OPEN CALL: THE SCHOOL OF INFINITE

REHEARSALS

INDEX

Introduction Open Call Fall 2020: Identities Annihilated Spring 2021: Everything Equally Evolved

What, When, with Whom & How• What• When• with Whom• How Important Information • Resources• Onassis AiR House• Conditions• Selection Application Information• Timeline• Application Form

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6Introduction

BEGINNINGS: THE HOUSE THAT BECAME A HOME 2019/20In September 2019, Onassis AiR, the (inter)national artistic research residency program, opened the doors of an empty building in the center of Athens to house a community of peers from Greece and from abroad, from Delhi to Los Angeles, from Canada to Palestine. Today, after six months of inhabiting this space, filling it withhours of thinking, talking, reading, testing, and making as well as eating together, Onassis AiR has become a home. This house now belongs to more than 30 artists, curators and art practitioners, who between September 2019 and June2020,aresupportedthroughfour(4)existingmodules:

• The Critical Practices Program: a collective three-month program for artists, curators & practitioners living and working in Greece who are going through a critical shift in their practice, and urgently need time to pause andre-thinktheirexistingworkingmethodologies

• (Inter)national Artistic & Curatorial Research Program: a one-month individual research program for Greekandinternationalartists&curatorswithaspecificand urgent research that must happen in Athens

• Exchange Residencies Program: a program that supports Greek artists & curators to travel and conduct a 2-3 month individual research abroad, through collaborations with two partner institutions, Capacete (Brazil) and Beirut Art Residency (Lebanon)

• Emergency Fellowship Program: a responsive research fellowship meant for anyone living anywhere in theworldwhohasanextremely time-sensitiveandunanticipated research need that cannot wait to go through the usual institutional application process

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SYNTHESIS: THE INFINITE REHEARSAL IN FOUR MOVEMENTS 2020/21 In the beginning, any organism, form, format, structure or institution goes through the formation stage where it imagines a possible future self. It searches for and carves out an identity usually in symbiotic relationship to its environment. Onassis AiR is going through this process right now during our first year of existence. Taking theformats, the house, the institutional function of Onassis AiR asanexampleinevolutionaryprocess,conventionallogicdictatesthatweshouldexpand,deepen,anddevelopourexistingprogramswehavestartedthisyearinalinearwayforward.

Onassis AiR 2020/21 Open Call goes against the grain of expected institutional evolution. We chooseinstead institutional malleability. We choose a synthesis of all our instruments (programs we are in the midst of) that challenges the expectation of “one” identityexisting in “one” environment.We choose to refuse theinstitutional binary of singular identity and singularity of one environment. Or to follow Giorgio Agamben’s thought “tohavethepotentialtobecome”.

Introduction

8Open Call

THE INFINITE REHEARSAL

IN FOUR MOVEMENTS

Onassis AiR 2020/21 Open Call invites artists, designers, activists, curators, collectives, educators who defy the marketable aca-demic establishments, lawyers, performance makers, economists, agitators of institutional models, philosophers, filmmakers and other practit ioners who are interestedinacommunalexplo- ration of two thematic focus areaswe findurgent toexploreduring our second year in existence.

September 2020 - May 2021

9Fall 2020

FALL 2020: IDENTITIES ANNIHILATEDConvened by: Hypatia VourloumisIdentity is an endless, ever-unfinished conversation. – Stuart Hall

Identity - who a person is, or the qualities of a person or a group that makes them different from others. – Cambridge English Dictionary We clamor for the right to opacity for everyone. – Edouard Glissant The world’s borders, and their material and discursive geopolitically designed forces, both internalandexternal tonation-states,areviolentlydetermined by the essentialist maneuvers of identity politics.The term identitypoliticsoncemeant“lifesharing” as described by the US-based black,feminist and queer Combahee River Collective, who fistcoinedthetermin1977asawaytoraisepoliticalconsciousness and to realize liberation from within one’s own intersectional struggles as opposed to merely attending to the struggles of ‘others.’ Identity politicstodaymeansanexclusionarywayofbeing,apolicingoffixedidentity,andtheclosingofranksagainst difference instead of a liberatory politicalforce that begins with one’s person, community and expands to include other communities and otherlives.

