Call for Art submissions—EAGxBerlin

[AronM]

Summary:

Call for art submissions for EAGxBerlin 2023 in September. Deadline August 21.

We are looking to curate visual^[1] artworks (and audio pieces^[2]) that would fit one or two of the following themes: Future Visions + Doing Good
There is a Manifund in which we are requesting a tiny amount of funding.

Themes:^[3]

A) Future Visions

What is your vision for the future?

Some starting ideas: We want to see your Utopias, Protopias, or Dystopias. Do you see thriving civilization(s) past the Precipice? Solarpunk showing sustainable civilization, Transhumanism depicting life’s many potentials, or AI overlord(s) ushering in the Singularity.

B) Doing Good + Inspiration

We would love to see pieces that inspire us to do Good. Themes could include Moral Circle Expansion, Altruism, (Human) Connection, Heroic Actions, Beauty, …

Funding:

The project is run fully by volunteers. We are aiming to cover our material costs. For this you can support us via Manifund. A detailed cost break down can be found there. Here a few key milestones:

1. 100$ is the minimum for the project to receive funding. Achieving this would not cover all our expected costs but it would set a precedent for projects like this.

2. 600$ would allow us to provide high quality prints of 20 pieces + cover the costs of printing info cards and misc office supplies.

3. >1200$ would cover the high quality prints in the 600$ milestone + renting parts of film equipment to create a video of the art with interviews of the artists. Ingvild Syntropia would bring her experience with film, art, and documentaries to create the video.
   

The Venue:

Urania is a culturally rich science & community center. We are aiming to have the art works distributed among hallways and the 1on1 meet-up rooms to enrich your conversations and experience of the conference!

Why do all this?

I claim (as have others) that EA is lacking art on the margin.

Art, for me, is a constructive way of dealing with uncertainty and the many important topics in the world and the (emotional) challenges that arise when working on them. For example AI x-risks are something I am deeply concerned by. But it is not my comparative advantage^[4] to work on them directly (I looked). As a result, to express myself, I recently drew a cyborg Moloch (which was fun) (and which you might see at EAGx Berlin if we get funding :p).

I think art can inspire, facilitate interesting conversations, and communicate ideas^[5]. (And on the plus side, aesthetic pieces make me feel good.) I feel deeply inspired by pieces such as “500 Million, But Not A Single One More”. So I am focusing parts of my attention on what I want to see more of in the world.

And in addition, this feels like a community service. Over the past EAG(x) conferences I have connected with many creative people who did not know that the EA community has many other closeted-creatives like them selves. So this project and the resulting exhibition could be a form of a shelling point for creatives and enable future collaborations.

“We need artists to envision the future, so engineers can built it.”—probably attributed to someone

Connect with us:

EA Anywhere Slack (directly via pm or in the #role-artists channel)

Email: [e-mail] (subject line: EAGxBerlin 2023 - Art Submission)

1. ^

   For digital art pieces we are aiming to offer high quality poster prints or canvas prints.

2. ^

   We are in conversation with the organizers and are requesting slots in the program. If we get these, we can facilitate audio art and performances. Otherwise the art would need to be reduced to visual and written pieces (distributed among the venue), to not disrupt from the conversations and talks happening throughout the conference.

3. ^

   If you have artworks that you think would really fit the conference and should be displayed for the community please share it with us. We aim to curate works with a common thread but could also see displaying other works.

4. ^

   In my day job I look at how to feed everyone during a nuclear winter with the team at ALLFED.

5. ^

   Aren’t the Shoggoth-Memes amazing at conveying the concept of alien intelligences and showcasing the limitations of RL HF?

[Jeffrey Kursonis]

I love this and I and my friends are going to run over to Manifund and put our money where our beliefs get excited!

[Jeffrey Kursonis]

Based on based evidence of our excitement, of course!