praelocutio.exordium.prolusio I. 

 

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PROGRAM STRUCTURE

 

The residency unfolds through three stages, moving from articulation and contextualization to development, pre-production, on-site realization, and public presentation.

 

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Stage I. | October 2026

2 online seminars

 

The first stage establishes the residency’s artistic and discursive foundations. Participants introduce their practices, methods, selected works, current projects, and central questions, creating a shared context for the cohort’s conceptual, performative, material, technological, and methodological positions.

 

Participants present the ideas, materials, systems, prototypes, or existing works they intend to develop. Discussion identifies the artistic, technical, logistical, and ethical questions that will guide subsequent work. Particular attention may be given to the relation between intention and realization, the assumptions embedded in tools and formats, the public conditions anticipated by the project, and its relation to the edition’s conceptual framework.

 

Stage I includes:

– 2 online seminars

– Presentation and contextualization of participants’ practices

– Introduction of selected previous works and current projects

– Presentation of new propositions, prototypes, or works in progress

– Exchange among individuals, collectives, peers, and mentors

– Identification of artistic, technical, practical, ethical, and conceptual questions

– Initial planning for development and public realization

– Introduction to grounding, composition of mind, and [emancipatory practices]

– Q&A

 

The aim is not to finalize projects, but to establish a sufficiently precise basis for development. Participants begin to identify what their work requires, which assumptions organize it, which forms of expertise it depends on, and where experimentation may produce substantive transformation.

 

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Stage II. | November-December 2026

2 online seminars

 

The second stage focuses on development, analysis, and pre-production. Participants present revised concepts, prototypes, plans, diagrams, recordings, code, systems, spatial proposals, technical documentation, or other relevant materials. These are examined through demonstration, discussion, collective analysis, and critical feedback.

 

Depending on the project, inquiry may concern form, duration, scale, materials, fabrication, acoustic behavior, software, electronics, interfaces, data, participation, accessibility, safety, spatial organization, maintenance, transport, installation, energy, coordination, or the relation between conceptual premises and perceptible outcomes.

 

Prototyping is treated as an epistemic and artistic operation. It makes assumptions testable, reveals dependencies, and exposes discrepancies between projected and actual behavior. Failure, instability, friction, and unforeseen response are not automatically celebrated, but carefully analyzed for what they disclose about the work’s structure and conditions.

 

Stage II includes:

– 2 online seminars

– Presentation of developed prototypes, systems, plans, and project materials

– Collective demonstration, testing, and analysis

– Discussion of artistic structures, materials, technologies, and modes of operation

– Technical, performative, and production feedback from peers and mentors

– Critical examination of each project’s premises and anticipated public encounter

– Identification of questions requiring further experimentation or revision

– Assessment of spatial, logistical, accessibility, safety, and technical requirements

– Development of realization, documentation, and presentation strategies

– Preparation for the one-week on-site residency and festival presentation

– Continued engagement with grounding, composition of mind, and [emancipatory practices]

– Q&A

 

By the end of Stage II, projects should be sufficiently articulated to enter an intensive on-site process of realization, testing, adaptation, and public presentation. They need not be conclusively finished, but their artistic premises, operational requirements, and unresolved questions should be clearly defined.

 

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Stage III. | June 2027

One-week on-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week

 

The final stage takes place during the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week in Bled, Slovenia. Participants work intensively to realize, test, activate, and publicly present the selected projects.

 

Materials developed through the online stages are brought into concrete acoustic, spatial, technical, embodied, environmental, and interpersonal conditions. The on-site phase is not conceived as the straightforward execution of prior decisions. Installation, assembly, calibration, rehearsal, programming, testing, repair, and adaptation remain active stages of artistic development.

 

The encounter between proposition and realization may reveal that materials require clarification, reduction, expansion, reconfiguration, or replacement. A system may behave differently at full scale; an interface may produce unintended forms of interaction; a spatial arrangement may reorganize listening; or a collaborative process may redistribute responsibility. Participants are expected to respond critically and practically to such discoveries.

 

Stage III includes:

– One-week on-site residency at the seventh Bled Contemporary Music Week

– Direct collaboration among individuals, collectives, working groups, and mentors

– Material, technical, spatial, sonic, and performative realization of projects

– Installation, fabrication, assembly, calibration, rehearsal, and testing

– Revision and refinement in response to concrete conditions

– Exploration of acoustic, technological, environmental, and social relations

– Preparation of documentation and public mediation

– Performances, installations, laboratories, exhibitions, interventions, demonstrations, and research presentations

 

The public presentations constitute a culmination without implying definitive closure. They situate the projects within a wider artistic and discursive context and make visible the relations among experimentation, making, testing, reflection, collaboration, and public encounter.