10Fall 2020

During the Infinite Rehearsals: Movement I & II, we will, following Edouard Glissant, seek to attend to the ways in which identities cannot be reduced or made transparent. We will practice a methodological structure of collective study and experimentation,aesthetically and poetically imagined through non-linear associative principles. Crucially, as we will find ourselves on the Mediterranean coast, and in a city that is the constructed ancient origin of Western civilization and white supremacy, we will think through the notion of historical identity as a performative, as method, and not a state of being. In other words, we will engage with questions of doing as opposed to knowing or being, attend to the ongoing legacies of colonial and anticolonial history rather than ontological claims, refuse linear time, embrace opacity and the movement of freedom, practice disidentification. We will ask: how are we all entangled, in the quantum physics’ sense, in a planetary ‘difference without separability’ asDenise Ferreira da Silva writes? How are we always already “singular-plural” (Jean-Luc Nancy), in theelsewhere and otherwise? How can we destroy the fixednotionsandcategoriesofseparationinherentto racial capitalism through the aesthetics of a transformative mode of history and time, through the aesthetic imagination and its materializations as transformative and abolitionist force? How are we always already sharing out the unshareable, invaluable, incalculable?

11Spring 2021

SPRING 2021: EVERYTHING EQUALLY EVOLVEDConvened by: James Bridle

The internet has the same carbon footprint as the airline industry. Our most powerful contemporary technology of knowledge production is itself killing the planet. We once believed that global communications networks would engender solidarity, justice, and emancipation, but they are instead seeding chaos, division, extremism, andfundamentalism. We have spent the last decade obsessed with the machines we have constructed, becoming ever more enmeshed with planetary-scale technologies to the detriment of the actual planet, and to ourselves. In truth, our technologies are already Earth-bound. They are intimately connected with the material of the world through mines, materials, supply chains, undersea cables and cultures of extraction. Atthe same time, we are only just becoming aware of the more-than-human intelligences which have been with us all along, from animals, to plants, to ecosystems, capable of forms of communication and agency which are only now becoming apparent to us.

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During Infinite Rehearsal: Movement III & IV we will collectively explore some of these, and otherquestions: How can the tools we have at hand be reimagined to bring us down to Earth? How do we reassert the importance of community while building solidarity with the more-than-human world? What would it look like to take the intelligence of animals, plants, and ecosystems as seriously as we take the intelligence of smart machines? What is the relationship between distributed networks and distributed power? How do we practically engage with sensoriums other than our own? And what is vital about doing so here and now, on the edge of the Mediterranean and other, possible futures?

Spring 2021

WHAT WHEN WITH WHOM & HOW

14What, When, with Whom & How

WHAT: The structure of each proposed research topic for FALL2020&SPRING2021willbelargelydefined by the selected participants of each Movement Groupthroughacollectivestudyandexploration. Inspired by the title of a novel by Wilson Harris, The Infinite Rehearsal, each group consisting of five (5) to six (6) participants will engage ina collective “rehearsal”, each bringing theirown “instrument” in the form of their existingpractice and proposed research that clearly engages with one of the proposed research topic areas in an urgent and organic way.

The working language of FALL 2020 &SPRING2021researchgroupsisEnglish.

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WHEN: FALL 2020: IDENTITIES ANNIHILATED MOVEMENTI: September 14 — October 25, 2020 MOVEMENTII: November2—December13,2020

SPRING2021: EVERYTHING EQUALLY EVOLVED MOVEMENTIII: February 17 — March 31, 2021 MOVEMENTIV: April 7 — May 19, 2021

What, When, with Whom & How

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WITH WHOM:The Onassis AiR 2020/21 Open Call is intended to artists, designers, activists, curators, collectives*, educators who defy the marketable academic establishments, lawyers, performanceandfilmmakers,economists,agitatorsofinstitutional models, philosophers, and other practitioners whoare interested inacommunalexplorationof twothematicfocusareaswefindurgenttoexplore.

• It is for those who live & work in Greece or anywhere in the world.

• There are no age restrictions.

• There is no requirement of formal academic degrees.

• It is for those practitioners who can clearly demonstrate anextensiveengagementwithintheirpracticeofthetworesearchtopicsthatwillbeexploredin2020/21.

• It is for thosewhoseekcollectiveexplorationandco-existencewith their peerswithout hierarchicalstructures.

• It is for those who seek a non-homogenous collective environment composed of groups of practitioners coming from diverse disciplines and practices.

• It is for those who are interested in an intensive period ofcollectivestudy&researchduringthesix(6)weekduration of each Movement Group that will be coming to Onassis AiR during Fall 2020 & Spring 2021.

* Due to limitation of space and the small group of each Movement Group, in case of collectives, we can accept only one (1) representative member.

