Call for Art

Deadline to apply: September 4th, 2023

Deadline Extended: September 14th, 2023!

Exhibition October 2nd - November 3rd, 2023

Awards: 1st Place - $500 ● 2nd place - $250 ● 3rd place - $100

Call for Art:

The University of Michigan and Collected Detroit are seeking artists and collaborative teams from Michigan to showcase artworks at our art exhibition titled “Artificial Horizons: Exploring Alternative Robotic Futures”. All mediums of art are eligible for submission so long as there is a connection to robotics, with an emphasis towards those that leverage technology or principles of robotics.

The exhibition will take place over 4 weeks and span two locations. For the first 2 weeks the artworks will be showcased at Collected Detroit in Detroit, MI. The exhibition will be then transported to the Ford Robotics Building at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI for another 2 weeks.

Background:
This October, the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) is being hosted in Detroit, Michigan. IROS is one of the largest conferences in the disciplines of robotics and this year's theme is “The Next Generation of Robotics”. The IROS organizers are particularly interested in highlighting the contributions of younger researchers and exciting, interdisciplinary applications of robotics.

To coincide with this conference, we are curating an art exhibition titled “Artificial Horizons: Exploring Alternative Robotic Futures''. This exhibition will examine how emerging technologies in automation, robotics, and AI are impacting culture and society. We aim to center personal, cultural, and political narratives of artists and designers from Michigan. We hope that the poetic, engaging, and thought-provoking artworks in this exhibition raise important ethical, social and cultural concerns at the intersection of technology, art, and design.

The first half of the exhibition will take place at Collected Detroit, a brick-and-mortar art gallery located in the heart of Detroit, MI.

Collected Detroit's Mission Statement:

“Collected Detroit believes that the Detroit area is an enormous well of world-class art. It displays and sells not only the work of Detroit’s established and emerging artists, but celebrated works from internationally renowned artists as well. Collected Detroit supports the city’s creativity and talent and works towards spotlighting Detroit as a destination and resource for serious artists and collectors.”

The second half of the exhibition will take place in the Ford Robotics Building (FRB) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. Juxtaposing the typical industrial and academic focus of typical research and scholarship occurring on campus, we hope to inspire students, faculty, and visitors alike to consider all possibilities that the field of robotics has to offer - including new perspectives, beauty, and aesthetics.

Vision & Goals:

Works in this exhibition should aim to contrast the ideologies at the root of academic and industrial robotics. Instead of focusing on hyper-efficiency and replacement of the human through automation and AI, artists should explore alternative applications of robotics. In particular, we want to imagine and speculate alternative futures of these technologies - ones that are equitable, ethical, and moral. We encourage applications of robotics that defy utilitarian design philosophies that are almost ubiquitous in academic robotics. We view these efforts as a way to resist the negative aspects of unbridled technological innovation.

Eligibility:

Artists living in or having strong ties to the state of Michigan are preferred. All forms of media will be considered but with a special focus towards artwork that contains some of the tenets of robotics such as interactivity, kinetics, or computation.

Selection Committee:

Our curatorial committee includes:

Faculty and Students from UM Robotics
Faculty and Students from Art and Architecture
Faculty and Students from the School of Music, Theatre & Dance
Professional Curators from Collected Detroit

Contact Information:

Have questions? You can reach us at artificialhorizons@umich.edu

APPLY HERE

Frequently Asked Questions

What mediums of art are you looking for?

Any 2D or 3D, static or dynamic art is eligible - this includes, but is not limited to:

Paintings, drawings, fashion, sculptures, kinetic sculptures, generative visuals, jewelry, bio art, automota, etc.

Well, what counts as ‘robotic’ art?

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) states “a robot is an autonomous machine capable of sensing its environment, carrying out computations to make decisions, and performing actions in the real world” (Guizzo 2018). Definitions that include these core tenets of sense, compute, act are popular and often accepted in the field of robotics.

We, however, are looking for anything related to robots. It can include one of these tenets, but even that is not required. As long as you can tie your art to our vision and goals statement, we will be eager to consider it.

Well that could be anything! Will you look for anything in particular during the selection process?

While we will absolutely consider anything and everything, artworks that incorporate themes like sensing, interactivity, computation, generative art, and physical movement are most certainly going to grab our attention.

Will my art be for sale?

If you would like it to be, yes!

When will I know if my art has been accepted?

We are aiming to notify participants by mid September.