2024 Speculative Futures Digital Arts Student Competition

Co-sponsored with the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community

DEADLINE: 25 March 2024 

Call for submissions:
The International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2024) and the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee are sponsoring the Speculative Futures International Student Competition. Connecting with this year’s ISEA theme, EveryWhen, the Speculative Futures Exhibition seeks to challenge and expand our understanding of the creative and research processes of knowing about ourselves and the world around us.

Theme:
Speculative Futures

Entry guidelines:
Create a digital image, illustration, video, animation, or film that imaginatively explores and interprets the broad theme of Speculative Futures. 

What would life be like in a Speculative Future? Is your vision like a science fiction movie, or is it about a new planetary future? Will your work reveal a blissful utopia, dystopian apocalypse, or something else? Your digital art can serve as a reflection of your unique vision of the future, whether it’s a world filled with technological wonders or a cautionary tale of potential pitfalls.

While exploring Speculative Futures, consider using your artwork as a means to comment on pressing social, political, and environmental issues. Art can be a powerful medium for highlighting the consequences of certain trends or policies and provoking critical thinking about the future. Your work can serve as a thought-provoking commentary on the potential impacts of various choices and scenarios.

We aim to encourage a diverse array of creative approaches that align with the multifaceted nature of Speculative Futures in digital art, encompassing commentary, alternative realities, and speculative design. Unleash your creativity, share your vision with the world through our physical gallery and online platform. The Speculative Futures competition offers students a unique opportunity to exhibit their work on both national and international stages. Entries will be judged by international jurors based on creativity, concept, originality, execution, and adherence to the theme. 

Join us in envisioning the uncharted territories of tomorrow! Submit your Speculative Futures digital art and be a part of this exciting exploration of the world to come.

Exhibition details: 
Selected works will be exhibited at the 29th International Symposium on Electronic Arts 2024 at Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia, and showcased at SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver, US. as well as on the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee website.  

The first-place winners in each category will receive full conference registration to ISEA 2024 or full conference registrations for SIGGRAPH 2024.

Eligibility:
Participants must be currently enrolled as students in an accredited educational institution, or within one year after graduation.

Submission requirements: 

  • One entry per student
  • Video/animation/film of less than 10 minutes are submitted via URL. Make sure your link is not password protected so your submission can be reviewed. We do not have time time contact people who submit password protected links.
  • Name your image: firstname_lastname_2024.jpg (file size max. 2Mb) 
  • artist statement (up to 200 words) 
  • technical Information – software, programming, AI tools, etc. (up to 100 words).

You should not use any copyrighted materials for your work, and you are responsible for copyright-related issues.

Additional information:

About ISEA2024, EveryWhen:

ISEA2024 sets out to explore human perception of timescales and challenge our understanding of past, present and future in the days of singularity and climate change – the Everywhen. The Everywhen is the concept of all time simultaneously present in a place and describes the notion that past, present and future are cohabiting any given location. Where many western cultures believe time is the constant and travels in a linear progression from now to then, First Nations Australians describe the before then, then, now and the future then existing in the constant presence of place: The Everywhen.

Submission templates

Academic template

The academic template is to be used for the following submission types: short paper, full paper, panel discussion, institutional presentation, archive presentation, artist talk / work in progress / demonstration / other non-peer-reviewed presentations.

Using the academic template, submissions for the following presentation types should not exceed the page limits listed below:

  • Full papers can be 5-8 pages.
  • Short papers can be 2-4 pages. 
  • Panel discussion can be 2-4 pages. 
  • Institutional presentations, forums and other proposals can be 2-4 pages.
  • Archive presentation submissions can be 2-4 pages. 
  • Artist talk / Work in progress / Demonstration / Other non-peer-reviewed presentations can be 2-4 pages. 
 
 
Please email Expert Events if you would like access to the LaTex template. 
Pictorial / Visual Essay template

Pictorial submissions are required to use either the provided Word or PowerPoint template. Submissions should be no more than ten (10) pages, excluding references.

 

Workshop application form

Workshop application form is to be used for workshop/tutorial submissions. Submissions should be no more than four (4) pages in length.

 

ISEA2024 acknowledges the Turrbal and Yugara as the First Nations owners of the lands where the symposium will be held. We pay our respects to their elders, lores, customs and creation spirits. We also acknowledge and pay respects to all First Nations peoples across the continent and beyond Australian shores.