IRCAM ARRP 2024-2025

Artistic Research Residency Program with Specific Themes

IRCAM is launching a targeted call for our artistic research residency program, providing artists from diverse disciplines the chance to collaborate with one or more IRCAM research teams.

This call is directed towards specific themes detailed below. Given the focused nature of research at IRCAM and our programs, only a limited number of proposals will be accepted through this open call.

A panel of experts will evaluate artists based on the originality and professional excellence of their work. Successful projects will grant artists access to cutting-edge technological resources and guidance from IRCAM's research groups and expert teams.

The structure and duration of each residency will be customized according to the artist's needs and project requirements. Residencies can last anywhere from two weeks to six months, spanning from November 2024 to December 2025.

Residents will be granted 1.800 euros per month. Applicants are required for securing funding for travel, lodging, and any additional project-related expenses not covered in the proposal.

Proposal Submission

The call for applications is open from March 1 to April 1, 2024 (midnight Paris time).

Successfull applications will be notified of their acceptance on June 2, 2024.

For the year 2024, our research teams suggest that prospective residents focus their work on one of the following three themes:

• Interacting with sound synthesis processes through function and relationship 
  With the Sound Movement Interaction Team and the Analysis of Musical Practices Team.
  
  The proposed artistic research residency project within the Sound Movement Interaction (ISMM) team at IRCAM aims to focus on interactions with and expressive control of sound synthesis. It will address the design of interaction scenarios with synthesis processes - both offline for generating large-scale materials and real-time for direct interaction with musicians - involving an indirect specification of the material to be produced, describing it at a more abstract or subjective level than its acoustic characteristics.
  
  The residency will seek to establish a taxonomy of such playing modes through practice, exploring interaction with "functions" - using models internalizing in their representations part of the aesthetic project of their users - or "contexts" - through learned relationships between different sources. It will enable the development of new models and prototypes based on the ISMM team's environments. Collaborations with the Sound Analysis/Synthesis, and Sound Perception and Design teams will be encouraged. 

• New compositional strategies for musical desynchronisation
  With the Analysis of Musical Practices Team
  
  The team is interested in projects that investigate new strategies - at the notational, technical, or performative levels - to elicit complex temporal behaviours within groups of musicians. The aim is to jointly reflect on compositional frameworks that allow to combine locally desynchronized behaviours with broader temporal coordination goals, and to evaluate those frameworks through the organization of various experiments with musicians.
  
  
• Live coding
  With the Analysis of Musical Practices Team
  
  Although the practice of live coding has significantly consolidated and diversified over the past twenty years, it remains a niche practice in computer music. The niche status, and its limited connections with the emerging tradition of computer music as it has developed at IRCAM so far, raise several questions. Is there an aesthetic specific to live coding, or can the paradigm shift it represents be extended towards other traditions of algorithmic, electronic, or mixed music? To what extent can the live coding approach be used to control audio synthesis of generative models, or in another direction, perhaps be coupled with physical interfaces, such as instruments, following the CodeKlavier environment (Veinberg & Noriega 2022), or motion sensors? How does the publicity of the code help make musical thought transparent and inclusive? Providing answers to these questions through the development of original performance environments involving tools or research themes developed by the STMS teams would be the focus of a residency at IRCAM.
  

• Exploring AI based voice processing tools for artistic applications 
  With the Sound Analysis/Synthesis Team
  
  The A/S team is currently working on algorithms for AI based singing and spoken voice processing including alignment, synthesis and/or transformation.
  
  The team is interested in projects using the following tools that are under active development: Vax/Adagio: for multilingual voice alignment, LinA Speech: zero shot voice synthesis (see for example Vall-E), Circe: deep learning models for the transformation (pitch and intensity) with rudimentary support for voice hybridization, VC-Net-Dis: Voice Identity conversion (French or English), ISIS: singing synthesis with French and optionally new singing voices in other language. The reasonable use of external pre-trained models, as for example the Whisper model (OpenAI), is encouraged as long as the use of computational resources remain limited.
   
• Sonic exploration: Composing with spherical loudspeaker arrays (IKO) 
  With the Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces Team
  
  We invite composers and sound artists to apply for our residency focused on exploring the creative potentials of composing with spherical loudspeaker arrays, specifically the IKO. This unique opportunity offers participants the chance to delve into the sonic possibilities afforded by the IKO system, experimenting with spatialization techniques, acoustic environments, and novel compositional approaches. The residency aims to foster innovation in sonic artistry and push the boundaries of audio experiences. Selected residents will have access to state-of-the-art facilities and expert guidance to support their creative endeavors.

Get inspired by stories from past residents and IRCAM's artistic research resdency blog.

Submission Instructions

The IRCAM artistic research residency program supports individual artists. In case of a group application, proposals should be authored and submitted by a designated representative / contact person.

Projects must be submitted electronically using the Ulysses Network platform. platform. All applications must be either in English or French.

Access to the electronic submission system is available after selecting the Artistic Research Residency Program 2024-2025.

You have the option to save your draft application at any point. The submission platform will alert you to any missing information prior to final submission.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Proposal Text

• Present the overall concept of your proposed work, demonstrating its innovation and originality.
• Outline the workplan and methodology to be implemented.
• Explain your reasons for collaborating with a particular research team.
• Provide justification for the requested budget, ensuring all additional requests that require extra budget, such as equipment or rehearsals with musicians, are included in the proposal. Otherwise, they cannot be funded.
  
  

Confidentiality and Data Protection

• IRCAM will treat your proposal, along with any associated information, data, and documents received, confidentially.
• Evaluation experts are also subject to confidentiality obligations.
• Public information may be used by IRCAM for communication purposes.
• Personal data will be processed in accordance with IRCAM's data protection policies.

Important Notes

• IRCAM reserves the right to discontinue a residency after selection, at any point during its progression, and to decline the presentation of a project deemed incomplete, inadequate, or ethically non-compliant with its policies. In such instances, IRCAM reserves the right to withdraw the project entirely from its residency program at any time and without prior notice.
• An artistic research residency does not equate to commission for a work.
• An artistic research residency does not equate to a scientific research residency.
  
  

For all questions or concerns, please contact residency (at) ircam.fr 

Photo: Ircam Live 2020, Las Pintas by José Miguel Fernandez and Raphaël Foulon at the Centre Pompidou © IRCAM - Centre Pompidou, Photo: Quentin Chevrier