French Workshop & Mentorship Programme in South Africa 2025 (Fully Funded)

French Workshop & Mentorship Programme 2025 | Are you one of the Artists, Developers, Art or Computer Science students this an opportunity for you. This program is designed to foster cultural exchange, enhance language skills, and provide mentorship opportunities for individuals interested in French culture, language, and professional development. read through

Apply here: United States Diversity Visa (DV) Immigrant Visa Program 2026

Deadline for application: 17h00, 11 October 2024

This program serves as a bridge between learners and experienced professionals, enriching participants’ understanding of the French language and culture while also equipping them with essential skills for their personal and professional journeys.

About French Workshop & Mentorship Programme

The workshops will be hosted by the French studio u2p050, composed of artists, historians and technologists, who will be mentoring South African participants in creating speculative AI-generated  documentaries based on historical events and fictional narratives.

This project is supported by the French Institute of South Africa under the banner of Institut français’ Novembre Numerique (Digital November), the international digital cultures festival.

Participants will be invited to engage in the creation of “synthetic archives” – AI-generated audio-visual content that reimagines and reconstructs historical moments or constructs potential events.

The project will focus on events, people, and stories that have been historically underrepresented or entirely unrecorded, with a particular emphasis on marginalized communities and social movements based on the participants. Participants to the project are also invited to explore beyond these suggested themes based on their individual research and creations.

This project is supported under the banner of the international digital cultures festival, Novembre
Numerique (Digital November).

Since 2017, the Institut français and the French cultural network abroad have organised Novembre Numérique projects around the world, as an invitation to question the place of digital cultures in our societies, to increase the awareness of the general public to the new uses of digital technologies, while discovering the richness and diversity of digital creations.

NOTE:

The workshop is taught online, so you need a computer and internet connection. You don’t have to be present physically. All the cloud computers resources will be given to you. So you will have free AI infrastructure during the workshop.

Key Focus Area:

• Explore the potential of AI in creating visual and auditory representations of undocumented
• Critically examine the ethical implications of generating synthetic historical content.
• Develop new methodologies for blending AI-generated content with traditional historical research.
• Create a series of short films or interactive experiences that showcase the potential of AI in historical storytelling.

Benefit

• Explore various AI tools for text, image, and audio generation
• Develop skills in prompt engineering and AI- assisted content creation
• Produce a short film or interactive experience using AI-generated content
• Create “synthetic archives” using AI to reimagine underrepresented historical events
• Engage in critical discussions about the ethics and implications of AI in historical storytelling

Workshop & Mentorship

• Hands-on experience with cutting-edge AI tools (GPT, Stable Diffusion, ComfyUI)
• Collaborative project development
• Exploration of philosophical aspects of AI and non- human rationality
• Focus on social activism and marginalized communities
• No-code approach using visual scripting techniques

Eligibility

• Artists with relation to digital media or technology- based projects.
• Developers who have worked on art installations or creative coding projects.
• Art or Computer Science students if they are very motivated.
• No prior programming experience required, but familiarity with technology is essential (learning
  curve could be hard)
• Programme is open to South African residents only
• Participants need to be available for online technical workshops from 10h00-12h00 daily
  from 29 October – 4 November, and have flexible availability for mentorship from 5 – 24 November

How to Apply

The programme is open to South African residents only. Participants must be available for online workshops daily from 10:00–12:00 (29 October – 4 November), and have flexible availability for mentorship from 5 – 24 November.

Click Here and Apply