Brief

Curated by Richard Carr in association with OpenGorey

Extended Deadline for statement of interest: Midnight [Irish Time] 30th April 2020

deadline for submissions: midnight 7th June 2020

Sound… Its ephemeral and passing nature, its invisible mobility, makes it apparent that the streets, the houses, shops, courts, schools, trams and buses, are not the public. Rather it is the way we interact within and through those institutions and infrastructures, that the public is generated and manifest. (Voegelin, 2015)

Sleepertown is an opportunity for contemporary artists/composers/engineers/architects, who work with sound, to propose a new or existing work to be exhibited as part of its public art event in Gorey, Co. Wexford.

Sleepertown will utilise mobile technologies (Geo-Fencing) to create a parallel listening world, accessed digitally within the public realm. This world will coexist with our ‘real-world’ geographical landscape and will encourage people to move through the town of Gorey to specific spaces/places. As they move, they will trigger and immerse themselves, in new public installations/sculptures/interventions/artworks via their personal mobile devices (Phone/Tablet etc).

We are looking to commission 4-6 sonic art-works from contemporary practitioners which complement the existing landscape in interesting and challenging ways. Each selected work will be intimately linked to a specific space/place in Gorey Town and will be exhibited for a total of 6 months. Each selected artist will be paid a fee of €250 in total and will receive a feature in our accompanying publication. The call is open to individuals and collectives, however if you are submitting as a collective, the €250 is awarded to the collective.

We believe in the possibilities of sound to open, activate and interrogate the public realm, and therefore, we have attempted to keep this call as open as possible. However, we would advise all artists to ‘look & listen’ to some of the proposed spaces/places we have listed here and to use the map links to virtually visit our town. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Submission process

Step 1:

Submit your 500 word (max.) Statement of Interest detailing what it is you would like to do, how you plan to develop the work and where in Gorey you would like it to be experienced. Alongside this you must submit a 250 word (max.) bio/statement detailing who you are and what you do.

Step 2:

If we contact you to progress to step two, you will need to develop your proposed sound work and submit it to us by Midnight 7th June 2020. This must be submitted to us in Mp3 format to opengorey@gmail.com. All works for Sleepertown will be facilitated via the Echoes App, allowing your work to be geo-fenced to a particular space/place for the public to experience.