[Digital] Transmissions III

[Digital] Transmissions is an annual artistic development program, commissioned by the British Council in Jordan targeting Jordan-based artists working across art and technology. Building on previous editions of [Digital] Transmissions, Edition III is hosted by the Jordan Gaming Lab and co-developed with Maysalward, FutureEverything (UK), and Goethe Institut Jordan. This year, the program aims to facilitate new creative opportunities for new media visual artists and creative technologists, including game developers, 3D artists, animators, and multimedia storytellers, to explore meaningful collaboration and production across the art and technology sectors in Jordan.

If you're an artist with experience working in new media art, 3D modelling, animation, worldbuilding, game development, and storytelling, who is interested in delving into contemporary creative forms, technologies, and critical topics, this program is for you!

A group of 9 artists / creative technologists from Jordan will be selected for this edition, and will be offered the following opportunities:

• A four-month remote residency at the Jordan Gaming Lab (JGL), where you will be given the environment, resources, and access to high-performance computers and design engines, for in-depth learning and experimentation, among a team of other creatives to collaborate and produce new virtual immersive experiences.
• Conceptual and formal artistic development sessions and expert advice with established digital artists and mentors from Jordan, the UK, and Germany. Through a series of online and in person mentorship meetings giving you professional guidance, critical feedback, and practical industry advice.
• You will be integrated in a new creative production team with 2 fellow participants and supported by 3 creative professionals including an art director, choreographer, and scenic sound artist who will provide technical and conceptual direction to the overall orchestration of the final productions.
• You will get introduced to and have opportunities to advance your work at the intersection of theatre, new media art, gaming, 3D modelling, virtual worldbuilding, and animation tools.
• Networking, collaboration, and exchange opportunities with creatives working across the visual arts, storytelling, choreography, virtual worldbuilding, sound, and immersive multisensorial experiences.
• During the program you will have opportunities to network and connect with creative and tech practitioners, and engage in roundtable discussions, peer-to-peer project reviews and critiques with your fellow participants and creative team in the program.
• The chance to develop and apply new skills, and produce new work, that will be showcased in summer of 2026 (exact dates and venue TBC).
• Access to a production grant of 1,000 Pound Sterling per participant towards the development of new work, as well as an additional installation cost allowances in Phase 2 of the program, at the time of the final showcase.

• Phase 1 - December 2025 to April 2026: completion of program activities, mentorship, workshops, production, and the final proof of concept for the projects to be showcased in phase 2.
• Phase 2 - May 2026 to August 2026: Finalization, installation, and the final public showcasing of the developed immersive experiences developed In phase 1 of the program.

Cohort structure: Through this open call, 9 Jordan-based creatives will be selected to take part in the program, and they will work in 3 teams of 3, each working toward building a unique immersive experience, inspired by their own interpretation, experimentation and creative production around the curatorial themes of the program (see below).

Creative Support: Each of the three teams, will be guided and supported by an art director, choreographer, and scenic sound artist, throughout the ideation and production phase toward building their final immersive experience.These experts will be joining the teams at different sessions throughout the production phase to collaborate and provide technical and conceptual direction to the overall orchestration of the final productions.
 

Rehearsing Emancipation
Rehearsing Emancipation invites creatives to radically reimagine heritage as a living, evolving source for new cultural and artistic production, one that is simultaneously rooted in cultural identity, animated by new technologies, and open to speculative worldbuilding.

The program offers participants an exciting opportunity to build build ancestral-futurist immersive worlds that are: culturally situated, technologically innovative, and shaped by their own experiences. In doing so, the idea is to celebrate digital art as a tool for cultural agency, storytelling, and the reinterpretation of individual and collective histories and realities.

Working within a collaborative framework, participants in Phase 1 of the program will co-create a virtual world culminating as a coherent theatrical multisensory experience that blurs the line between regional heritage, ancestral rituals, and emancipatory socialism cultural and political futures.

The final public showcase in phase 2 of the program is envisioned to virtually immerse audiences in natural and speculative environments, future societies and cultural identities, as well as new forms of life and intelligence. It is an invitation to revitalize ancestral ecosystems, values, and wisdom, in such a way to inform the futures we imagine and aspire to in the Arab region.

