BNMI Co-production Lab: Reference Check

The Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) invites researchers working with new media at the masters, doctorate or post-doctorate level to spend four weeks at The Banff Centre this summer. Join BNMI for its first independent research-based Co-production Residency program, bringing together a select group of researchers. Individuals and small networks who are working with art and new media as a research strategy are invited to explore the broader social contexts of technology and digital culture.

This residency will be valuable to college and university-based researchers who are looking for an opportunity to take a critical look at new perspectives and methodologies in new media technologies. Participants will be supported to pursue their self-directed research. They will also be given the opportunity to reflect on the field of new media and contemporary issues such as creative pluralism and multiple modes of knowledge production.

Participants will have the opportunity to develop their research with a peer group of ten participants and the support and mentorship of BNMI alumni and Reference Check peer advisors. These advisors will work with participants individually and as a group to help focus their ideas, and suggest methodologies, collaborative and multidisciplinary forms, and ways of enhancing their work and impact in the world.

Peer Advisors:

Andreas Broeckmann (De)

Andreas has recently finished his seven-year tenure as director of transmediale, the Berlin-based festival for art and digital culture. He brings extensive curatorial experience in the field of art and media with regard to the development, realization, and documentation of new research projects, and their presentation in exhibitions, workshops, and other event formats. In his own historical and theoretical research, Broeckmann takes a fresh and critical approach to the assumed specificities of media art and media culture, and is advocating their contextualization in a broader, art and culture historical perspective. He sees the Reference Check Lab as an opportunity to work with artists and researchers on developing and fine-tuning their projects in relation to the social and artistic contexts in which these projects will be realised and presented.

Anne Galloway (CND)

Anne brings a strong background in critical social and cultural studies of new technologies. Her research in sociology and anthropology concentrates on people’s local and global mobility experiences and how they relate to a variety of technologies including cell phones, RFID, and biometrics. Anne’s expertise in theoretical matters is balanced with a commitment to qualitative methods and critical empirical research, and encompasses a wide variety of topics related to technology, space and culture. Participants interested in pervasive computing, locative media, and the complex relations between technology, public spaces, infrastructures and politics would find her input particularly relevant. Committed to multi-disciplinary and collaborative research, Anne enjoys exploring creative ways of working with and around each other. She will be leading weekly workshops on material culture, politics, ethnographic practice, ethics, documentation methods and research dissemination. Residents can also join her weekly for cultural fieldwork in and around Banff’s public spaces.

Sarat Maharaj (Sa/UK)

Sarat Maharaj is a research professor at Goldsmith’s College London and professor of visual art and knowledge systems in Lund, Sweden. His research covers cultural translation and differences, textiles, sonics, and visual art as knowledge production. Sarat will lead artistic/ethical dialogues about ‘ways of knowing’. He will also use this residency to stimulate critical reflection around unpacking the entire premise of new media and use that to explore new perspectives and methodologies that people may want to consider/employ in their work. He will also explore how new media potentials are transforming what we mean by art, creativity, cognition, work — both in ‘advanced modernity’ and in the developing world, and what issues they pose for the way we make, experience and curate new media work.

The total cost for this intensive, four-week residency program will be $1,369.80, (CND) plus applicable taxes. Nearly $7500 of additional in-kind support for each project will be provided by BNMI staff and the dedicated studio and production facilities at The Banff Centre’s Creative Electronic Environment.

Your living and working environment will include a private studio, collaborative working spaces, access to production resources, on campus accommodation and dining facilities as well as our arts based library, extensive physical fitness facilities and stimulating multi disciplinary environment of The Banff Centre as a whole. The Banff Centre is located in Banff National Park. Spanning 6,641 square kilometres of valleys, mountains, glaciers, forests, meadows and rivers, Banff National Park is one of the world's premier destination spots.

BNMI is engaged in leading and supporting research related to the field of new media including art, science, technology, education, studio, and future network practice. We attract world-class research partners, institutions, and artists who develop and share knowledge throughout BNMI.