Note: The deadline for this call has passed and submissions are no longer being accepted.

Art-A-Hack is partnering with Battery Dance Festival, Emotibit, eˉlektron and U.S. State Department Alumni TIES / World Learning during this time of COVID-19 by using lockdown and isolation as catalysts to imagine interactive live performance in new ways.

We will be working with two dancers from Battery Dance Company, Hussein Smko and Razvan Stoian who will be wearing Emotibits, special wearable sensors that transmit biometric data live time. The dancers will perform in two separate studio spaces while Art-A-Hackers create with them over a network in virtual spaces, or in ways yet to be imagined.

How the biometric data is viewed, and what type of environment it distributes that data to throughout the collaborative network is the theme of this very challenging ‘dancedemic’ hack. We call on artists, coders, sound designers, thinkers and others to join us in this very unique edition of Art-A-Hack.

Previous editions of Art-A-Hack have been in person, but this edition will take place fully online, and is open to international participation, though the focus will revolve around the dancer’s presence within the New York City EST time zone. We have set up a system to allow participants to read the biometric data of the dancers remotely, which can then be used to generate graphics, audio, lighting, VR, AR, drones or anything you can think of to augment and interact with the dancer’s performance.

The hack will culminate in a live streamed performance as part of the Battery Dance Festival, one of the oldest and most important festivals that will take place in New York City on August 14-20, 2020.

To apply now, please read the Open Call below and fill out the application. We really want to work with you! The deadline for the call is Wednesday, June 24th.

Please make sure you are available to take part on the call-in dates for the key remote sessions between July 7 and August 21.

• Social & orientation - July 6
• Hack kickoff & technical overview - July 7
• Group progress & review session #1 - To be scheduled
• Group progress & review session #2 - To be scheduled
• Group progress & review session #3 - To be scheduled
• Look & learn sessions & co-working — flexible, to be scheduled with your team
• Rehearsal - Early August
• Performance - Mid to late August

How to apply

To apply, fill out the application now for this themed Art-A-Hack. Please consider how your application might support or lead for the above named two dance performances, outlined above.

Describe a project idea you want to try, the ways you might imagine working with this data, and/or the skills you have to contribute. When we receive your applications, we will match you up with others to create teams. This is an ad-hoc process, and we can’t always match everybody to teams, but we work hard to create aligned teams and have had great results from this process in the past.