What, When, with Whom & How

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Fall 2020: Identities Annihilated will be convened by HYPATIA VOURLOUMIS is a performance theorist working across anticolonial, feminist, critical race and queer theory; Indonesian and modern Greek cultural production; philosophies of language; theories of aesthetics, music, poetics; sound studies. She receivedherPh.DinperformancestudiesatNYU,andwas postdoctoral research fellow at the Interweaving Performance Cultures Research Centre at Freie UniversityandtheResearchCentrefortheHumanitiesin Athens. She is co-editor of Performance Research journal ‘On Institutions’ and has published in journals, art catalogues and edited volumes including Women & Performance, Ephemera, and Theatre Journal. She is co-author with Sandra Ruiz of a book on the aesthetics of resonance (forthcoming with Minor Compositions) and completing a monograph on postcolonial Indonesian paralanguage. She teaches critical theory in theMAArtPraxisat theDutchArtInstitute

What, When, with Whom & How

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Spring 2021: Everything Equally Evolved will be convened by JAMES BRIDLE (in collaboration with VESSEL) who is a writer and artist working across technologies and disciplines. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibitedworldwideandontheinternet.Theirwritingon literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, The Atlantic, the New Statesman, The Guardian, and the Observer. “New Dark Age”, their book abouttechnology, knowledge, and the end of the future, was publishedbyVerso(UK&US)in2018,andtheywroteandpresented“NewWaysofSeeing”forBBCRadio4 in 2019. Their work received an Honorary Mention at thePrixArsElectronica2013,anExcellenceAwardatthe Japan Media Arts Festival 2014, and an Honorary MentionatCERNCOLLIDE2016,andwasshortlistedfor the Future Generation Art Prize 2014. They won the Design Museum Graphics Design of the Yearin 2014. They were named as one of the 1000 Most InfluentialPeopleinLondonbytheEveningStandardin 2007, andone of the 100Most Influential Peoplein Europe by WIRED Magazine in 2015. They hold a Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Cognitive Science fromUniversityCollege,London,andwrotethe dissertation on creative applications of ArtificialIntelligence.

What, When, with Whom & How

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ON A S S I SU S A

COLLABORATIONSAs part of the Onassis AiR Open Call 2020/21 we will collaborate with several institutions in two differentways.

Onassis USA: under the leadership of Vallejo Gantner, Onassis USA is our peer institution locatedin New York City, with activities all across theUnited States. From 2021–2025, Onassis USAwill be working on a thematic basis, with the firsttwo themes being Identity in 2021 and Ecology in 2022, which will be exhaustively exploredthrough performance, discourse, and visual art.

Both groups of participants who will be selected for Onassis AiR Fall 2020: Identities Annihilated (Movement I & II) and Spring 2021: Everything Equally Evolved (Movement III & IV) through the current Open Call, will be in conversation with the curatorial team of Onassis USA, withthe prospect of a possible interaction with and participation in its 2021 and/or 2022 thematics.

What, When, with Whom & How

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LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council): serves, connects, and makes space for artists and community. Since 1973, LMCC has been the champion for independent artists in NewYork City and the cultural life force of LowerManhattan. LMCC Serves ar tists through:

• Residenciesthatenableartiststoexperiment and develop their work and ideas, with professional development,financialtraining,andnetworkingopportunities;

• Grant funding to artists that support local & neighborhood projects;

• Presentation opportunities that allow artists to share their work and creative process with the public.

OnassisAiRwill collaboratewith theNewYorkCity-based organization LMCC on the Fall 2020 AiR Open Call (IDENTITIES ANNIHILATED: MOVEMENTI& II). Inaddition to thefive (5)participantsselectedfor each MOVEMENT session through the OpenCall, two (2) selected artists from LMCC’s network will be invited, in collaboration with the LMCC team, and included in each of the Fall 2020 AiR Movement Groups, one (1) per Movement Group.

What, When, with Whom & How

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HOW: What format each Movement Group will create to collectively explore the research topic they areinvolved in, is up to the group itself. It may be using the metaphor of a ball of yarn that each member of the group cuts into with their “scissors”, with theirown practice and research of the topic, and therefore creating five or six different ways to unravel theball of thread - ie. the topic of the investigation. Or maybe the approach will be to start with nothing at all, navigating the uncharted with no assumptions and no accepted truths, like the empty ocean chart presented by the captain to the crew in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark, a poem describing the impossible voyageofan improbablecrew tofindaninconceivable creature, a creature of ambiguity, that both exists and doesn’t exist, is both defined andundefined, and whose identity is constantly in flux.

