The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
ART & TECHNOLOGY LAB
Request for Proposals
Deadline:
January 27, 2014
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has published guidelines and
the application for the initial round of funding for our Art + Technology Lab at
LACMA program. If you wish to apply for an Art + Technology Lab at LACMA
grant, please follow the application process guidelines below. All requests
must be submitted electronically to lab@lacma.org by 11:59 pm on January
27, 2014. All applicants will be notified by email regarding the status of their
application in April, 2014.
The Art + Technology Lab is designed to invest in projects that explore artistic
applications of emerging technologies with the help of partners from private
industry and academia. In the inaugural year of the Art + Technology Lab at
LACMA, the museum expects the program to fund a small number of projects
that engage emerging technology. We seek project proposals that have the
potential to allow the museum and its public to learn alongside artists and
technologists doing thought-provoking work. Projects, including prototypes,
documentation, and work-in-progress, will be presented to the public at LACMA.
The Art + Technology Lab at LACMA grant program is open to individual artists
and artist collectives. Grants given through the program may provide financial
support of up to $50,000 per project to cover artist fees and direct costs,
including materials. In addition, recipients may be supported in-kind by members
of the Art + Technology Lab at LACMA Advisory Board, which includes
representatives from NVIDIA, DAQRI, Accenture, SpaceX, and Google, as well
as independent artists and academics working in art and technology. In-kind
support may include mentorship, coaching, advice and exposure to technologies
in development at partner organizations.
Particular areas of interest include the following:
• Explorations in advanced visualization and computational graphics
• Human/machine interface, EEG technology, sensors, robotics
• Sensory and extrasensory modes of perception
• Mobility: capturing/presenting/utilizing data generated by mobile devices
• Mechanics and machine design
• Data structures and data infrastructure
• Space exploration and the design of machines for environments in space
• Connection and explorations of portable identities and pseudo-identities
• Distributed experience and storytelling through multi-dimensional user
experience design
• Crowd-sourced information production and human-based computation
knowledge
Evaluation criteria:
LACMA curators and staff will review all applications and may recommend one or
more projects to the Art + Technology advisory board comprised of sponsor
companies and independent artists and academics. The museum director and
curatorial staff will make the final selection. LACMA has sole discretion as to the
number of proposals, if any, that it will pursue and accept.
Of particular interest are exploratory ideas and proposals that leave room for
refinement in collaboration with technologists and the museum. In addition,
preference will be given to projects that are publicly accessible, consistent with
LACMA’s mission, and produce models, prototypes and user data that can be
shared broadly.
Projects will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
• Is the project artist-led and does it have artistic merit?
• Does the project explore emerging technology?
• Does it produce an interactive experience that can be presented in the
public space of the museum (which may include virtual/online space)?
• Does the project suggest models, methods, and/or data that may be of
interest to other artists and technologists?
• Does the process proposed by the artist include opportunities to present
demos, prototypes or collaborative opportunities for the public during the
development period?
Artists need not be based in Southern California, though we prefer project
proposals that include some aspect of public demonstration and engagement
with LACMA’s public. Project budgets may include travel for this purpose.
The awarding of the grant may require meetings with applicants to discuss their
proposals and establish detailed agreements. The grants will be awarded only
after definitive agreements are reached, and the amount and timing of the
disbursement of funds will be determined by the nature of each project. All artists
will be required to execute a definitive agreement with LACMA (and, where
applicable, third party participants) which will set forth appropriate agreements
with respect to, among other things, the scope and duration of the project,
required milestones, amount and timing of funding, the involvement of third
parties, intellectual property, licensing and ownership.
A grant period of up to 12 months is allowed. The timing of the award will be
determined by the nature of each project and the time required to reach
necessary mutual agreements. Any planning costs included as part of the project
budget must be incurred during the period of support. No pre-award or postaward
costs may be included in the project budget.
Application deadline: January 27, 2014
Award information: Applicants may request a grant amount up to
$50,000. All
costs included in the project budget must be expended during the period of
support. Applicants may include fees for their own time and/or creative effort,
above and beyond direct costs, as part of the proposed request.
How to prepare and submit an application:
LACMA is not looking for traditional grant proposals. Some degree of uncertainty
and ambiguity is encouraged, in the interest of identifying projects that truly
explore new frontiers in art and technology. Of greater concern are the questions
and methods you wish to explore, and the process you propose for exposing the
results of your experimentation to the public.
The application should address the following questions. Please send it as a
single document, preferably PDF, as an email attachment, with supporting
materials as hyperlinks, jpegs and/or PDFs. Number the pages of the application,
and include your name and the project name in the footer on each page of the
document.
Name of project:
One sentence description of the work for which you are seeking support:
Full description of the proposed project (250 word maximum):
Please submit a bio of the principal artist or collective who will be
responsible for this project (this may be in the form of a separate CV):
Please describe the artistic or creative merit of the proposed project(250
word maximum):
Why do you consider this project to be a meaningful exploration of
emerging technology? (100 word maximum):
In what ways does your project inspire dialogue about the issues at hand,
including the relationship between technology and culture? (100 word
maximum):
Please describe your proposed plan for public engagement. What
opportunities do you foresee to share prototypes, demonstrations and
process with the public? (100 word maximum):
What data will your project produce that may be of interest to other artists,
technologists, or arts organizations? (50 word maximum):
Please list any other sources of funding for this project, including in-kind
support, and, if applicable, any conditions related to that funding or
support:
Total amount requested:
Detailed project budget (please include direct costs, including materials,
software licenses, etc. and any artist fees as well as fees any other
contributors to the project):
If appropriate, please submit up to five images, schematics, renderings,
etc. that represent the idea for your project (jpeg, PDF). Video files (.mov,
mp4) of less than 5 minutes in length will also be accepted. Supporting
media files are not required.
Please provide an implementation plan delineated in a chart similar to the
one below:
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
KEY MILESTONES START DATE FUNDS NEEDED
(Major steps in the project
development)
(Estimated date for each
project step)
(Amount of funds that will be
needed)
