Grants to New Media and Audio Artists: New Media Residencies
Deadlines
1 March or 1 October
If either of these dates falls on a weekend or statutory holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. Your completed application and all support material must be postmarked on or before the deadline date.
The Canada Council will not accept applications postmarked after the deadline, incomplete applications, or those submitted by fax or email.
Program Description
These grants encourage creative collaboration and knowledge exchange between artists working with new information and communications technologies (“new media”) as means of artistic expression and other sectors of society that are working with new or emergent technologies. The program supports projects that provide mutual benefit to artists and host organizations. Grants may be used to cover direct costs of the residency, such as artists’ subsistence, and the direct costs of research, creative development and production of artworks undertaken during the residency.
Only eligible host organizations may apply to this program. An individual artist or a group of up to three artists working collaboratively may be hosted.
There is no minimum duration for the proposed residency. However, residencies of three months or more are encouraged.
To ensure the vitality and continued excellence of new media art, these grants help support residencies for artists committed to the creation of independent, artist-controlled new media art.
Independent means that the artist initiates and is the driving force behind the proposed project and maintains complete editorial and creative control over the project. Other funding sources must not compromise the applicant's creative control.
These grants are not intended to support work created for the cultural industry of commercial new media.
All Canada Council for the Arts programs are accessible to Aboriginal artists and artists from diverse cultural and regional communities of Canada.
Type of Work Supported
These grants support residencies for artists making creative use of interactive information and communications technologies. Priority is given to projects that involve innovation and artistic expression.
Innovation may be found in the renewal of formal elements in terms of style, technique or process. It can mean a contribution based on the uniqueness of the subject or content of the project, or on the uniqueness of the artist’s perspective or process of expression. Only the most innovative proposals are supported.
Priority is given to proposals involving artists whose work demonstrates the development of an individual style or expressive approach, as well as a commitment to questioning and expanding the art form.
Recent examples of artists’ work in new media include, but are not limited to, the following:
- artworks integrating interactive information and communications technologies
- installations and performances integrating information and communications technologies
- immersive environments
- artworks created through a creative application of communications networks
- web art
- artists’ applications of robotics
- software design leading to the production of an original artwork
- creation of a prototype for use in/as an original artwork
- artworks created using artificial intelligence and artificial life software, and
- “visual music” or VJ performances and/or installations.
Eligibility
Only eligible host organizations may apply; artists may not apply directly to this program. Artists who work with a host organization must maintain significant creative control over their project.
Eligible Host Organizations
To be eligible, host organizations must demonstrate a commitment to new media and new technology development or have related expertise. Potential hosts include research facilities, technology centres, media labs, post-secondary educational institutions, and private companies in Canada or elsewhere, or a science museum. The host must be able to provide the artist with a workspace, an assigned mentor or advisor or resource person, access to appropriate technologies, and administrative resources.
A signed agreement between the artist and the host organization must be in place and be submitted with the application. Applications must clearly demonstrate that the details of the residency are mutually agreeable to the individual artist and the host organization.
Canadian media arts artist-run centres are not eligible to apply to this program, but they may be eligible to apply to the Grants to Media Arts Production Organizations program for operations assistance, including residencies.
Eligible Artists
Artists must be Canadian citizens or have permanent residents status, as defined by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They need not be living in Canada at the time of application.
The program supports residencies of individuals or groups of up to three artists working collaboratively. Only established and mid-career artists may be proposed as residents.
An established artist is one who has been practising for at least seven years and who has created and exhibited a significant body of work in a professional context.
A mid-career artist is one who has been practising for at least three years and who has created and exhibited at least one independent work in a professional context.
Also considered as mid-career artists are professional established and/or mid-career artists in other disciplines who meet the Canada Council’s eligibility criteria for their discipline. To be eligible, these artists must demonstrate that they have basic training in new media, or solid support from experienced individuals working in new media such as recognized programmers or technicians.
