Rochester ARTWalk 2 - New Media Sculpture at Visual Studies Workshop

ARTWalk, in partnership with The City of Rochester, New York, seeks an experienced artist, architect, or team to develop a site-specific new media sculpture for the grounds of the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW). The project budget is $150,000 (all-inclusive: design, materials, fabrication, screens, engineering, documentation, permits, shipping, travel, lodging, installation, and contingency fund). Liability insurance is required but not an allowable expense.

The artwork is a permanent, exterior work of new media sculpture—a multi-screen showcase for digital and time-based media located in a small public plaza at the busy intersection of University Avenue and Prince Street. The integrated screens will display rotating works in film, video, and digitally-based media curated by Visual Studies Workshop and the editors of Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. The work must function as a sculpture when screens are not activated and should have either internal projection technology or be designed to capture projections from the building. It must be durable, resistant to vandalism, and create a sense of place while animating the VSW frontage.

Eligibility: Open to experienced (5+ years) professional artists, architects, or teams with at least two successfully completed projects of similar budget and scale. Teams may include architects, new media consultants, or other necessary partners. Applicants must demonstrate artistic and technical excellence, new media experience, experience in permanent exterior sculpture/architecture/engineering, understanding of physical computing, and ability to work cooperatively with design professionals and community members. Applications from board or staff members of Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester ARTWalk, Bergmann Associates, Studio William Cochran, or the City of Rochester, or their relatives or business/personal partners will not be considered.

Timeline: Application deadline is November 23, 2009 (November 19, 2009 for hard copy submissions). Finalists will be chosen by December 2, 2009. Finalists will submit concept design documents for technical review on December 21, 2009, and concept models by December 30, 2009, for two weeks of public display. Finalist interviews are scheduled for January 13, 2010. The work will be installed in summer 2011. Finalists will each receive a proposal development fee of 2% of the project budget. An information session will be held on November 13, 2009, at 10:00 AM on-site, with a phone conference option at 2:00 PM (1-800-501-8979, Access Code: 325 8328).