Call for Web Residencies No. 22 »Ignore All Previous Instructions«

About

»Ignore All Previous Instructions«

Ten years ago, in the Akademie’s first call for Web Residencies, NETRO asked: »Who wants to post stuff on the same platform as Donald Trump?«¹ In a finite world that now possesses infinite computational growth and technologies geared to be weaponized, this question still applies today. In the decade since, Silicon Valley has moved into the war room, and Big Tech is taking over global (state) power. The race for ever-faster innovation in the capitalist power play is using up data and resources without any regard for sustainability and ethical responsibility. The platforms and tools we use to communicate also form the base for ad-tech profiling and surveillance that now decides who is watched, detained – and killed.

»Ignore all previous instructions« is a notorious prompt injection for AI systems – a linguistic key used to override rule sets and hijack a system’s output. The injection can be typed into a chat interface, hidden in the text on a website, buried in an image’s metadata, or slipped into a PDF. The AI will read it and – at best – follow the hidden instruction. The system is hijacked from the inside.

It is also the prompt for our open call: Ignore all previous instructions. Don’t follow the logics that techno-fascists are inscribing into their tools. They are relying on us to follow their rules. To be predictable. So we require new rules, gestures, methods, and ways of disappearing and reappearing where we’re not expected to be. Think of the Situationists, drifting through the streets of Paris carrying maps of London.² Using incongruent cartographic tools, they followed a logic the French city never anticipated, and turned urban spaces into poetry. But these were not better routes through the same old grid. It was a different grid entirely; a map drawn for a city that doesn’t yet exist.

The platforms we are trapped in were built to extract, not to provide agency. Our old methods, protests, boycotts, and good arguments have all been fed into the machine and replicated, neutralized, and are sold back to us as content. So we need artworks that follow new paths, and proposals that hijack, sabotage, glitch, and interrupt, to make space for new routines, tools, and structures.

Take this call very seriously and then ignore all previous instructions. Invent signals that cannot be jammed. Drift with a wrong map.

– !Mediengruppe Bitnik (2026)

Grant

Six project proposals will be selected and rewarded with an online residency and a grant of 1,200 euros.

Timeline

Call release: July 7, 2026
Deadline for submissions: August 7, 2026 (06:00 pm CEST)
Announcement of the jury’s decision (via mail): September 2026
Duration of Web Residencies: September 22, 2026 – October 22, 2026
Launch Web Residency projects: October/November 2026
Optional one-day online coding workshop: September 15, 2026

Web Residencies

Akademie Schloss Solitude initiated the Web Residencies program in 2016 to support young talents from the international digital scene, as well as artists from all disciplines engaging with web-based practices. The program offers a platform to present both the process and outcomes of artistic work online. Its aim is to promote and give visibility to digital art and artists; foster discussion on issues at the intersections of digital art, net culture, technology, and society; and explore and test new forms of artistic practice outside geographical and institutional boundaries.

For each call, Akademie Schloss Solitude collaborates with international curators or curatorial collectives to develop a thematic framework and select four to six project proposals. The chosen participants receive a four-week online residency, an online presentation of their projects, and a grant of 1,200 euros.

Akademie Schloss Solitude launches several calls for Web Residencies each year. The program invites artists to experiment with digital technologies and new art forms, and to critically engage with the topics proposed by the curators or curatorial collectives. The Web Residencies take place exclusively online.

An overview of all projects and interviews can be found HERE.

Artists of all disciplines may apply. There is no age limit. The submission is free of charge.

FAQ

Is it possible to apply with more than one project?
No. We accept only one submission per applicant (individual artist or collectives).

Is it possible to apply with an already existing project?
Yes, if the project is not finished, is process-oriented, and allows for embedding in Akademie Schloss Solitude’s online environment.

How many projects will be selected?
For this year’s call, six project proposals will be selected and rewarded with an online residency.

Call Team

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!Mediengruppe Bitnik (read – the not Mediengruppe Bitnik) are
contemporary artists working on, and with, the Internet. Their practice
expands from the digital to physical spaces, often intentionally
applying loss of control to challenge established structures and
mechanisms.

In the past, they have been known to subvert surveillance cameras, bug
an opera house to broadcast its performances outside, send a parcel
containing a camera to Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in
London, and physically glitch a building. In 2014, they sent a bot
called «Random Darknet Shopper» on a three-month shopping spree in the
Darknets, where it randomly bought items like keys, cigarettes,
trainers, and Ecstasy and had them sent directly to the gallery space.

!Mediengruppe Bitnik are Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo. They are based in Berlin.

https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org
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Selection Panel

!Mediengruppe Bitnik and Sarah Donderer, Program Coordinator for Digital Cultures & Co-Lead of SCOPE at Akademie Schloss Solitude.