Established and mid-career artists must also meet the Canada Council’s definition of a professional artist, defined as someone who:
- has specialized training in the field (not necessarily in academic institutions)
- is recognized as such by her or his peers (artists working in the same artistic tradition)
- is committed to devoting more time to the artistic activity, if financially feasible, and
- has already presented her or his work in a professional context.
In the media arts, a professional context means venues and organizations (real or virtual) primarily devoted to presentation. These may be artist-run centres, exhibition centres, museums, galleries, film clubs, television, cinematheques, festivals or competitions (other than those reserved for student productions); recognized, professionally curated web events; or other recognized presentation venues where the selection of participants is made by media arts professionals.
Full-time students at a school, college or university are not eligible.
Eligible Activities
Research Residencies
Activities that are eligible for funding under Research Residency grants include the following:
- experimentation with tools and technologies
- research and development of new projects
- research and development of ideas and concepts, and
- working with software programmers, engineers, technicians or other specialized consultants to develop knowledge and skills, or other forms of specialized training not leading towards a degree.
Production Residencies
This category supports productions where the artist combines experimentation, exploration and research with the phases of production; or to produce work for which the creative development phase is complete.
Activities eligible for funding under Production Residency grants include all of the above, as well as the direct costs of production of new media artworks.
Type of Work Not Supported
The following types of projects are not eligible for support and do not count in determining an applicant’s eligibility:
- industrial projects
- student projects
- studies for a degree at an educational institution
- projects using new media simply as a tool to record, document or present existing artworks
- projects using new media as a tool to support another artistic discipline (performing arts or musical composition or performance)
- projects that transfer a new media project finished in one format to another, without modification of the original (“re-purposing”)
- productions involving commercial or journalistic approaches to new media, and
- artists’ personal promotional CD-ROMs, web pages or other promotional supports.
Development of financing for a project is not an eligible activity.
Artists are encouraged to seek payment for the presentation, exhibition and dissemination of their completed works. However, proposals for projects that are made only for profit or financial gain are not supported.
Potential applicants should contact Marie-France Thérien, Media Arts Section Officer, well before the program deadline if they have any doubts about the eligibility of their proposed project.
Grant Amount
The following amounts are available:
- Research Residencies – up to $30,000
- Production Residencies – up to $60,000.
Grants cover only the costs that are incurred after the application deadline. They may not be used to purchase equipment or to offset capital costs.
Eligible Expenses
Research Residencies
Research Residency grants may be used to cover:
- artists’ subsistence costs for the time spent working on the project (up to $2,000 per month per resident)
- conference and workshop registration fees (for professional development)
- professional and other fees and honoraria (for programmers, technicians or other specialized consultants, etc.)
- rental costs for equipment, studios and other facilities
- costs of materials and supplies used for experimentation and research
- software licence costs (for specialized software only)
- travel costs
- other costs related to research and/or creative development, and
- administration costs – these are payable to the host organization at the end of the residency (to a maximum of 5 percent of the total grant awarded).
Production Residencies
Production Residency grants may be used to cover all of the above costs, as well as:
- direct costs related to production
- contingency funds (to a maximum of 10 percent of the total grant amount), and
- the costs of promoting, launching, reproducing and copying a work (to a maximum of 5 percent of the total grant amount).
Applicants are asked to submit reasonable, carefully thought-out proposals based on well-researched budgets.
Application Form
Grants to New Media and Audio Artists: New Media Residencies (pdf, 168 KB)
This form can only be printed and cannot be filled out on-line.
Further Information
For further details or to obtain an application form, contact Marie-France Thérien, Media Arts Section Officer.
Telephone: 1-800-263-5588 (toll-free) or 613-566-4414, ext. 5253
TTY (TDD) machine, for hearing-impaired callers: 613-565-5194
Fax: 613-566-4409
Media Arts Section
Canada Council for the Arts
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa ON K1P 5V8
January 2007