Announcing the 4th edition of our learning and coaching trajectory, Raise Your Voice (RYV)
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Posted: 5 June 2025
The trajectory is intended for alumni of art and design schools and starting professionals between 21 and 28 years old with an interest in deepening the technology-related aspect of their practices. We aim to include different disciplines to foster the exchange of experiences and highlight the similarities of struggles and opportunities in these different fields.
RYV 2025 edition will be composed of two strands: a 4,5-month trajectory that includes content and practical sessions, individual coaching, an international exchange at Commons Hub in Austria in August, and a 4-month fellowship for 3 RYV participants who will co-curate a public program on the trajectory’s themes in Baltan’s BlaBlaLab community (maker)space.
As an addition, compared to the previous editions, RYV 2025 was developed around a theme: The 21st Century Alchemist.
In 2024, we have been critically reflecting on the current technological landscape in our year program, Technologies Otherwise. It is clear that the mayor ongoing technological developments continue the colonial legacy of the conquest and accumulation of land, resources and wealth.
However, the territories of these developments are not geographical as in colonial times but are virtual ones demarcated by a monopoly of a few multinationals which own the data, the hardware, and the software (the so-called GAFAM – Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft). This new kind of colonialism relies on a mythology of technology developed three hundred years ago by intellectuals of the European Enlightenment. This mythology imposed itself as the only pos- sible mythology by deeming others primitive, especially the ones linked to local wisdom or indigenous innovation.
This is the reason why we centre the program around the alchemist as a figure that could inspire another attitude in how artists, designers and creative practitioners approach their relationship with technology in their practices. Looking at the alchemist as the proto-scientist and technologist who was able to imagine the anatomy of a body and its working without the technical means to understand it, how can we re- search the not-yet possible (for computational/technological reasons) in an instinctive and indisciplinary manner, introducing embodied research, spiritual and magical thinking? In an attempt to re-qualify protoscience, which was discard- ed as primitive in the outcomes but allowed modern science and technology to exist, how can we acquire the attitude of the alchemist to sketch the complexities that later will have the tools to actually understand?
Raise Your Voice is organised in collaboration with the alumni department of Design Academy Eindhoven, the Master Institute of Visual Cultures of St. Joost and DutchCulture and kindly supported by Impulsgelden Kunstloc Brabant and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.
➡️ CONTENT SESSIONS
In 5 content sessions (3-hour in-person gathering), we will explore through the figure of the alchemist new modes of indisciplinary knowledge production and research in art and technology. We will proceed retrospectively, entering the proto-scientific logic of alchemy from a series of items and notions. Those will stand as entry points to dive into a system of knowledge that challenges the modern field of expertise. These sessions are supported by references prepared by the participants upfront and then discussed to- gether, accompanied by a workshop. In this way, the sessions become a collection of notions that participants can decide to include in their practice, questioning their position through the inputs provided.
For each 3-hour gathering, 1 hour is dedicated to a lecture by the invited speaker. The lecture will be co-curated and introduced by the Baltan team and Chimerical Intelligence Lab to link it with the related alchemic object chosen for each session. This is paired with a 2-hour discussion/workshop/activity to activate the lecture topics for our RYV25 participants.
➡️ PRACTICAL SESSIONS
In four practical sessions, we will work on skills crucial for setting up a professional practice. In these three-hour sessions, participants work and reflect on their practice and will receive feedback from Baltan and other organisations.
➡️ INDIVIDUAL COACHING
While content and practical sessions address the whole group, each participant can request up to 4 hours of individual coaching in the timeline of the trajectory.
➡️ INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE
The group will go to the Commons Hub in the Austrian Alps near Reichenau an der Rax. The Hub aims to be an open community space and experimental playground for radical thinkers and doers, bridging the progressive web3 ecosystem and the broader Commons movement. This exchange will be set up according to the unconferencing methodology of Commons Hub. The Commons Hub designs its Unconferences as Open Spaces, co-created dynamically by participants throughout the event. We will invite 2 contributors from our international network to join us as peers during the exchange and prepare an activity/ presentation.
➡️ FELLOWSHIP
We see the fellowship as an extension of the learning trajectory into a phase of maturation for our emerging art and tech practitioners. It puts them in the position not only to concretely develop as artists and designers but also as cultural producer, by creating a public program in which they will learn how to curate and organize events around their project.
Before the end of the 4.5-month trajectory, participants prepare a proposal for a project to be worked on within the fellowship. This proposal needs to contain at least 1 public event and 1 session for our BlaBlaLab community. We will select 3 participants to be the fellows. The fellowship will last 4 months (3 November 2025 to 27 February 2026) and will entail a public program of events (2 per fellow as described above) and a final presentation of the results. The selected participants will be offered a fee, material costs, access to equipment and working space in BlaBlaLab. They will also receive support, guidance and feedback from Baltan and Chimerical Intelligence Lab and they can tap into the knowledge and help of our BlaBlaLab community.
