Call for entries: Future Places Festival in Porto (Oct. 9-19, 2008)

Future Places Festival: Call for Entries

Date: October 9 - 19, 2008 (Pre-registration now open! Deadline: June 15th)
Venue: Edifício Douro – Porto, Portugal
Detailed call online at: www.utaustinportugal.org, under "Future Events"

The FUTURE PLACES Festival will be a celebration of digital media work currently being produced in Portugal and around the world. The festival will feature web, digital video, and installation art work, as well as electronic music, 3D graphics, cell phone art and productions related to locative media, games and hybrid realities. We are interested in creative and new languages for interactive and visual expression, and their impact on culture, society and public
space.

We want to reach a generation of creators who are breaking conventions. We are addressing this call to those who are blurring the lines not only between disciplines, but between the real and the virtual and between the commercial, the artistic, and the academic arenas. We also want to explore the impact of new technologies in "real life". How can new technology build local communities, create new identities, new narratives, new forms of public interaction?

The festival will be preceded by workshops during October 7 and 8, which aim to bring together members of the digital arts communities, including people involved in research and production, to creatively explore several art forms included under the term "digital media".

One day of the festival will be devoted to panels conducted by speakers with academic and industrial affiliations, and on topics with a business orientation, such as social networking in the corporate environment, bringing the mobile web into the academic environment, alternate reality games, blogging as a profession, and so forth.

Both the workshops and the panels will be facilitated by national and international figures in the field; names will be announced in June. For updates check www.utaustinportugal.org.


Awards:
Three FUTURE PLACES awards will recognize the authors of the best works presented at the festival. The prizes will be a combination of cash prizes and production tools such as computer equipment and accessories.


Eligibility:
The submission of entries is open to all those who work in the Digital Media field in Portugal and around the world. No academic affiliation is required.


Rules:
1) Projects may be entered in the categories that can be found in the pre-registration form; if no category fits a submitted work, the participant may include it under "other".

2) Entries should refer to work produced between 2006 and 2008.

3) Any works currently in production may be submitted as rough cuts or drafts. However, if selected, authors must provide work in final form by September 25th, 2008. Works that have been selected but whose authors have not sent work in their final form by September 25th will
be excluded from the festival.

Note: In the case of installations or performances, "final form" means photos that illustrate the project

4) Formats accepted for submission:
a. Video work;
b. Still images;
c. Web work;
d. Electronic music;
e. Performance incorporating a, b, c or/and d.

Note: In the case of 'intangible' forms such as installations or performance work, a detailed synopsis must be submitted, along with images when appropriate.

5) Formats accepted for exhibition: Digital video: DV and Mini DV; QuickTime video on the web; Still images: TIFF, JPG, PSD; Web: HTML, Flash; Music: MP3, MIDI.

7) Late pre-registrations and/or submissions will not be considered.

8) The decision of the judges will be final and the organizers will not enter into discussion or correspondence in respect of any result.

9) Material submitted to the festival – even if not selected - will not be returned to the author(s). Material not selected will not be used in any way.

Prospective entrants MUST pre-register by June 15. Please submit the form at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0vrCsyzyFXtWHKxvrsR_2bjw_3d_3d

Submission of entry materials to DMfestival@utaustinportugal.org is due July 2.

Please visit the online call (www.utaustinportugal.org, under " Future Events") for more information about the festival and call for entries.

Or, if questions persist

Contact Sofia Santos, Communications Officer of the UT Austin-Portugal
Program, by telephone: +351 21 294 78 56.
Email: info@utaustinportugal.org