Open Call :: PermaPrompting with Feral (AI)gents

Summer School

SUMMER SCHOOL Event: July 21-24 2025
APPLY BEFORE June 20 2025

AI prompting—the act of shaping how AI systems like ChatGPT generate content—is becoming a widespread everyday practice for creativity and connection, but also control, exclusion, manipulation and environmental devastation. In light of the disruptive presence of AI tools, how do we build literacy around their inner workings and develop collective strategies that challenge proprietary infrastructures?

Machine learning use, transform or refuse? 

Co-organised by the Ars Biologica Independent Study Program (ABIS) of the Budweis – European Capital of Culture 2028, the Doctoral Research Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU), and the Uroboros collective, this 4-day summer school invites artists, designers, researchers, and students of varied backgrounds to experiment with co-creative approaches to prompting and building AI agents. Taking permaculture principles as a critical and generative framework, we will explore whether everyday human–AI interactions can be reimagined through the lenses of interdependence and contextual sensitivity, rather than individual productivity and scale.

Guided by an interdisciplinary group of tutors from different parts of the world, participants will work with their preferred AI data-materials (see Application Guidelines below) and co-create custom feral AI agents–algorithmic entities operating at the edges of utility to explore meanings emerging through spontaneous yet careful engagements with diverse (more-than)human contexts and data. AVU Veletržní Hall will serve as the summer school venue and a living stage where these feral agents will act and react publicly during workshops, lectures, discussions and embodied experiments such as social prompting sessions, clay meditations or performative dérives. The summer school will culminate in a public event, where participants collectively decide how feral agents will contribute to the Ars Biologica Permaculture Symposium in late August.

Dates: July 21st to July 24th 2025

Venue: AVU Veletržní Hall, Prague (Veletržní 826, Prague 7, 17000)

Tutors: Enrique Encinas

Contributors: Ramón Alvarado, Andrej Boleslavský, Markéta Dolejšová, Zdeňka Němcová Zedníčková, Štěpán Kleník & Artur Magrot, Lenka Hámošová

Language: English communication skills are required, but there will be tutors who also speak Czech

Participants: max. 15 people will be selected via an open call (see below)

Fee: Participation is free of charge, but accommodation and travel costs are self-funded by the participants. Let us know if you need recommendations for affordable accommodation in Prague!

Application Guidelines: Technical knowledge of AI is not required to participate; only experience with generative AI on a user level is needed.

Program (in-progress)

DAY 1: Monday 21.7 (10:30-18:30)

10:30 – 11:00 :: Welcome and intro to the summer school

11:00 – 12:30 :: Introductions of tutors and participants

12:30 – 12:45 :: Break

12:45 – 14:00 :: Lecture by Ramón Alvarado “What is an Agent?” + short discussion

14:00 – 15:00 :: Lunch @Klub AVU

15:00 – 18:30 :: Workshop: From System Prompts to PermaPrompting with A°D°A – Virtual Futurologist (Jana Bernartová & Zdeňka Němcová Zedníčková)

19:00 – ?!:00 :: Dinner & Margaritas @Las Adelitas

DAY 2: Tuesday 22.7 (10:00-19:00) 

10:00 – 13:00 :: Workshop: Tools for Crafting Ai Agents with Andrej Boleslavský (participants share their own tools)

13:00 – 14:00 :: Lunch Break

14:00 – 14:30 :: Practising Feralities with Markéta Dolejšová

14:30 – 17:00 :: Experimental Studio I: Making AI agents (directed by participants with support by tutors)

17:00 -18:30 :: Sharing Session

DAY 3: Wednesday 23.7 (10:00-18:00) 

10:00 – 13:00 – Workshop: Rituals for Tuning Human-Machine Intuitions with Lenka Hámošová

13:00 – 14:00 – Lunch Break

14:00 – 14:30 – Performative Lecture: Monkey See, Monkey Do by Štěpán Kleník & Artur Magrot

14:30 – 17:00 – Experimental Studio II: Making [Feral] AI agents (directed by participants with support by tutors)

17:00 -18:30 – Sharing Session

DAY 4: Thursday 24.7 (10:00-18:00)

10:00 – 13:00 – Experimental Studio III: Finalizing [Feral] AI agents (directed by participants with support by tutors)

13:00 – 14:00 – Lunch Break

14:00 – 18:00 – Perma~PromptFest

Activities open to the public where the summer school agents interact with audiences and each other through micro-events such as: 

Social Prompting sessions

Machine Quarrels 

Agentic Theater Plays

Ambient agent Orchestra(tion)

Application details

To apply, please submit the following materials (in English):

• Motivation statement (max 200 words) describing why you are interested in participating and what you would like to explore during the summer school
• Short Bio (max 200 words) including a brief description of your background and creative research practice, as well as any other relevant experiences.
• Micro-Portfolio (optional but encouraged) with a link to your website and/or 2 or 3 selected works. These do not have to be AI-related.
• Proposed Data Source(s). We invite each participant to bring their data along to use as a prompt or input for the workshop activities. These can be anything digital or not: a text archive of your ChatGPT history, random images, scribbled napkin ideas, neural vids encoding dreams, Andalusian food recipes, or something entirely different. Briefly describe what you might bring and why.

Application Deadline: Please submit to enrique@uroboros.design no later than June 26th 2025

Notifications on acceptance will be sent back by June 27th 2025

Partners: Ars Biologica Independent Study Program (ABIS) of the Budweis – European Capital of Culture 2028, Doctoral Research Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU), Uroboros collective, Technical University Liberec

Contact: If you have any questions about the summer school event or the application process, please contact us at: enrique@uroboros.design  or marketa.dolejsova@avu.cz 

We are looking forward to your proposals!