Welcome to 2019. It’s been 30 years since the World Wide Web was introduced to the world. Four years later, all commercial restrictions were removed and the doors were open for anyone to participate, to innovate, to expand, and to capture.

"The Rigged System" open call is looking for submissions that aim to subvert the power structures in contemporary network systems and corporations. Works that wish to reclaim a sense of agency within the systems where it feels like there is none. What would suitable infrastructures, needed for public opinion-forming and by extension political debate, look like? How can we imagine new forms of political debate and places for political communication? How can we use social media not only as tools, but as spaces to perform alternative narratives that can discover and develop loopholes, hacks, hijacks, subversions, performances, to reclaim authority, to own a part of the structure and perhaps open up the opaque systems that control and govern our society?

Format

We accept text, performance, documentary video and fiction, 3D objects, net sculptures and installations, web archives, apps, and any other experimental mediums. Selected projects should be carried out in open-source formats that are well-documented, shareable, and consider the accessibility of its users, who may range in age, race, gender, economic class, and ability.

Application

Submit your project proposal in the form of:
– a headline
– a concept text in English (1,000–1,500 characters with spaces)
– a header image (high resolution, landscape format)
– a short bio in English (500 characters with spaces)
– a portfolio PDF (images, text, links)

Grant

For each call, the curator selects four project proposals, whose creators are rewarded with a four-week residency and 750 USD. All selected web residents are nominated for the production prize HASH by Solitude & ZKM which will be awarded in 2019.