The Near Now Fellowship is our artistic and professional development programme which, through curiosity and discovery, helps pioneering artists to explore and realise bold new ideas.

Now in its fifth iteration, the Fellowship continues to attract some of the UK’s leading artists, thinkers and makers working across arts, design and technology.

Our fifth cohort will benefit from a year-long Fellowship with Near Now, supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

We're pleased to announce our newest fellows:

• Above&Below (Daria Jelonek and Perry-James Sugden)
• Will Hurt

The Near Now Fellowship is a tailored programme of support, helping Daria, Perry-James and Will to research and develop ambitious new work, reach new audiences and progress their careers.

We'll be sharing insights into their work and updates about their projects throughout the year.

Above&Below is a London-based artist duo founded by media artists Daria Jelonek and Perry-James Sugden in November 2017, after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Their collaborative practice focuses on interactive and speculative projects, based on hands-on research at the intersection of art, technology and our environment. The artists aim to wire unseen connections together to create new experiences which they believe can change human behaviours for better interactions with our environment. The collective's practice is known to push the boundaries of how emerging technologies are used by the industry; this is why the artist duo is not only using interactive technologies for creative uses, but also to research and reveal their potential for new interactions between human, machine and society.

Through the Near Now Fellowship, Above&Below will use augmented reality technologies and live data in physical and digital experiments that give our environment a voice to teach us about its needs.

studioaboveandbelow.com

• Sarah Brin: Immersion Problems? — Broadway, 9 November 2019
• TouchDesigner with Studio Above&Below — Broadway, 7 March 2020
• More coming soon.

Will Hurt is best known for his brightly coloured, playful, digital interactives which cater to people of all ages and abilities and respond to the geometry of the physical sites they are installed in, abstracting and re-presenting local architecture and landscape. These site-specific interactives bring people together, forging connections and affording them a moment to play, leaving them with lasting memories of novel playful experiences and a new appreciation of their locality. Recent work focuses on contemporary modes of drawing, writing software in which complex geometric worlds can be drawn, animated and explored. Will’s work has been exhibited around the world due to its stand-out aesthetic, technical resilience and engaging immediacy.

Through the Near Now Fellowship, Will aims to explore the creation of new digital tools and experiences to engage people in modes of creative play that are interactive, constructive and shareable.

willhurt.com

• SparkAR Instagram Face Filter Workshop — Nottingham Contemporary, 10 November 2019
• Will Hurt: Type — Broadway Gallery, 7–16 February 2020
• More coming soon.

Banner image: Augmented Reality Sculpture by Above&Below.