Alpaca is a festival on Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts comprised of live performances, workshops and conference talks. We aim to bring people together who value deep, human curiosity into patterns. We hope this call excites you whether you are exploring patterns in heritage crafts or contemporary algorithmic art.
Please read the following in full before starting your proposal.
Dates
Call opens: September 14th 2026
Call closes: November 14th 2026
Decisions communicated: December 2026
Alpaca Festival is taking place 6th-9th May 2027
Conference talks will be held on 6th & 7th May 2027
Workshops and performances will be on 7th, 8th & 9th May 2027
Locations
Alpaca Festival will take place in Sheffield, UK, with additional talk sessions and other activities taking place online.
In addition, we are currently exploring partner events in other cities, including Berlin, DE.
What is an algorithmic pattern?
Humans have always explored algorithmic patterns, as creative, culturally-embedded ways to work beyond our imaginations. Alpaca festival focusses on three aspects of pattern-making:
- Procedures for making, whether notated or passed on through oral culture. These ways of making may be arrived at through playful experimentation, or through e.g. geometry, models and representations. Simple procedures can give us complex and unexpected results.
- Material behaviours, in that pattern-making is always a dialogue between a human maker and their material, and a pattern notation is only complete when considered in terms of the material at play.
- Pattern-making culture is what brings meaning to the procedures and materials of pattern-making, whether through ritual, sharing, collaboration, decoration, trade, or the collective experience of making (or dancing!) together.
We look for a future informed by the past, at the point where ‘information age’ technologies are now becoming ancestral, joining a long history of pattern-making technologies in being passed from one generation to the next.
For our May 2027 festival, we invite proposals for performances, workshops and talks.
Call for performances
We invite proposals for live performances that incorporate algorithmic pattern-based elements.
Last year’s performances included explorations of the geometry of Indian Carnatic rhythms, DJ-ing with paper records, and experimental dance music using handmade software. We welcome performance proposals of different types; if you’re unsure whether your performance will fit then please do get in touch with the organisers to discuss.
Please submit your performance proposal via our online form.
The form asks for
- A brief performance description (for programme notes)
- How your performance fits with Alpaca Festival
- What support you would require from the festival
- Preferred performance duration
- Related web links
- A bio and image for our website.
Call for workshops
We are open to proposals for any kind of workshop, for example hands-on workshops exploring an approach, idea or technology around pattern-making. Last year we hosted workshops on everything from juggling with mathematics, to making records out of paper, Japanese kumihimo braiding, and pen-plotting pattern-based pictures of chickens. We’d love to hear your ideas – if you’re unsure whether it will fit then just get in touch to discuss!
Please submit your workshop proposal via our online form.
The form asks for:
- A brief workshop description
- How your workshop fits with Alpaca Festival
- What support you would require from the festival
- Preferred workshop duration (most pre-booked workshops we’ve done have been around 2 hours but we’re open to different lengths and formats!)
- Related web links
- A bio and image for our website
Call for conference talks
We invite talk proposals in the form of a short abstract introducing the work that will be presented – maximum 2 pages, images are very welcome! We will also ask for a few sentences about your talk that can be published in our programme.
Last year’s conference included 37 diverse talks exploring pattern-based arts, crafts and technology, across textiles, music, choreography, juggling, MRI scanning, visual art and more. Recordings of all the talks are available online.
This year, we encourage conference talk submissions to address the theme of making languages and notations for making patterns. Unexpected and radical interpretations of it are welcomed. For example, ideas around ‘non-scribal’ pattern languages that aren’t notated, alternative pattern editors and interfaces, reflections on heritage pattern notations, and work that stretches or reconfigures definitions of ‘language’ or ‘notation’.
As before, we are very keen to include work exploring ‘heritage algorithms’ in craftwork, as well as in contemporary technology. Submissions may explore pattern languages and notations in traditional technologies such as in textile/fibre arts, music, juggling or choreography that might not involve computers at all. However, vibrant communities of practice are forming around new computer-based pattern languages, such as AdaCAD for weaving, UZU langs for music, and Hydra for live video. As such systems move towards becoming ancestral technologies passed from one generation to the next, they have much to learn from older pattern languages and the communities around them, for example the rich world of textile notations (e.g. the diversity of systems in weaving, braiding, knitting, embroidery), of geometric rhythm systems, and of choreography.
It is clear that people have always thought in algorithmic patterns, and we hope Alpaca will continue to be a place for people working across both traditional and new technologies meet and learn from each other.
Please submit your talk proposal via our online form.
The form asks for:
- A brief talk description (for programme notes)
- A one-two page abstract (uploaded as a PDF file)
- How your talk fits with Alpaca Festival
- What support you would require from the festival
- Preferred talk duration (we anticipate talk slots of around 20 minutes, plus q+a)
- Related web links
- A bio and image for our website
Review process
All conference talk submissions will be peer reviewed by a committee of experts, with the aim of providing feedback to help support and improve the work, whether or not it is accepted for inclusion.
Open access publication
Following revision, accepted abstracts will be published open access, with DOI reference. Contributors will then be invited to submit full length papers/articles to an edited volume after the festival – details of this are to be confirmed.
AI/LLM policy
All submissions should be human-authored, and fully focus on human expression through algorithmic patterns.
We recognise that many people are making use of generative AI tools, e.g. in software development, however the focus of conference submissions should be on human creativity, and not on generative AI or e.g. unsupervised generation of patterns by LLMs. We do want to be inclusive – please do contact the chair if you have any questions or doubts about your use of AI/LLMs.
As a festival we embrace permacomputing principles, and encourage others to consider environmental and social issues around their engagement with technology.
People reviewing submissions will be asked not to use AI/LLM tools in summarising submissions, or in writing their reviews.
Finances
Alpaca is run by Pattern Club, a non-profit organisation. We aim to offer the following to successful proposals as standard:
- Performances: national travel expenses, artist fee
- Workshops: expenses for materials, national travel expenses, artist fee
We may be able to cover additional costs beyond the above on request. We do have a tight budget, and so aren’t able to confirm artist fees at this stage. We are unable to offer international travel expenses in most circumstances.
- Conference talks: for in-person speakers, a free ticket to the festival weekend, and lunch during the conference talk days (6/7th May).
Unfortunately due to budget constraints we are unable to offer fees and expenses for conference talks. As an open access forum, the talks will be free to attend to the general public.
Please do get in contact if you have any questions or concerns about the above.
Contact
If you have any questions for the organisers (Ray, Alex and Lucy) please contact us via email: contact@alpaca.cc
Photo Credits
Talks and workshop photography: Laura Merrill
Performance photography: Peter Martin @sharedprogramme