We are on the look out for volunteers to support our programme at Manipulate 2022!

Volunteer Roles at this year’s festival are based around our interactive installation programme. You’ll play an important role in the festival team – ensuring our audiences have a fantastic experience – and promoting the work of our international and Scottish artists.  As a Manipulate volunteer you’ll be invited to our opening night reception and offered a complimentary ticket to an event over the course of the festival. Volunteers are essential to ensuring we can keep these installation events available to access throughout the festival on a free/ pay what you can basis for the public. Find out more about our volunteer roles and time commitments below.

Our volunteer roles this year:

Indoor Installation Steward

Dates: 28th Jan – 5th Feb // These are 2 hour shifts between 12pm and 9pm daily

This year French artists Adrien M & Claire B bring their interactive installation works Fauna and Acqua Alta- Crossing the Mirror to Summerhall. Fauna is a series of ten large-format posters with a custom-built Augmented Reality application that can be discovered via your smartphone which will be sited around Summerhall. Audience members will experience Acqua Alta at the beginning of this trail in the Dean’s Office – where the ten double-pages of a paper pop-up book become the stage for a dance performance. In a simple graphic stroke in black and white, ink drawings and white folded paper come together to reveal the virtual life of dancing miniature beings and their dive into the imaginary realms of water.

In this volunteer role you’ll be based in the Deans Office and around the reception area of Summerhall. We’ll ask you to volunteer for blocks of 2 hours to introduce the art works to audience members, support them to view the installation work, hand out installation maps and point them in the right direction to find Fauna around the building. You’ll also help them with instructions to install an application on their own devices or support them to use Puppet Animation Scotland’s tablets to interact with these digital art works through the Augmented Reality application. Full training will be given.

This is a public facing role and you’ll be meeting and greeting festival goers as they interact with the installation works.

Outdoor Installation Steward

Dates:  Friday 28th Jan  5.30pm- 7.30pm  // Sat 5th Jan 5pm -7pm

Mettje Hunneman brings her public art installation Forest VIDEOLAB to the Meadows just outside Summerhall during two evenings of the festival next year.  This video projection mapping artwork with original soundscape operates from an E Bike loaded with projection gear. The work will highlight and transform this familiar public green space and question our place in nature.

In this volunteer role you’ll be guiding audience members off the paths in the Meadows to help us manage the flow of people and ensure they get the best view to experience the installation. You’ll be talking to passing public about the art work or directing them to the artist who will be present. You’ll also help direct audiences to instruction boards that explain how to download the app on their phone needed to experience the installation’s soundscape in full.

This will be an outdoor event taking place in hours of darkness in January- we will provide high visibility vests and hot drinks to keep you seen and warm but we’d ask that you are comfortable volunteering outdoors at night before signing up for this opportunity.

Volunteer training & the festival experience

Previous volunteers at the festival have appreciated meeting other volunteers, staff and artists as well as finding out more about the behind the scenes work of Manipulate and being able to see shows and events within the festival programme.

Seeing the shows was fantastic! I met some really nice people – it was a great experience! (Festival Volunteer 2014)

As a Manipulate volunteer you’ll be invited to our opening night reception and offered a complimentary ticket to an event over the course of the festival.

We have a COVID policy in place for the festival and training will be given to all volunteers to support them in keeping themselves and audiences safe throughout these experiences.  Training and information briefings will also be given on the installation pieces which you’ll be supporting by Puppet Animation Scotland’s staff team.

If you are interested in volunteering with us for one of the above roles or would like more information please contact Heidi – [email protected]

Images: Reception Manipulate 2019 (c) Elly White, Forest Video LAB (c) Mettje Hunneman, Acqua Alta (c) Adrien M & Claire B x Brest Brest Brest

Subscribe to email

(* = required field)

  • Which newsletters are you interested in receiving?
By checking any of the boxes above you are consenting to the processing of your data for the purposes of delivering our newsletter to you. We use a third party provider, Mailchimp, to deliver our e-newsletter. We gather statistics around email open and click rates using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter.
For more information, please see our privacy policy.