February 26 - 28th, 2015 | Panjim, Goa

The Goa Project is an unconference of people from different walks of life. People coming together to share what they have found, discovered and invented - learning, sharing and sparking new ideas.

If you have a topic, skill or insight that you believe is worth conducting a debate, discussion, talk, workshop on, go on and use the Funnel to nominate a session for it. If you are a performer - be it a solo act, a band, a magician, or an artist, nominate your performance under the section performance. Performers will be given a slot in the evenings once the session wraps up.

We will call for votes and use the opinion of our event participants as a key factor to decide which sessions make it into the final agenda.

Additionally, each track has one or two curators whose responsibility is to ensure that the quality of sessions is held to the highest content value standard. Curators will consider various parameters to decide the sessions and the time slot alloted for each.

We have a rough framework of tracks - Society, Design, Interactive Media & Cinema, Fringe, Music, Performing Arts etc. and a separate track for workshops. We will define these tracks in the next step of the Funnel with YOUR contributions. (Due: January 25th, 2015).

Have a topic in mind? Want to stir up a spark? Nominate your session!

(Note: Topics related to religion and politics are not accepted.)

Speakers whose talks are accepted into the final list will receive a complimentary pass to the unconference. Those whose nominations did not make it into the final shortlist will be given a chance to register at the rates as of date of submission of the proposal.

Deadline for Submission and voting of proposals: January 30th, 2015

Design Track

This year for the design track we’re inviting submissions based on three loosely held categories

1. Elemental Conversations - We’d like to hear from people on the importance of elements of design and how by altering them one changes the experience or usage itself. Suggestions for this topic are How balance | proportion | emphasis | scale affects design? How color affects design ? How shapes and form affect design ? How space affects design? With this we hope to invite conversations around understanding what it goes to create anything tangible - and how little things can affect it.

2. Designing for a given context - Using the base understanding of elements we’d like to invite deeper conversations on how design is created within a boundary | context. Suggestions - Designing for safe garbage disposal in India, Design language for India, Culturally dependent design.

3. Peripheral relations to design - A more philosophical approach, we’d like to invite peripheral and over-arching topics that relate to design. These could be debates on design in everyday life, learnings from a design startup.

Interactive Media & Cinema Track

The focus of this track is to explore a whole gamut of topics/options which belong to Cinema and/or Interactive Media.

Broad categories being looked at include

1. Business of Cinema-so anything to do with marketing of movies, distribution/release strategy,raising funds-be it for pre-production/production/post production

2. Creative Process-anything on writing/directing/producing etc,can include technical subjects too if it falls under the gambit (but please keep general audience in mind when it comes to the actual content of the session)

3. Interactive Media & convergence with Entertainment-anything that connects interactive media (like video sharing platforms-Youtube/Vimeo/Dailymotion etc) with cinema/music/T.V etc

4. Miscellaneous-anything connected to Cinema and/or Interactive Media which does not fall under a) b) c) categories for example-film criticism,future of interactive media,adaptation of books and plays into films etc.

5. Wacky, innovative and experimental stuff are welcome provided they meet all other criteria’s.

Music Track

Confucius says, ‘Music produces a kind of pleasure that human nature cannot do without’… but what does it take to produce this music? Does music give only pleasure that is immeasurable, or are there more tangible outcomes of being involved with Music?

This year at The Goa Project, the Music Track explores this phenomenon through the following free-flowing categories.

1) Music for a Living - discussions, experiences and options people have already explored to be able to make a livelihood whilst being involved with the Music Industry.

2) The Road Less Travelled - talks, discussions, Q&As by the people who have braved the intriguing, interesting, off-beat paths.

3) Music for the Right-Brained - explores the aspects of music that go beyond just graphs and excel sheets. Delves into that which is abstract, and brings forth the subtleties in one of the most subtle art forms.

Society Track

This year at The Goa Project, the Society Track explores the following:

1. Citizen Participation: We’d like to hear from people on how they’ve made an impact and changed the environments they live, work, play in for the better. We’d also love to hear from you if you have ideas about how we could make our immediate surroundings better, improve the quality of life of our communities.

2. Use of Technology for Change: We want to hear how technology has changed how you communicate with others, spread the message about your goals and enlist people to your cause

3. The Individual as the Vehicle of Change: How have you as an individual inspired those around you with your work, actions. We’ll delve into what motivated you as an individual, what keeps you going.

Performing Arts

The performing arts spell out infinite possibilities. We have located four broad strands to explore its contemporary relevance, discussing new spaces for performance, the arts as a pedagogic too and the relationship between the performing arts and technology. If any of these questions/ concerns resonate with you, propose a session and share your thoughts, knowledge, skills and ideas with us.

1. Contemporary relevance
   Are the shows we see today live stories people want to watch? How can we bridge the divide between the urban, rural and tribal performing arts? Does a story from one such group have relevance for the other? Does language play any role here? Can folk/traditional/classical performance have any meaning for modern westernised audiences?

2. Transforming spaces and transformative spaces
   From warehouses to ruins to railway stations to living rooms in people’s homes, dance and theatre makers, flash mobs and other artists are breaking traditional notions of where theatre or dance may be performed. How does this affect the way audiences view and participate in such activities? When does interactive performance become living performance? Can such audience participation bring about transformation in audiences, and can the rasa experienced by the audience or the catharsis experienced by them in turn transform the theatre?

3. Fresh approaches to teaching theatre and dance
   How are pedagogic practices around the performing arts changing, and growing? Theatre and dance are embedding themselves in a range of locations – from schools and educational institutions to community centres to alternative public and private spaces. Consequently, how are artists evolving interdisciplinary approaches to teaching theatre or dance? How do they use the performing arts as a creative resource to work with varied groups of people?

4. Bridging the performing arts and technology
   In an age where the live arts have been overrun by the visual extravagance and jugglery of cinema, how can performance not only survive, but also thrive and thrill? How can technology be used more effectively on stage to create magic? What role can ancient/local technology play in this? How can we create shows that have the technical prowess of or, even better, are technically superior to the stage shows of London’s Westend or New York’s Broadway? Can such shows be created at costs affordable to developing nations such as ours?

Fringe

Fringe, Geekery and Life Hacks is the platypussian track. Where beaks and teeth and mammaries and eggs and stinging feet come together to live, breath, astonish and thrive. Where the unusual, the random, the arbit and the experiments come to share a moment under the sun.

Essentially, if you can help people to push themselves beyond their current boundaries, we want you. Some of the areas that fall under this category include:

1. Science and science fiction
2. Advanced technology
3. Productivity hacks
4. Travel related stuff
5. Strange, the quirky and Interesting hobbies

Workshops

We are aiming to host Workshops - be it for an hour, two hours, half a day or even a day, where an expert can come do a session on teaching a skillset, a craft or even share best practices. Know someone who is a pottery maker? Or someone who can fold origami or be it more productive skills like the art of story telling, video editing, chocolate making (Yum!), or say learning how to Paint - You get the idea right? We welcome proposals for that. The Workshops will be a parallel session to the already set tracks. We will do our utmost to help you with any or all of the materials required to do the session.

Status: Open for post-event feedback

Confirmed sessions

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Unconfirmed proposals

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