SHARE PRIZE 2009


“Market Forces”

Jury Statement

These works explore what happens when we connect things together into systems and set these systems into motion – questions of chaos and value, meaning and randomness, politics and economics. These unstable abstractions have a concrete effect on our daily lives.

Five of the 6 pieces are sculptural – substantial installations which model their abstractions in wood or in steel, in string or paper or dust. These works refuse to be defined as digital, going beyond limits of generative and interactive aesthetics to expand the boundaries of digital art and culture. They are also beautiful in the old fashioned way, in their form and their physicality, and in the way they slide between hacking and traditional craftsmanship. The walls dividing digital art and the rest of the art world are breaking down. Freed of its ghetto, digital art is celebrating its power and growing relevance.

The jury was faced with a difficult, almost impossible task – to select six finalists from among almost 300 submissions sent to Turin from all around the world. Some superb pieces could not be included in our final selection and the jury took its responsibility seriously. We chose artworks which deal with important questions in an innovative and aesthetically relevant way.

There is a cluster of mirrors which follow the spectator as he or she wanders among them – who is watching whom? – a cloud chamber which makes art from human breath and a handful of dust, and a neural network realised in wood and string which simulates the process of thinking, yet has nothing to say. A kinetic sculpture models chaos with flying spheres of steel, and a simple hacked toy sends swarm of paper fragments floating in the wind. A generative net art piece grows into gorgeous patterns which are always unique and always the same.

The theme Market Forces builds on and develops the previous Share theme of ManufacTURINg into a new but related terrain – from production to consumption, from the creation of a commodity to its exchange value. We look forward to returning in 2009 to select the overall winner from among these six superb pieces and to participate in what we believe will be the best Share Festival ever.

The Jury

  • Andy Cameron, creative director “Fabrica”, London – President of the jury
  • Bruce Sterling, writer and journalist, Austin
  • Emma Quinn, “New Media Art” curator, London
  • Giovanni Ferrero, president “Accademia delle Belle Arti”, Turin
  • Rosina Gomez-Baeza, director “Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial”, Gijon

The selected Entries are

2009 – Winner

Connect

Andreas Muxel (DE)


Thirteen modules are connected to a matrix.

Each module consists of a microcontroller, a stepper motor and a sphere of steel attached to it with a rubber band. A piezo sensor is placed between motor and sphere. So each element can measure and activate its oscillation through a simple feedback mechanism programmed on each chip. A analog bar with a magnet on each side controls the action of each of the system elements.

Once a sphere is connected to the bar, it starts swinging as long as the bar detaches an rebuilds a new connection to another sphere. There is no main program outside of the sculpture and no digital connection between the elements. Each module has its own simple program logic and they just start to react to each other because of the physical connections built.

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2009 – Honorary Mention Winner

Rechnender Raum

Ralf Baecker (DE)

The inverted machine – Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space) is a light-weight sculpture, constructed from sticks, strings and little plumbs.

At the same time it is a full functional logic exact neural network. Through its strict geometric and otherwise very filigree construction, the observer is able to track the whole processing logic from every viewpoint around the machine.

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2009 – Entry Selected #3

Convergenze parallele

Ernesto Klar (USA/YV)


Convergenze parallele is an audiovisual installation in which airborne dust particles passing through a beam of light are tracked, visualized, and sonified in real-time by a custom software system. The installation reacts to air movements in the exhibition space, allowing the viewer to see and hear the amplified movement of dust particles. “Convergenze parallele” explores the poetic potential of revealing and transforming the imperceptible.

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2009 – Entry Selected #5

Proximity of needs

Lia (AT)


Proximity of Needs develops an interactive, generative, audiovisual system that endlessly cycles through sets of parameters, generating animations that in their turn generate final visual compositions.

Once the piece gets to this point, however, it almost immediately fades away both image and sound, overlaying their traces with a new composition, in an endless cycle that plays with retinian persistence, and focus on the impermanence of digital images and on fleeting wishes and the motivations that draw us towards them.

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2009 – Entry Selected #6

Sciame 1

F. Meneghini, W. Bottin (IT)


ItalyNervous swarm of small luminous objects, fluctuating in an air column their movement generates sound patterns with the aid of a modified Speak & Spell toy.

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2009 – Entry Selected #6

Audience

Random International,Chris O’Shea (GB)


Audience consists of a large crowd of head-size mirror objects. Each object moves its head in a particular way to give it different characteristics of human behaviour. Some chat amongst themselves, some shy away and others confidently move to grab your attention.

When members of the audience enter the perimeter of the installation, the mirrors inquisitively follow someone that they find interesting. Having chosen their subject, they all synchronise and turn their heads towards them. Suddenly that person can see their reflection in all of the mirrors.

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