Celebrating the best of international contemporary art practice, the annual RSA Open Exhibition has a long history of over 180 years. The exhibition in the RSA’s Lower Galleries showcases a wide range of small and medium sized works (max. 80cm in any direction) selected through open submission and includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, electronic media and photographs.

The RSA Open showcases nearly 400 artworks each year and incorporates the ever-popular Own Art scheme. Find out more about Own Art on Central Station here.

There is a small entry fee and all artists will need to register and complete the online application process at www.regroyalscottishacademy.org.

For more information, please see the guidelines and FAQs online.

Deadline: 18 October

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj, the group’s work explores interactivity and confronts a media-saturated world in which popular culture rules, using performance, installation, video, mobile and online technologies to ask questions about the ideologies present in the information that surrounds us.

I’d Hide You (2012) commission from The Space, a BBC / Arts Council England initiative

Why we like it:
Blast Theory is innovative and has a strong track record of taking major artistic risks – in Kidnap (1998), for example two members of the public were kidnapped as part of a lottery and the resulting event was streamed online. They have tackled themes of violence, pornography and politics.

A Machine To See With (2010) commission from the Sundance Film Festival, 01 San Jose Biennial and the Banff New Media Institute

In Blast Theory’s film, A Machine To See With (2010) participants play the lead in a heist. Participants signed up online with their mobile phone numbers. On the day, they received an automated call giving them an address to go to. From there, a series of calls instructed participants through the city, they hid money inside public lavatories on the way, met up with a partner in crime and onwards to the bank, the tension rising. This seems like an utterly unique experience as it’s up to the individual participants to deal with the bank robbery and its aftermath.

Find out more:
Website | Vimeo | Flickr | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Interactive Media @ Dundee Degree Show via imd.dundee.ac.uk

Being a fellow graduate this year – eca, sculpture – this was me checking out the competition. (This is unbiased, promise). Having not been before, I didn’t really have any expectations – these are usually dangerous things to have anyway.

So, after last years expedition down the steps and towards the Tay (I have connections) the degree show is back within the college grounds, swallowed up by the winding corridors and studios everywhere that – my stupidity aside – were rather difficult to negotiate.

(Rather than giving a room-by-room, department-by-department run through of the show, this is my overview of the exhibition, taking into consideration that I’m horrible with remember names, details and everything else that would be useful to anybody.)

Primarily, I was disappointed with fine art as a whole. As I have found with other degree shows – gsa, eca, london schools etc – there are usually a few works/people that either stand out or at least have something interesting about them. Though, to say everything was uninteresting within Fine Art would be a rather harsh and sweeping statement, but generally nothing excited me. There was a slight un-polished finish to a lot of the work – generally a degree show trait – like they were expecting to be down the road again, but didn’t quite make it. (I don’t know the story here, so I’m only guessing).

Brushing this department aside – and again taking my forgetfulness into considerations – the highlight/redeeming part of the show was the Interactive Media department that, though off my tracks somewhat, provided design that was thoughtful, interesting and engaging. (There’s a link at the bottom; they’re all worth a look).

Overall, it was a bit disappointing, suggestive that the design departments of Dundee are producing students who are in turn producing work that is more deserving and demanding of attention.

Interactive Media