• Location: Vancouver, BC
  • Dates: 2 months between November 2016 and March 2017
  • Requirements: Desk space. Nothing else!
I'm currently making plans for a trip to Vancouver. While there, I would like to spend a couple of months embedded in a place where people do cool things. This could be a school, a startup, a community centre... I'm pretty open-minded about the form it would take. Maybe you have some random space that feels a bit dusty and unused. Maybe you're curious about what might happen if someone was there working on cool things and available to chat with people. Maybe you want someone to bring in new ideas to help your team to think about things from a different perspective.

My main goals are:

  • be connected to things that are happening locally
  • create a feedback loop so I can learn from others and share my work
[su_box title="Know someone who might be interested?" radius="6"]Please put them in touch! A blurb about the general idea of the project can be found below. [su_spoiler title="Contact me" icon="chevron" anchor="contact"][contact-form][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Message' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form][/su_spoiler][/su_box]

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Alien Flora exhibition, part of The Artist’s Studio micro-residencies at Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance

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Embedded practice proposal

I am a PhD student in the department of Sociology at Lancaster University, UK, working with supervisors Lucy Suchman and Adrian MacKenzie. My research concerns mobile, social and indie videogames from 1998 onwards; more specifically, I am interested in the development of intimacies between and among people and technologies, and how game design reflects and constructs relationship dynamics. My work uses affect theory and queer theory alongside approaches from Science and Technology Studies. Outside of the PhD work, I work in the games industry as a historian, curator, linguist and writer.

I will be in Vancouver, BC from November 2016 to February 2017, and I am currently looking for opportunities to spend time embedded in a larger institution through a residency or some other appointment. I find that working alongside others allows me to integrate diverse perspectives into my own work, keeps my concerns grounded in the needs of a broader audience, and allows me to put what I learn into action by workshopping ideas and advising on the work of those around me. Examples of things I have done in the past include living with dance and bodywork artists in California, setting up an installation at an art space in a post-industrial English town, and taking a year-long cultural activities position in a small folk museum in Japan. I also have extensive experience with community organising activities such as running conferences, activist groups and running publications.

I am open-minded about the form that my engagement in Vancouver might take, but some examples of the sort of thing I have in mind are:

✺ A further education institution has some vacant space in a foyer, and would like an artist to come and show students something different; in return for use of that space for six hours a day, four days a week, I spend one afternoon a week leading seminars or supervising students.

✺ A start-up has moved into a new office space, which features a ground-floor window. Currently the window is a rather unappealing, dusty display that does not reflect the company’s dynamic, innovative brand. I come in to use the space as a micro gallery and studio, making the company look awesome and consulting with the team to enrich their work.

✺ An LGBTQ+ community project is organising a programme of art events. I join the project as a curator of digital art, bringing to bear my experiences as a queer transgender man and as a design historian to help create workshops and exhibitions.

It would be of great help to me if you could pass on this message to anyone who might be curious about the possibility of setting up a residency, or some other appointment that would involve integrating a researcher, curator or critic into their project.

Zoyander Street rupazero.com

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