Hungry EcoCities is launching the first open call for artists! We are looking for artists who can combine technology and art to explore digital questions and investigate them within our 3 selected directions for the future of food. Our goal is to experiment, together with the selected applicants, and come up with solutions for the future of food through a more healthy, sustainable, responsible, and affordable agri-food system enabled by AI.
What is the role that digital technologies can play in growing healthy, sustainable food?
This is the question that the first Open Call of Hungry EcoCities aims to answer. The call is directed towards artists who are capable of exploring digital questions using a combination of technology and art within AI and digital technology domains. Hungry EcoCities offers 10 artist residencies named Humanizing Technology Experiments, which will focus on the role of digital technologies in growing healthy, sustainable food. The selected artists will receive coaching, network and up to 40,000 EUR as a lump sum per Humanizing Technology Experiment.
Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for the first Open Call of Hungry EcoCities before May 15th, 2023, at 17:00 CET.
The Three Directions
Hungry EcoCities is a groundbreaking initiative that seeks to develop responsible, art-driven solutions for the agri-food industry using AI-enabled technologies. This first call will host 10 S+T+ARTS residencies aimed at humanizing technology experiments. These “experiments” give an opportunity to think differently, to bridge perspectives, to give a voice to unheard actors.
Food is a complex product of our cultural heritage, evolving over millennia through experimentation and innovation. However, our current food system is not without its challenges. When we consider the impacts of food production through the lenses of climate, equity, and health, we see that our system is wasteful, damaging to the environment, and exacerbating issues like obesity and malnutrition. Access to healthy, sustainable, and affordable food is a fundamental human right, and we must work to address these challenges and build a better food system.
The experiments will be conducted in close collaboration with one of the hosts knowledge hubs, consisitnig of the following Art and Design studios. Applicants can consider three directions for experimentation:
Studio Other Spaces Knowlege Hub Germany: led by Studio Other Spaces, founded by Sebastian Behmann and Olafur Eliasson.
EatThis Knowledge Hub Netherlands: led by EatThis, Stephan Petermann and Rem Koolhaas.
Carlo Ratti Associati Knowledge Hub Italy: led by Carlo Ratti Associati partners Monika Löve and Daniele Belleri.
Reflecting on the Use of AI & Digital Tools
In this call, we are searching for artist that want to question and/ or humanize technology. Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to change how and where we grow and process food; how we talk about food; when and where we eat. It has the potential to offer new insights into and tools for how to grow and provide food for a growing global population of 8 billion people while minimizing our dependence on fossil fuels and increasing the health of local environments and, hence, of the planet. In Hungry EcoCities, we seek for proposals that think critically about the potential of AI and take a holistic approach to assessing where AI can offer solutions. The artists are invited to collaborate with the partner universities and get access to their toolbox to explore these questions.
To learn more about the project, we refer to our Project leaflet.
Hungry EcoCities has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101069990. It is part of the S+T+ARTS programme. S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to bring out new forms of innovation at the nexus of arts, science and technology.
