ArtTrail Festival 2010: Multiple Endings :: November 19 – December 5, 2010 (Provisional dates) :: Cork City, Ireland :: OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS — Deadline: May 28, 2010; 5:00 pm.

ArtTrail, an annual festival of contemporary artistic practice, facilitates and supports site-specific and site-responsive projects in the Cork City area. It offers the context and support for artists of all disciplines to develop and present work outside their normal studio practice; and brings the audience into direct contact with the work, the artists and the making process. The festival aims to be aware of and responsive to its location, without being solely defined by it.

Following from 2009’s theme of “Rediscovering Locality”, in 2010 ArtTrail is working with a theme of “Multiple Endings”. ArtTrail invites proposals for projects relating to this theme in these or other ways:

– the non-linear development of human society and culture
– the infinite variables affecting each individual’s life.
– Individual evolution, and the effect of context on development (the ‘Nature v. Nurture’ argument)
– Urban planning – balance between overt control and devolution of choice/responsibility to inhabitants (overt control implies a fear or expectation of chaos?)
– Artistic processes and the relationship between means, methods, and desired learning outcomes
– Development of society, how this is influenced/controlled by individuals and groups
– Abdicating from or grasping personal and collective responsibility for the direction and content of society.
– Evolution, e.g. of species, climates, humans, habitats.
– Peer pressure and effects on choice
– Random actions, games, chance
– Reliance on ‘order’ and fear of ‘chaos’
– Implication of the negative aspects of chaos, the ‘un-planned’
– Anarchy
– the ability to assess potential outcomes and choose which one/s to aim for
– responsibility for and awareness of choices
– Fiction and real life
– The mathematics of chance, permutations and combinations
– Statistics and interpretation of data
– Lucid dreaming
– Parallel universes, time warps, time travel, Terminator
– Computer games and interactive technology, and their effects on an expectation of a fixed outcome.
– Sport as an exploration of potential outcomes
– Role of the arts in exploring and expressing this/these themes

Projects can take the form of but are not limited to:

• Exhibitions
• Installations
• Performances
• Interventions
• Curatorial projects
• Talks
• Presentations (of work, research, theses, papers, etc)
• Workshops
• Events
• Articles, texts for publication
• Publications
• Psychogeographic walks
• Tours

We are particularly interested in projects that would be developed both before and during the festival.
Projects will be hosted in a number of City centre locations, indoor and outdoor, depending on the requirements of the selected projects and the suitability and availability of locations.