[spectre] atCalls (2004-2007)

[carlos katastrofsky]

 atCalls started as a social utopia: free circulation of relevant
information ought to be a social sculpture and undermine the
capitalistic functionality of some fields of artistic practises.
executed as a free platform of information about calls concerning fine
arts, media arts and theory the aim was to decrease the pressure of
competition by providing equal access to all interested parties. often
artists -especially in the net-context- are acting as collectives, but
when it comes to redistribution of calls and opportunities most of
them are not willing to pass on the according information. too big is
the pressure to catch every single chance to enhance their individual
career advancements or to get support for their own projects.

the setup and expansion of the infrastructure for atCalls came about
in different steps: starting as an unregular newsletter distributed to
friends only, soon a blog was installed to make the gathered calls
easier accessible to a broader public. Not long after this a regular
newsletter had been set up. this form of communication persisted over
the years, only the process of collecting information changed from
time to time. different free blog-platforms and other systems had been
tested to optimize the workflow.

after some unsuccessful attempts to get funds of different kinds the
project has been discontinued since october 2007. the amount of
regular users at this time worldwide was around 500.

http://katastrofsky.cont3xt.net/atcalls/index.html