📣 We are looking for designers, artists and makers with a practice based in the Netherlands, particularly in North Brabant, working on technology-related topics. We will select 17 participants to join the trajectory. We encourage recent graduates to apply.
Costs for participation are €450 ex VAT. This is an all-in fee, including participation in content and practical sessions, coaching, travel and accommodation for joining the international exchange at the Commons Hub in Austria.
If you want to participate but do not have the financial means to pay the fee, please include this in your motivation letter.
🚨 FINAL DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION → 14 July 2025
TO INCLUDE IN THE APPLICATION (FREE FORMAT):
1️⃣ Motivation to participate and introduction of who you are
2️⃣ Current project(s) you are working on
3️⃣ Portfolio + link to your website/socials (optional)
PLEASE SEND YOUR APPLICATION → benji@baltanlaboratories.org
➡️ PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
CONTENT SESSION #1 | Chrysopoeia and the Philosopher’s Stone → 15 JUL
The transmutation of base metal into gold. What is the alchemist’s gold nowadays? How could we define value in our technological society besides the economic one?
PRACTICAL SESSION #1 | Project proposal → 24 JUL
We start by working on a project proposal. Participants prepare one beforehand, and we will discuss those collectively during the session. Baltan presents examples of successful project proposals and descriptions from our practice and others. There will be time for the participants to work on their project proposals.
PRACTICAL SESSION #2 | Budget → 31 JUL
Participants make a budget based on the project proposal discussed in the previous session. Collectively we will discuss those and give feedback. Baltan will share guidelines and tools that help set up a budget - such as the Fair Practice Code and various tools for deciding on a fitting fee. There will be time for the participants to work on their financial plans, with support from Baltan.
PRACTICAL SESSION #3 | Bio, artist statement and positioning → 7 AUG [ONLINE]
Participants will be asked to produce three texts, frequently asked in funding applications but also very needed to present themselves and their practice in various channels (personal website, social media, press...). They will be introduced to the main differences between bio, artist statement and positioning and during the session, they will draft them and exchange them with their peers and the Baltan team for feedback. This session is led by Baltan.
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE AT COMMONS HUB (AUSTRIA) - 12-15 AUG
PRACTICAL SESSION #4 | Local and international opportunities → 4 SEPT
In this session, DutchCulture will present various international financing opportunities and residency spots. DutchCulture is a network and knowledge organisation for international cultural cooperation. It supports the Dutch cultural and creative sector with information, advice, and training. AIR Platform Brabant is invited to present the residency opportunities in Noord Brabant. AIR Platform Brabant is a collaboration between organisations that offer an Artist-in-Residence programme in the North Brabant prov- ince.
CONTENT SESSION #2 | Astrological Calendars → 11 SEPT
Divinatory devices based on the study of celestial objects. How will predictive algorithms shape our decisions and, therefore, our societies? Are data the new celestial objects we can read into to discover our future?
CONTENT SESSION #3 | Emerald Tablet → 2 OCT
A compact and cryptic foundational text for many Islamic and European alchemists, deliberately accessible only by initiated alche- mists to keep the most essential aspects of alchemy esoteric. How is technology becoming increasingly esoteric? Is it an issue of our lack of technological knowledge that cannot keep up with a more and more complex field or a deliberate act of tech companies to re- duce our agency in it?
CONTENT SESSION #4 | Panacea → 16 OCT
Also known as elixirs of immortality, are potions that cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. Technological innovations are our elixir of immortality. But how do we sustain our more extended lives on a finite planet, already overpopulated? Is it a longer life, a happy one?
CONTENT SESSION #5 | Final session and proposals pitch → 23 OCT (DURING DDW)
We will invite all RYV25 partners and the Baltan network for a concluding session, in which participants will present their practices and how they benefited from the trajectory. Furthermore, they will pitch their project proposal for the fellowship. A committee composed of Baltan team members and partner representatives will select the 3 winning proposals.
TRYOUT SESSIONS → 15 AUG - 30 OCT
As part of the talent development trajectory, participants will be offered the possibility to test their own ideas in sessions related to a specific technology in our BlaBlaLab (pod- cast studio, audiovisual equipment, sound production, sensors, VR, LiDAR 3D scanner). They will be offered a voluntary fee and a material budget, for a max of 5 events. The audience of these sessions will be RYV25 participants, BlaBlaLab community members and general audience who would like to test these technologies.
FELLOWSHIP → 3 NOV 2025 - 27 FEB 2026
Fellowship final event / 27 Feb 2026 Presentation of the results to partners, network and general audience.
ℹ️ ABOUT BALTAN LABORATORIES
Baltan Laboratories is a cultural lab based in Eindhoven. Baltan initiates and supports art and design projects that focus on societal issues in an imaginative, collaborative and indisciplinary manner. Through its program, Baltan aims at creating space(s) for rehearsing change: hopeful and critical spaces, spaces that empower and emancipate, and inspire us to act.
Raise Your Voice is kindly supported by Impulsgelden Kunstloc Brabant and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industries
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