Each of the four (4) Movement Groups would also have a collective research budget (see more info below in RESOURCES section of the Open Call) tobeusedduringthesix(6)weekdurationofresearch.

Each of the two Fall 2020 & Spring 2021 Movement Groups will also have one convener - a practitioner in their own right, with an in-depth knowledge of the research topic explored. The role of the conveneris to provide a research framework for each of the two Movement Groups (Fall & Spring), in the form of possible readings, meetings with other practitioners in Greece, references, tools, methods and approaches. Each Movement Group will meet with the convener on a regular basis, at least once a week, throughout the sixweekresearchperiod.

What, When, with Whom & How

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO CONSIDER BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR APPLICATION

23Resources

RESOURCES: The following resources will be offered to each member of each Movement Group, as well as collective resources to be used and decided how they will be used by each Movement Group:

• Each participant will receive an individual research fee of 2,500€ (euros).

• Each participant who does not live in Athens, will have their travel (airfare, train, car, etc.) covered for their return trip to/from Athens, as well as to/from the airport or train station to the shared apartment accommodation.

• Each participant who does not live in Athens will be accommodated in a shared apartment (single room occupancy for each participant) in Athens, very close to Onassis AiR work space where majority of group activities and research will take place.

• Each Movement Group will have at their disposal a collective 5,000€ (euros) research budget that will be decided by each Movement Group together with the convener, collectively of how to use, be it on materials, possible publications, invitations to other practitioners who could contribute to the research on the particular topic of Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, research trips, or other needed resources the group will have during their research time at Onassis AiR.

24Resources

• We have established a tradition of daily lunches cooked by all the participants and team of Onassis AiR in pairs, from Monday to Friday in our cozy kitchen, that will continue in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. All the groceries for the collective lunches are covered by Onassis AiR.

• We have a basic inventory of professional video & DSLR cameras and lenses, microphones, portable LED panels for video & photo shooting, speakers, audio board, projectors, computer and large LCD screens, a large Xerox printing tower, as well assome incredible mechanical tools from Festool.

Onassis AiR is part of the Onassis Foundation that supports contemporary culture, education and health initiatives in Greece, NewYork&LosAngeles, and internationally. Onassis Stegi hosts theatrical and musical productions, film screenings, art and digital shows both inside and outside the walls of the center on Syngrou Avenue. Onassis Education department gives thousands of academic scholarships for BA, MA and PhD study abroad and in Greece. The Onassis Foundation has an extensive contemporaryart collection, as well as the Cavafy Archive and the Onassis Library. All accepted participants of Fall 2020 & Spring 2021 would be able to take advantage of the resources of other initiatives and units of the Onassis Foundation, including free access to events, performances, workshops and other activities of the Onassis Foundation.

25Where

WHERE: Thehousehassix (6)studiospaces,asharedoffice,a large fully stocked kitchen, storage spaces, an amazing terrace with tables, chairs, a sofa and lounge chairsforwhenwescreenfilmsintheeveningwhenitis warm, and a small vegetable garden with seasonal herbs and vegetables which we use during our communal lunches. More info here.

We use the spaces of Onassis AiR with the principle “ofmakingspace”availabletoothers,thereforethereisnonotionof“my”studio,butofcoursewhensomeoneneeds a dedicated space to work, there is plenty of space available. Also, as we believe in continuity of supporting participants and their artistic journey, we have created one studio, the Palimpsest Studio (or Pali-Room) intended for use by all previous participantsoftheprogram.Youcanreadmoreaboutthe basic principles and ethos of Onassis AiR here.

26Conditions

CONDITIONS Each selected participant must agree to the following general conditions of participation in the Onassis AiR Fall 2020/Spring 2021 program:

• Be available for a one-on-one interview (May 26 - 28, 2020) with Onassis AiR team if pre-selected to participate in the Fall 2020 or Spring 2021 program.

• Commit to participate full-time in the selected program period (seedatesofFall2020MOVEMENTI&IIand Spring2021MOVEMENTIII&IV).

• Guarantee thatnootherpre-existingcommitmentswill interrupt or prevent full-time participation in the program selected for.

• Stay in Athens for the full duration of the program selected.

• Participate in any and all activities proposed by the convener of the Movement Group, as well as any collective activities jointly decided by the Movement Group you are participating in.

