Proposal selection is under way!

We received a wonderfully big response to our Open Call for Entries. After carefully reviewing each proposal, we have narrowed down the selection to 35. We’ll be contacting artists regarding technical and location questions to determine the final projects to be exhibited during DLECTRICITY. Artists in this round of selection should expect to hear from us over the next few days. We will be making our final decisions by mid-July. Thanks to all who submitted and stay tuned!

The Open Call is over!

The DLECTRICITY Open Call for Entries has reached its deadline. We got a great response from this open call and can’t wait to begin the review process. We hope to begin letting selected proposals know they’re in by the end of June. Stay tuned!

Apply now in five simple steps!

The Open Call for Entries deadline is June 11 but don’t let that stop you from applying! It is not a complicated application and can be completed entirely online. You must read the Guidelines and FAQ, sign up for SlideRoom, then finish these five steps.

1. Choose a site-specific location chosen from a map available here on the site. Click on the dots to see images of the location. Visit online maps to see different angles, or try to visit the site in person.

2. Write a short proposal that includes your idea and a site-specific location. Use the first few sentences to really get your idea across in a way that’s easy to visualize. Then use the remaining paragraphs to describe your project and how you plan to execute your idea in detail.

3. Write a condensed bio or cv. It doesn’t have to be everything you’ve done, just what you’d like to highlight.

4. Estimate a budget. Try to get as close as possible to actual costs. Remember, you will need to submit receipts for the budget money you receive. If you have questions, email us at [email protected]

5. Upload four images, videos, and/or sound clips. Sketches of your idea are good, as are images of your previous work. Make sure the images convey your idea, and wow us!

After that, you’re done! So don’t delay, apply today!

More about the DLECTRICITY invited artists

DLECTRICITY has invited a small selection of local, national and international artists to create projects for Midtown Detroit. Here are a few more of the invited artists to discover.

Sarah Rara

Sarah Rara is a Los Angeles-based artist working with video, performance, and photography.  She is a contributing member of the band Lucky Dragons.  Her work, solo and in collaboration, has been presented at such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, London’s Institute for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MOCA Los Angeles, the 54th Venice Biennale, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others. She received a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Southern California in 2011. http://www.sarahrara.com

Graem Whyte


Graem Whyte has exhibited extensively in the metro Detroit area since 1998. Whyte and wife, artist Faina Lerman, own Popps Packing, a former meat packing plant in Hamtramck, Michigan, which they have renovated into their home, studio space, and an experimental art venue to host seasonal indoor/outdoor installations, exhibitions, and performances. Creator and curator of the weekly art showcase This Week In Art, at Motor City Brewing Works in Midtown Detroit, Whyte has also been involved in collaborations with a number of other American artists including Eddy Sykes and Mitch Cope. He currently works at the College for Creative Studies in the Foundry.

Robert Andersen

Robert Andersen is a fulltime member of the Oakland Community College faculty in Oakland County Michigan, teaching Film at the Auburn Hills campus.  He is an artist, filmmaker, educator, animator and consultant on digital media in education as well as a recipient of two Emmy® nominations and is well known and respected in the independent filmmaking, non-profit and cultural communities in SE Michigan. He is currently at work on several film and independent art projects. Robert frequently speaks to educators and students on the subjects of industry trends, technology, media and suggests ways we can use technology and media to prepare our next generation to meet the challenges of a global economy. In 2005 he was recognized by Apple Computer as an Apple Distinguished Educator, and has been tapped by Apple and others as a consultant on contemporary media, media arts education, and cinema and technology. In 1993 Andersen founded the Detroit Film Center, a non-profit media arts center providing access to cinema resources to the general public, and currently serves as the board President. Robert is also a community arts activist, involved with many local arts, arts education and grant programs.

Tom Carey

Tom Carey was born and raised in Detroit MI. He spent the 1990’s destroying his hearing at basement punk shows and studying painting at Wayne State in Detroit, then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia PA. After experiencing a moment of great lucidity while drinking with a group of Radical Mummers on the banks of the Schuykill River, he moved his young family back to Michigan in 2003. He was able to obtain a secure job with benefits at the Stooges Wax Museum in Ann Arbor and have been residing in that fair city since 2005. The great mid-western magus Cary Loren asked him to create shadow puppets for a live presentation of Loren’s double LP ‘Children of Mu’ in the summer of 2008. Carey immediately became smitten with the medium and have since created a number of live performances and videos utilizing shadow puppets, and light projections created with two overhead projectors. He also continues to produce drawings, relief prints, and artist’s books that have been shown in galleries since 2000. His dream project is to do an all night shadow puppet play based on Maya Deren’s ‘Divine Horsemen’ at the Belle Isle Casino with music by Griot Galaxy. http://www.rustynailstudio.blogspot.com/

DLECTRICITY Invited Artists

DLECTRICITY has invited five artists who are working in light, video and interactivity to present works at our inaugural event this October. The works will be strategically located along Woodward with the works chosen from the Open Call connecting the spaces to create the event area as a whole.

The DLECTRICITY website homepage features work by five artists who will be showing at this year’s event. The moving images are used to inspire calls for entry, and are used courtesy of:

Jacco Olivier

Based in the Netherlands, works primarily as a painter and creates animated video pieces that seem to be paintings come to life. A graduate of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, he was awarded a residency at Artpace, San Antonio, this year. Olivier has exhibited his works worldwide over the past decade at locations including Madison Square Park, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Marianne Boesky Gallery, and currently at the New York City Center, curated by the New Museum.
http://www.marianneboeskygallery.com/artists/jacco-olivier/

Evan Roth – “Grafitti Analysis: Sculpture”

Evan Roth is an artist and researcher based in Paris who explores the intersection of free culture and popular culture, making work simultaneously for the contemporary art world and the “bored at work” network. His notable pieces include L.A.S.E.R. Tag, Graffiti Analysis and a collaboration with Jay-Z on the first open source rap video. Roth’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art NYC and has been exhibited widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including the Centre Pompidou, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Tate, the Fondation Cartier and the front page of Youtube. http://evan-roth.com

Annica Cuppetelli & Cristobal Mendoza – “Nervous Structure (field)”

Annica Cuppetelli (USA) and Cristobal Mendoza (Venezuela) began their artistic collaboration in the Fall of 2010. Their work has been exhibited in the Biennial of Video and Media Arts (Chile, 2012) and festivals such as FILE 2011 (BRA), FAD 2011 (BRA), video_dumbo 2011 (NYC, USA) among others. Cuppetelli obtained her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (Fibers, 2008) and Mendoza at the Rhode Island School of Design (Digital Media, 2007). Mendoza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, where they are based. http://cuppetellimendoza.com/

Dawn of Man – “Endless Monkey Asbury Park”

Dawn of Man is collective of artists who collaborate on new media, films, and video art, Dawn of Man is “the culmination of eons upon eons of evolution and natural selection.” They have created projection works for the Museum of Modern Art and Heinz Ketchup, and collaborated on the Occupy Wall Street Bat Signal with artist Mark Read. Their “guerilla” mobile projection piece Space Monkey will cruise Midtown, unexpectedly interacting with Detroit’s architecture. http://www.dawnofman.com/