European Media Art Platform (EMAP)

European Media Art Platform (EMAP) is a consortium of 15 leading European media art organisations and festivals specialised in Digital and Media Art, Bio Art and Robotic Art. Through an open call, EMAP members offer practitioners two-month residencies built on the legacy of the European Media Artist in Residence Exchange (EMARE) which has existed since 1995.

The basic idea of the EMAP is to enable European media art organisations and artists to collaborate on projects and consequently to create closer bonds between themselves.

Each member host provides an artist grant, travel expenses, production budget, paid accommodation during the residency and access to labs and facilities. Furthermore, the EMAP residency includes events like solo exhibitions and group shows, on- and offline conferences and capacity building workshops to share knowledge.

EMAP also acts as a marketplace for media art partners to select artists and works for their own festivals and exhibitions. The international partner network is constantly growing and currently offers artists the opportunity to present their work to over 90 partners in over 25 countries.

Since 1995 more than 180 artists and their projects commissioned: Super 16 short films, video art, video installations, interactive installations, software based projects including ai, websites, computer animations, performances, sound art projects, robotics, bio art and research based art & science projects.

Member organisations: Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Antre Peaux (Bourges, France), CIKE (Košice, Slovakia), gnration (Braga, Portugal), iMAL (Brussels, Belgium), IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] (Utrecht, the Netherlands), Kersnikova Institute [Kapelica Gallery] (Ljubljana, Slovenia), KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis (Zagreb, Croatia), LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón, Spain), M-Cult (Helsinki, Finland), NeMe (Limassol, Cyprus), Onassis Stegi (Athens, Greece), RIXC Centre for New Media Culture (Riga, Latvia), WRO Art Center (Wroclaw, Poland), Werkleitz Centre for Media Art (Halle [Saale], Germany).

CIKE became a member of the prestigious European Media Art Platform network to provide yet another opportunity for creation and international cooperation to the Kosice’s and Slovak new media art community. As a focal point of Kosice in UNESCO Creative Cities Network (cluster of Cities of Media Arts) and organizer of Art & Tech Days festival & conference, CIKE has a long history of showcasing and supporting new media artists from Kosice and the region and providing them with mobility and residency opportunities to create new artworks and new values for the community.

In our increasingly digitized, technology driven world, next to scientists and programmers, it is artists, who create alternative visions for a more sustainable and just society. Collaboration between these communities helps us to reflect on the impact of new technologies on society. If Europe wants to take a different technological path from China or Silicon Valley, whilst opposing nascent anti-democratic movements, it should focus on the creative, communicative, critical and unifying potential of the arts. Through support for emerging artists we can contribute to secure a tolerant and democratic future for citizens of Europe. The European Media Art Platform (EMAP) was founded for this purpose.

The artistic works produced at EMAP/EMARE help us to reflect the new technologies and sometimes even create alternatives to the tools of the big high-tech corporations.

EMAP residency

Also this year, the European Media Art Platform (EMAP) announces an open call for residences for 2023. You can find more information about the residency here.

In 2023, EMAP announced an open call. During September and October 2023, as part of the European Media Art Platform (EMAP) in Košice, Tatsuru Arai, a Japanese composer and programmer who lives and works in Berlin, collaborated with Košice artist Boris Vaitovič.

Together, they worked on the creation of a site-specific multi-genre artwork entitled Face of the Universe. The artists digitally documented the shapes of flowers in Košice and used artificial intelligence to transform them. Through images and sounds, the creative duo presents a vision of a work of art that allows us to better understand human perception and cognition of the world and to feel part of the essence of the universe. The work also mediates communication between human and artificial intelligence.

The residency of artist Tatsuru Araia was established within the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), of which Creative Industry Košice is a member. The residency is co-financed by the EU’s Creative Europe program.

In 2024, Creative Industry Košice once again became the temporary residency center of Košice, hosting the Dutch new-media artist Leon van Oldenborgh for two months. Together with local screenwriter, director and sound artist Róbert Rampáček, they created the work Discarded Sound, based on the essence of the “noise cancelling” phenomenon. 

Noise-canceling headphones have quickly become the new standard in personal audio, allowing those who are able and willing to invest to retreat into controlled private soundscapes, free from any surrounding noise. But who really has access to this technology, and is this individualistic approach to managing the noisy environments we face every day the best solution? What do we lose by silencing the sounds that this technology classifies as “noise”? 

The project was supported by public funds from the Fund for the Support of the Arts. The Fund for the Support of the Arts is the main partner of the project.

“Funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the body providing assistance can be held responsible for them.”

The residence was established with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Slovakia.