CFP: Creative Residency at NCSU Libraries
Mike Nutt
Director of Visualization Services
Digital Library Initiatives, NCSU Libraries
919.513.0651
https://immersivescholar.org
Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces
Creative Residency Call for Proposals
Overview
Application Deadline: 8:00am EST, January 3rd, 2018
Duration: 4-6 weeks
Start date: Flexible, February through August, 2018
Stipend: $20,000
URL: https://immersivescholar.org/creative-residency-call
The NCSU Libraries invites proposals from artists, scholars, and creative technologists for a four-to-six-week residency to create immersive scholarly visual content for one or more of the large-scale digital walls in the award-winning James B. Hunt Jr. Library at NC State University in Raleigh. The residency is sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces grant (“Immersive Scholar”), and is part of the NCSU Code+Art program.
Residents are encouraged to interrogate the intersections of data, knowledge, and culture through visual expression. This residency offers an opportunity for the selected project to influence the way that people look at the university’s role in supporting data visualization and digital art, similar to the manner that the Hunt Library has started to change the way that people think about academic libraries in the 21st century.
Libraries have long been places where people have explored new ways of interacting with information and data. The NCSU Libraries’ Code+Art program continues this tradition by bringing an aesthetic eye to the increasing role of data in our lives by combining creative and computational thinking in a library’s physical spaces. Code+Art provides the lens that focuses this residency program.
Program Details
The resident will produce a large-scale work of digital art or visualization. Creations could include generative art or dynamic, data-driven visualizations of high aesthetic quality. The data underlying the piece may or may not be literally interpretable, depending on the resident’s scholarly approach.
To generate broader impact and a larger audience, the work will:
Be open source
Follow principles of responsive design
Follow principles of universal design
Be documented using principles of literate computing
Be broadly distributed to other libraries and learning spaces with similar visualization facilities
Additionally, the work should be scholarly output that is citable and impactful. NCSU Libraries staff and collaborators will explore with the resident innovative approaches to peer review, sharing, and credit for the work created during the residency.
The work will be displayed on one or more of the Hunt Library’s large video walls:
Art Wall - the screen that welcomes visitors to the Library
iPearl Immersion Theater - the Library’s premier storytelling venue
Commons Wall - in the heart of the Library’s learning spaces
Visualization Wall - a unique shape that symbolizes the Library’s blend of physical and digital space
Please see our Video Wall Guide for technical specifications of the walls. Additionally, the resident will have access to the Libraries’ full suite of spaces for creation and making.
The resident must have sufficient knowledge required to produce the work described in their application for this residency. Experience in open web technologies is strongly preferred, but other technologies could be considered if the requirements for open source and broad distribution can be met.
To further support the resident, the library will hire a student worker to assist the resident with content production. The resident can specify the student’s title and skill set. If additional technology skills are needed beyond what the student employee can provide, the residency stipend may be used to hire technical help.
The residency includes a stipend of $20,000 that can be used to cover housing, travel, and other expenses incurred by the project.
Women and historically underrepresented communities are especially encouraged to apply.
Support and Community Engagement
The resident will work closely with NCSU Libraries staff, who will facilitate engagement with the NC State community and the broader scholarly community. Libraries staff have expertise in visualization, making, data management, and other areas of research support, and will be available to the resident for consultation.
The resident will be expected to engage with the NC State community through a talk and/or workshop, to be determined and facilitated with Libraries staff.
NC State University is a pre-eminent research enterprise that excels in science, technology, engineering, math, design, the humanities and social sciences, textiles, and veterinary medicine. Collaborations with NC State researchers and students will grow from the vision and needs of the resident, and can be facilitated by Libraries staff, who maintain deep relationships with the campus community.
This residency is funded as part of a larger, “Immersive Scholar” grant. Immersive Scholar is a three-year effort funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop extensible models and programs for the creation and sharing of digital scholarship in large-scale and immersive visualization environments. The resident, therefore, will be part of a larger, national network of participating institutions and advisors. Work completed under this residency must be designed to be open source and will be shared to the grant’s participating cohort for display at their respective institutions.
Eligibility Requirements
Participants within commuting distance will be preferred for this first of three residencies
Must be eligible to work in the U.S.
Must not be a currently enrolled student
Application
Statement of interest (500 words or less)
Narrative of proposed work (500 words or less)
Description of spaces, technologies, and support needed for project (500 words or less)
Resume/CV
Online portfolio of past relevant works
1 letter of reference
Selection and Notification Process
Proposals will be selected by the Immersive Scholar personnel based on the following criteria:
Creativity of proposal
Whether the proposal is extensible, desirable, and feasible for distribution to multiple visualization installations
Proficiency in web or creative coding technologies
Good collaboration skills
Value of proposed outcomes to digital scholarship
Applicants may be contacted for an interview or a presentation of previous work.
Questions
Please see http://immersivescholar.org for more information about the grant and send inquiries to immersiv...@ncsu.edu.
Submit applications through this Google Form. All applications must be submitted by 8:00am EST, January 3rd.
Director of Visualization Services
Digital Library Initiatives, NCSU Libraries
919.513.0651
https://immersivescholar.org