaboration, innovation and new idea generation.
