ARRG! Call For Participation:
MODELS FOR MAKING DISTANCE
Deadline: April 15 2024
SEEKING CONTRIBUTORS TO A PRINT PRODUCT
Models For Making Distance is a print zine gathering a multiplicity of manifestos, writing and instructions for art that confounds, confuses and misuses algorithmic systems for the pleasure of human observers or actors. It is a playful but earnest bid for placing distance between ourselves and the tools designed to measure us.
ARRG! (the Algorithmic Resistance Research Group) aims to create a low-cost paper publication gathering a variety of authors, activists and artists who navigate AI systems from a position of resistance. We are looking for those willing to contribute their work for documentation in this analog pamphlet among like-minded critics and digital malcontents.
“Models for Making Distance” will be distributed as a paper-based physical object, in a bid to circumvent current regimes of data analysis and recuperation. If you are a library, Zine fair, or archive, please let us know if you would like a copy.
Deadline has been extended to April 15, 2024.
A small payment will be offered for published work.
Contributions could include:
Manifestos declaring new positions for making work and culture in response to algorithmic surveillance.
Recipes for art and performance instructions for works that make space between bodies and algorithms, by introducing errors, glitches or confusion in to sensors.
Documentation of art and performances made in line with the above.
Short essays or other literary works oriented to increasing gaps between digital technologies and logics and lived experience, or exploring those tensions.
Slogans, bumper sticker proposals, or other propaganda works addressing the agenda of making distance from algorithmic order.
Requirements for Participation
Agree that trans rights are human rights
We request contributions be limited to 1 page (A4, 8.5 x 11 inches or 21 x 29.7 cm / 210 x 297 mm). If contributions extend beyond one page, let us know: we may have space, but shorter works will take priority.
Agree to share the work in a CC-01 publication:
The CC-01 is a speculative license that allows printed material to be distributed exclusively in analog formats and forbids digital redistribution.
We will distribute print copies of the zine as thanks.
What Is ARRG!?
The Algorithmic Resistance Research Group is a loosely knit, unfunded cohort of artists, researchers and activists focused on exploring new forms of critical distance and creative agency over algorithmic culture.
We are engaged in the creative misuse of Generative AI, Machine Learning, and other automated data analysis systems.
We favor work that deliberately confuses, subverts or recontextualizes the outputs of AI and ML systems. It speaks to the exploration and curiosity about systems that links hacking culture and creative production.
We favor work that reveals the underlying technical systems, but also their relationships within larger social, ecological, cultural, or political systems.
Who is ARRG?
ARRG consists of whoever responds to a particular open call. This project’s editorial team is Eryk Salvaggio, Caroline Sinders, Steph Maj Swanson and Şerife Wong, with thanks to Padmini Ray Murray.
For previous work, see our exhibition page from DEFCON 31.
Who is funding this?
We are grateful to produce the zine in collaboration / cooperation with Dr. Laura Forlano’s Critical Futures Lab at Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media, and Design.
We are open to additional funding partners and donations for expanding this project. If you’re interested, email eryk.salvaggio@gmail.com.
What exactly are you looking for?
We are open to manifestos, even if they are previously published, which articulate a way of making distance between yourself (intellectually, spiritually, physical) and algorithmic systems (generative AI, automated surveillance, etc). These are flexible.
We are wary of setting limits, but shorter texts are more likely to be included. Let us know if you have an idea.
Can you offer some examples of manifestos?
Inspiring manifestos include the Decolonial AI Manyfesto; Resisting Reduction; Resisting AI. We are not interested in longtermist, transhumanist, Singularitarian, Technosolutionist or Eugenicist positions.
Can you offer some examples of artistic performances or event scores?
Here is a playful example of an event score. Yours may look nothing like it.
Performance Score for Alexa, #1
Eryk Salvaggio 2023
Performer enters stage with an Amazon Alexa on stool.
Performer requests the song “Downeaster Alexa” by Billy Joel.
Performer listens patiently until Alexa interrupts the song, marking the end of the performance.
The performance is short, centers the exposure of a algorithmic system’s limits, and transforms it into an expression of human control & art making that exists outside of the commercial art context. It “makes distance” by using the technology in an unexpected way.
Your art projects may look nothing like this. However, they must be able to be conveyed simply in a text format. Images are OK, but this is a low budget operation, so we will have to be selective and can only print in black and white (unless funding appears).
How to participate
Send us your score, manifesto or artwork.
Write in the email that the work is an original piece and can be reprinted in the Models for Making Distance zine.
Agree that you will not redistribute the final zine via digital means such as scans, photographs, or file transfers. In other words, only share the zine through circulation of the physical object. (The cover can be photographed and posted online).
Email your pieces, questions, ideas, to eryk.salvaggio@gmail.com with the subject header, “Models for Making Distance.”
You can email content using the form below, or email me at eryk.salvaggio@gmail.com. Please inquire before sending files larger than 2mb.
Deadline is April 15 2024.