Amplify 2020

An open invitation to all American Arts Incubator participants across 6 years, 27 countries, and 30 incubators…

Amplify is a professional development experience for socially-engaged new media artists who participated in an American Arts Incubator (AAI) in their home country. This year, we are opening the invitation to all past AAI participants to attend Amplify as a multi-day online experience.

From Wednesday, September 23 to Friday, October 2, 2020, ZERO1 is hosting a series of virtual talks, workshops, and opportunities for community-building among AAI exchange alumni.

Our goals for Amplify 2020 are to:

• Foster person-to-person connection through cultural exchange
• Encourage continued collaboration between AAI participants, and
• Provide professional development for our attendees

Sessions: Week 2

*Times are noted below in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT); to convert them into your time zone, we suggest using worldtimebuddy.com or timeandate.com.

Monday, September 28 at 8 AM – 10 AM PDT

Writing grants to fund your art project seem daunting and difficult. Equally scary is applying to residencies and fellowships to create and present your work. We demystify the process and go over some best practices of this necessary skill. How to write an effective funding proposal and what do reviewers look for in your application? 

Ram Devineni, Producer of “Priya’s Shakti” augmented reality comic book series and Rattapallax Films

Niki Selken, Creative Development Director at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and Co-Founder of the Emoji Foundation

Monday, September 28 at 10 AM – 11 AM PDT

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Tuesday, September 29 at 8 AM – 10 AM PDT

Dreaming of a new design project? Need to let the world know about the app you just launched? Are you looking for new ways to brand your creative work? This workshop is for you! From creatives to developers and everything in between, we will look into the cycle for creating and launching your work, with a focus on low-cost, free and open source tools. 

Dream It: We will begin with concepting work and telling the story of your process. 

• Project moodboard
• Mind maps
• Word/tag cloud
• Partner activity (interview, worksheet)

Make It: We will explore prototyping processes and documentation for digital and physical work.

• How to document different types of creative works
• Journaling/blogging
• Project concept worksheet
• Grants/incubators

Market It: We will unpack preparing creative briefs and marketing materials. Finally we will look into social media strategies for personal branding and new avenues for creating thought leadership opportunities for yourself. 

• Artist statements
• Portfolio
• Public speaking/presentations
• Social media

Niki Selken, Creative Development Director at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and Co-Founder of the Emoji Foundation

Tuesday, September 29 at 10 AM – 11 AM PDT

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Wednesday, September 30 at 10 AM – 11:30 AM PDT

In the past few months, the global pandemic has accentuated the historical systemic inequalities present in our societies and brought structural injustices into sharper focus. Media and technology help us bear witness to the chronic, acute violence experienced by black and brown bodies.  How do we reconsider the role of artists and media makers as culture bearers and creative change agents? How do we consider this moment to reshape our philosophical approaches to building the futures of our societies?  

Drawing from their own practices and experiences as AAI 2020 lead artists, Rashin Fahandej and Wendy Levy will lead a question-centric workshop focused on community co-creation and the dynamic intersections of art, technology, and cultural impact. How can we develop experiences, a process of collective storytelling, of making and producing, that resists traditional hierarchies, deepens relationships, and builds “community”?

Going further, how might we envision post-COVID systems that could deepen the impact of the projects in movements on the ground, strengthen local networks and organizations, and elevate the role of artists in rebuilding collective creativity and resilience?

Rashin Fahandej, Assistant Professor of Emerging and Interactive Media, Emerson College

Wendy Levy, Executive Director, The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture

Wednesday, September 30 at 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PDT

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Thursday, October 1 at 8 AM – 9 AM PDT

Community science, sometimes called citizen science, is a way to empower groups with greater agency in their local environment. Communities can better advocate themselves when they can conduct and rely on their own assessments of environmental impacts. Building a shared knowledge base can also help strengthen communities against the spread of fake news. Additionally, the public work that communities do at the local level can contribute to global collaborations and have impact worldwide.

In this workshop we will review the work of several successful community science groups like PublicLab.org, Hackteria.org, and iNaturalist. We will review the DIY technologies developed by these groups, and try out some of these tools ourselves! In the first session we will introduce these concepts, and then in the second session we will review and share the community science projects done over the week.

Dr. Andrew Quitmeyer, Director of Digital Naturalism Laboratories

Thursday, October 1 at 9 AM – 10 AM PDT

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Friday, October 2 at 8 AM – 9:30 AM PDT

Friday, October 2 at 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM PDT

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All participants are expected to follow our Code of Conduct.

Questions? Contact us at info@zero1.org