Open call: Unrecorded Voices
Workshop and mentorship programme for AI-generated documentaries and narratives
The French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), in partnership with the innovative French studio u2p050, and Playtopia Festival has announced an open call for the Unrecorded Voices, a unique workshop and mentorship programme exploring AI-generated documentaries and narratives.
This programme invites South African artists, developers, and students to dive into the intersection of art, technology, and history, using cutting-edge AI tools to create speculative documentaries based on historical events and fictional narratives.
The programme is open to South African residents, and will take place online, with a daily workshop from 29 October to 4 November at10:00 to12:00; an individual mentorship programme from 5 November to 24 November, with a final exhibition of the various creative outputs at the Playtopia Festival, the annual Indie games and immersive Arts festival and conference in Cape Town from 6 to 7 December.
Participation is free, however space is limited. Participants will be selected via the open call applications which must be submitted by Friday, 11 October 2024 at 5pm and can be done on this application link.
About the programme:
This workshop, led by u2p050—a collective of artists, historians, and technologists—focuses on the creation of “synthetic archives” through AI-generated content that reconstructs historical moments or imagines speculative events.
Participants will learn to work with AI tools for text, image, and audio generation, developing their own AI-assisted content that highlights underrepresented or unrecorded historical events.
The programme includes philosophical and ethical discussions on AI and its potential to reshape narratives, especially in relation to underrepresented communities and social movements.
Participants will showcase their creations during the Playtopia Festival in Cape Town, Africa’s leading festival for indie games and immersive arts. This offers a significant platform to present their work to an engaged and international audience.
IFAS invites South African artists and developers involved in digital media or technology-based projects, art and computer science students to submit applications to participate. No prior programming experience is required, but applicants should be familiar with technology due to the steep learning curve
Selected participants will gain hands-on experience with advanced AI tools such as GPT, Stable Diffusion, and ComfyUI, while collaborating on creative projects. Participants must be available for the online workshops and flexible for the mentorship programme.
This project is supported by the French Institute of South Africa and Institut français in Paris, under the banner of Novembre Numerique (Digital November).
“Unrecorded Voices falls forms part of a broader initiative to promote digital culture through creative projects worldwide,” explains Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller, Regional Head of New Media, Film & Music at IFAS. “This initiative emphasises co-creation and aims to bridge South African and French digital art scenes, and we are very excited about the creative output that will emerge from the workshops and mentorships as we navigate and pioneer in this digital space.”