DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 24th.
The Open Call for projects to feature within Nuit Blanche Ottawa+Gatineau 2015 asks applicants to contemplate, consider and produce art works and creative projects in response to the theme ‘HYPE’. The following is the curatorial statement that expands on the choice of this year’s theme, please use it to guide project concepts or to consider if existing projects fit within the theme.
This festival wants to know how you creatively occupy and define the HYPE space. The word HYPE brings the anticipation of excitement to the forefront of the brain while it also clearly identifies an experience, with individuals arriving at their own peak of expectations. This is the beginning of a hype cycle, which then roller coasters through disillusionment and rides back up the slope, to a space of productivity, durational engagement and acceptance. The night-time is a haven for these experiences. It is a space for experimentation and realization of bold & beautiful social innovations, new night economies, and it serves as a platform for a complex network of established cultures.
Within this post-internet era the sharing of personal HYPE experiences are made prolific across many means and the outcome of being a practicing artist within this space is an ability to exchange, receive feedback, improve, alter, edit and morph within a decentralized platform. It is a space to build new frameworks, a place for improvisation, and it is a space to question and develop original experiences. The pop-up nature of the night time festival also set’s the stage for art works to be experienced in new ways, for testing and playing with creative endeavours that are experienced individually, within niche communities, in crowds, and as waves of excitement that traverse public space. As a festival date approaches a community of citizens experience an escalating sense of stimulation; as an artwork inches closer to completion the artist rides the force of time controlling the outcome; and as an audience arrives at an event in numbers a surge of collective expectation is felt.
How do you tap into the bold and creative behaviour of the night-time and share that citizenship? What can the time-based landscape of the night help you to achieve? How can you individually, and we as a team of creative individuals, collectively influence the peak in the night and ride the cycle into the morning?
Nuit Blanche Ottawa+Gatineau is a festival that delivers one critical night of spectacle and celebration. You choose your own adventure.