Each of the three teams is invited to build their new world through an adaptation of one of the following areas:

1. Regional Mythologies and legends: A futuristic retelling of mythologies and legends extending from Gilgamesh to Arab epics. This dimension invites artists to reimagine ancient narratives and fictional worlds rooted in the landscapes of Arab heritage to inform contemporary and futuristic realities by exploring themes of solidarity, resistance, love, sacrifice, and loss. To that end, participants are encouraged to adapt their own choice from regionally-rooted stories, myths and classics, such as, but not limited to Antarah ibn Shaddadand, One Thousand and One Nights, Kalila wa Dimna, and Hayyan bin Yakthan, etc.
2. Oral histories, folktales, and ritualistic practices: The Arab region, in its diverse cultural traditions, is home to innumerable chants, songs, and rituals of joy, mourning, birth, harvest, and more, orally passed down across generations. Some span back to prehistory, while others have evolved into recent forms shaped by shifting belief systems and eras of dominance. Participants are invited to reinvent these living traditions through contemporary artistic practices, weaving together sound, visuals, movement, and digital media to give ancestral memory new voice in the futures we imagine.
3. Arab material culture, including archeological artifacts and modern Art.
   Immersive virtual worlds have the capacity to animate and reimagine the repertoire of visual art across the ages, from hieroglyphs, sculptures, reliefs, illuminated manuscripts, and modern art. This subtheme invites one of the creative teams in the program to recreate and choreograph one or more of these material culture artifacts, within a new world that is at once indigenous, regional, and futuristic.

For its third edition, [Digital] Transmissions will explore the potential of immersive digital technologies as a medium for collective worldbuilding. It will bring together creative technologists and new media artists, including: XR creators, animators, game developers, scenographers, performers, and sound artists.

Technically, the program will focus on immersive media, with particular emphasis on:

• Worldbuilding and XR, to create layered, animated virtual experiences in fictional and speculative storytelling, using Blender & Unity as the main design engines.
• Projection Mapping & Large-Scale Light Environments: using spatial projection to transform physical spaces into dynamic narrative landscapes.
• Spatial Sound Design: immersing audiences in soundscapes that interact with visual and physical components.
• Potential Interactive Components enabling audience participation through (AR), sensors, motion tracking, or other responsive technologies.

Program participants are expected to:

• To be based in Jordan and present throughout the key dates of the program to attend all sessions as listed in the program components and timeline (below).
• Engage and be open for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and exchange with fellow participants during all group sessions and critiques.
• Help foster a collaborative and creative environment within your team grounded in mutual respect, shared motivation, and teamwork.
• Ensure the work you contribute to within your creative team responds and aligns to the curatorial theme and technical focus as outlined in the program.
• Ensure the delivery of your project and its related materials within the specified delivery dates and requirements.
• Take part in the preparations leading up to the final public showcase and its accompanying talks, tours and networking events.
• Participate in all documentations activities throughout the program duration.
• Take part in the program evaluation by responding to questionnaires and feedback.

This opportunity is open to artists and creative technologists with experience in Blender and Unity engines, who additionally may be skilled in other 3D and environment design softwares such as: Adobe Creative Suite, Maya, 3Ds max, Cinema 4D etc.. Participants may apply individually or as part of a pre-formed team, studio, or collective of up to three creatives.

• We welcome applications from all artists and creative technologists based in Jordan above the age of 18.
• Program participants should have professional working knowledge in English.
• Program participants should have excellent computer skills (including the softwares mentioned above) and be able to use their own computer / devices for the production outside of the sessions throughout the program
• Program participants should have excellent computer skills (including the softwares mentioned above, i.e: Blender or Unity) and be able to use their own computer / devices for the production throughout the program.
• *Participants who identify as having any kind of disability are required to clearly state that in the application form, in order to understand how to best accommodate needs.

Candidates will be selected based on their motivation statement, experience, and the quality of their submitted portfolio. Attention will be paid to the composition of the group in terms of gender balance and diversity of artistic disciplines in new media art, 3D modelling, animation, and worldbuilding/game development.
To apply for the program, please follow the link below and submit your application. If you have any questions about the program or the application, please contact digital.transmissions@gaminglab.jo.