OPEN CALL – ‘MEMORIES of the FUTURE’ – The Analogue meets Digital Pop-up Shop – Nottingham, UK – 15th -19th October 2013

Memories of the Future will be a pop-up shop, exploring the relationship between traditional analogue formats, & the digital revolution within the independent creative sector. This will take shape as a retail space in an empty shop, selling products by musicians, filmmakers, photographers, storytellers & artists. It will also form an exhibition space, & a base for collaborative work between mediums and formats. We hope to bring together creative practitioners & start-up businesses from different fields to cross-pollinate skills, opportunities, resources & potential audiences. Our purpose is to explore how we can still use, & treasure, traditional artistic formats while also embracing & exploring the advantages of new media.

Retail

We are looking for products to sell in the shop that must fit the following criteria.

→ Music, photography, film, video, books or new media storytelling (including games & graphic novels). Art, design & illustration will be considered, particularly in terms of storytelling.

→ These products must be produced by an independent business or individual in the UK. We will favour businesses operating outside of the London orbit as we hope to promote regional creative communities.

→ Products can be either digital, analogue, or something of both. We hope to offer for sale a wide selection of vinyl records, paperback books & traditional photographs, as well as DVDs, digital music, ebooks & mixed media experiments that can be downloaded in store from our e-commerce site.

Exhibition

→ The New Media Writing Kiosk will showcase material which experiments with storytelling in digital formats – we’re interested in the unusual use of web platforms, apps or interactive ebooks. The work on show will be on rotation throughout the week.

→ The Analogue Stack will exhibit classic, vintage and unusual curios in old formats, from cameras to games.

→ We plan to support new releases during the week with live music, screenings & performances.

If you have anything particular which fits these categories, or that you feel is very relevant to the overall theme, please don’t hesitate to ask us about exhibiting.

Workshops & Collaborations

We welcome suggestions for workshops & discussions during the week, which tackle issues & techniques pertinent to the debate. Our workshops will mostly act as taster sessions as they must work within the context of the shop, & the materials we have available, such as pinhole photography & bookbinding. We would like an emphasis on D.I.Y ethos, providing ideas for low-cost alternatives to what can often be expensive ventures.

We are running a collaborative project during the week. Those involved will be asked to:

→ Create fresh work under the theme of ‘Memories of the Future’

→ Work with a practitioner of a different medium (we will link up individuals if they wish)

→ Include both digital & analogue elements

The work will be exhibited in a suitable space as part of our wrap party on the final night of the pop-up.

The pop-up shop will take over an existing unused shop in Nottingham for one week in October, with an ongoing sister website selling products for a longer period. For queries/submissions please email Kirsty at fox.beesmakehoney@gmail.com