What VISIT provides
OPEN CALL: Mensch Maschine 2027: ENERGY GHOSTS
From the metabolic exchanges of ecosystems to the infrastructures that power digital technologies, energy is never neutral or isolated. It is material, political and ecological, entangled with the ghosts of extraction, labour, colonialism, myth and magic.
Today, our relationship to energy is increasingly shaped by accelerated technological development, artificial intelligence, extractivist economies and the demands of hypercapitalism. Mensch Maschine invites proposals that critically engage with these conditions while also imagining energy beyond its reduction to a technical resource or economic commodity. The open call encourages artists to approach energy as both a haunting presence and a relational force: one that connects human, more-than-human and technological worlds.
The Mensch Maschine VISIT
Programme welcomes proposals from a broad range of artistic disciplines, including visual art, performance, film, installation, sound, writing and new media. We particularly encourage projects at the intersection of art, energy and ecology that explore the idea of ENERGY GHOSTS from multiple perspectives. These might draw on mythology, cosmology or speculative fiction to consider the unseen dimensions of energy, or examine the invisible infrastructures, histories and residues that continue to haunt contemporary life. We are equally interested in proposals that address energy as an ecological, political or spiritual force, revealing its capacity to shape bodies, landscapes and collective imaginaries.
About the residency
The Mensch Maschine VISIT Residency Programme is an annual fellowship programme that offers four fully funded fellowships to artists from around the world, in partnership with E-WERK Luckenwalde (DE), the JUNGE AKADEMIE - Akademie der Künste (DE), Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (PL), and VISIT - the Artist in Residence programme of the E.ON Foundation. The programme supports projects operating at the intersection of art, energy and ecology, in response to the climate crisis and the rise of autocratic governance, the Mensch Maschine Programme seeks to critically engage with the term "Human Machine"; challenge Western paradigms and the dominant narratives of "progress" and "innovation." The programme looks to encourage pluriversal approaches to digital technologies, imagining future systems and modes of societal regeneration that symbiotically integrate machines with the planet.
Grant
The selected applicants will be endowed with EUR 20,000. This grant is intended to be put towards artist fees and production costs of a new project, which may include research and development, travel, material and presentation costs.
Studio
Three artists will have a studio space and accommodation at E-WERK Luckenwalde, one artist will be accommodated by Akademie der Künste in Berlin. The residency period will last from Mid-August till Mid-November 2027. During these three months, the fellows are expected to live and work on site for at least 75 % of the time and take part in the artistic programme.
Artistic Programme
Throughout the residency, events will take place at E-WERK Luckenwalde, the Akademie der Künste, Berlin and Ujazdowski Castle for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. The residency will culminate in a symposium in October 2027 where the fellows will have the opportunity to show their work in progress together with the 2026 cohort.
Timeline
- Mid-August–Mid-November 2027: Residency at E-WERK Luckenwalde or Akademie der Künste, Berlin
- August 2027: Warsaw Water Retreat at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
- Autumn 2027: Symposium at Akademie der Künste
Important dates
- 1 December 2026: Application deadline
- January 2027: Jury meeting
- End of January: Applicants will be informed
Artists can apply online from October 14, 2026 for the 2027 funding round. The application deadline is December 1 2026 23:59.
