maxmachina

Promoted through an open-call, this Fellowship is a creative laboratory where artists receive all necessary resources to execute their creative vision and bring their work to life. Incubating new and existing projects, in addition to direct funding through artist fees, Fellows are offered access to physical production spaces and the technical infrastructure needed to realize ambitious projects. This laboratory fosters an environment where artists, scientists, and technologists can experiment, refine their ideas, and push creative boundaries through creative workshops, peer critiques, and preview showcases. By offering dramaturgical guidance, production expertise, and access to collaborative networks, we help shape ambitious, interdisciplinary works from concept to realization.

What is the theme of MAXmachina 2026?

• The Ghost in the Machine: Celebrating the unpredictable human element—our creativity, mistakes, and emotions—that animates technology and gives it meaning.

• Productive Disruption: Reimagining unpredictability, imperfection, and the “glitch” as a creative catalyst in art, technology, and science.

• Narrative vs. Technology: Investigating the shifting roles of narrative and technology as allies or adversaries—exploring the “positive friction” generated when they challenge, disrupt, or transform one another.

• The Digital/Physical Blur: Projects that dissolve the binary between the digital and the physical. Are our bodies now as much computational as they are flesh?

What’s expected of you?

Artists participate in workshops, planning conversations, progress check-ins, and possibly a public salon presentation. Projects should be ready for active development and open to feedback and collaborative dialogue with MAXlive staff, advisors, and audiences.