27Selection

SELECTION Duringour firstOpenCall for theperiodof2019/20,we received more than 1.200 applications from 40 different countries. During our first year selection, we invited four independent professionals (curator, artist, educator, and editor-in-chief) to review all the applications.

As we have announced in the 2019/20 Open Call, the selection for the Open Call 2020/21 will be done in twophases,withthedifferencethatthefirstselectionphase will be done by your peers, the current participants of Onassis AiR 2019/20 program.

28Selection

SELECTION PHASE I In the first selection phase, each applicationwill bereviewed by two (2) of the 2019/20 participants of OnassisAiR,individuallyofeachother.Duringthefirstselection phase, each person in each selection pair will notbeabletoseethename,sex,age,CV,supportingdocuments or any other information of each applicant.

They will only be able to see the following question & answer from each applicant:

• Why do you believe the research topic you are applying for is urgent to explore, and how haveyouapproachedit inyourexistingpracticesofar?

• If both people in each selection pair believe the answer is convincing (YES), the application willproceed to the second phase of selection, if both people in each selection pair believe the answer is notconvincingorbothareunsure(NOorMAYBE),the application will not proceed to the second phase of selection, and if oneof thepair chooses (YES)and the other chooses (NO), the application willalso proceed to the second phase of the selection process.

29Selection

SELECTION PHASE II During the second selection phase all the applications that passed from the first phasewill be reviewed indetail, with all the requested supporting materials, other questions in the application, CV, etc. by the two conveners of the Fall 2020 & Spring 2021 research topics, Hypatia Vourloumis & James Bridle, as well as theteamofOnassisAiR(AshBulayev,NefeliMyrodiaandMyrtoKatsimicha).

Thepre-selectedapplicationsfromthefirstphasewillbe assessed according to the following criteria:

• Relevance of your individual statement in relation to the research topic area you are applying to.

• Radical approaches within your existing practicerelating to the research topic you are applying for, as shown by the supporting materials you choose to submit (narrative biography, CV/Resume, and the submitted work samples).

30Selection

INTERVIEWS After Selection Phase II is completed, we will schedule interviews (either in person for those living in Athens or over Skype or other video conference platform) with each of the pre-selected applicants. We might have some follow-up questions that came up during the selection, and we will answer questions regarding the program structure, timeframes, and any other queries. Following the interviews, the final selection will bemade and each selected participant will be informed about which Movement Group they will be part of, either in Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.

31Application Information

APPLICATION INFORMATION

Please read carefully all of the below listed information before starting your online application. Only complete & submitted on time applications will be considered, noexceptions.

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APPLICATION & SELECTION PROCEDURE SCHEDULE

Onassis AiR Open Call 2020/21 application open.

Deadline for submission of all applications (no exceptions). All applications must be submitted no later than 17:00 (5pm) Eastern European Time Zone (GMT +3). The open call online platformwill go offline after the specified time and no exceptions will be made for any applicant for any reason. All pre-selected applicants informed and interviews scheduled. Interviews with each pre-selected applicant.

All selected participants informed by email.

If you have general questions during the time that the Open Call online platform is open (between March 30 and April 24, 2020), about the application or anything regarding the nature of the program, please email air@onassis.org (Monday to Friday, 10:00-18:00 GMT +3). We will not be able to answer anyquestionsafter the finaldeadlineof theOpen Call (April 24, 2020 17:00/5pm Eastern European Time Zone (GMT +3).

All applicants will be informed by email about the result of their application.

March 30, 2020

April 24, 2020

May 20, 2020

May 26 - 28, 2020

June 1,2020

June 15, 2020

Application Information

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In the online application, applicants will be asked to provide:

• Contact Information

• Biography in a narrative form (300 word limit)

• Statement about your practice (300 word limit)

• Answer to the main application question (500 word limit)

• CV/Resume (as a PDF attachment of no more than two (2) pages)

• Work Sample List that you will need to download, complete with precise work samples you decide to submit, and re-upload to the application portal

• All the information in the application form as well as any supporting documents (bio, CV, work sample list) must be in English.

• Youcanonlyapplyforone (1) of the research topics, for either Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.

• Youwillbeaskedtoindicateyourpreferredtime-framein Fall 2020 or Spring 2021, but we cannot guarantee thatifselected,yourpreferredtime-frame(MOVEMENTIorIIinFall2020,orMOVEMENTIIIorIVinSpring2021)will be the one you are chosen for, as it will depend on the overall composition of each Movement Group.

Please click

Application Information

Application Form

Please click this LINK to transfer

to the online application form

APPLICATION FORM

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