SHARE PRIZE 2012: THE WINNER IS…
November 6, 2012 11:52 pm
The opening night of the eighth Piemonte Share Festival saw the announcement of the winner of the Share Prize 2012, along with special mentions of other commendable works. The aim of the Share Prize is to discover, promote and support the digital arts. This year the prize attracted entries from 270 artistslocated in 22 different countries.
The entries were short-listed by an international jury consisting of Mirjam Struppek, Bruce Sterling, Carlo Ratti and Simona Lodi. The six finalists were Jonathon Baldwin, Julian Koschowitz, Mariano Leotta, Mark Shepard, Stanza, and VR/Urban.
The jury, represented by Mirjam Struppek, gave the following motivations for its decision:
“The short-list selected by the Jury reflects current artistic practice, revealing an image of our city that seems to be more and more a system ruled by data, information exchange or messages produced by us or our behaviour. Considering criteria such as the formal completeness of the art work, the ability to communicate its message, the bridging of physical and digital realities, the involvement of citizens as creators and the theme Open Your City, the Jury decided to award the Share Prize to the British artistStanza. His work Capacities: Life In The Emergent City was found to have effectively represented, both aesthetically and, above all, technically, city life in real time, monitoring boroughs of London to show the complexity of an urban location in real time as a system in perpetual mutation.”
Sentient City by Mark Shepard received an Honorary Mention as it poignantly questions such fashionable concepts as a “Smart City” based on the internet of things and ubiquitous computing. Offering us an artistic survival kit against an over-coded environment, he prepares us for life in a dystopian sentient city.
Screen Program Dancing Hands
For the video screening Dancing Hands, a special mention went to Antoine Schmitt for his City Lights Orchestra, considered the most participatory, bottom-up project at Share Festival 2012. The Share Festival is calling on everyone in Turin to take part in the collaborative crowd- sourcing initiative City Light Orchestra to Open Your City on 10th November at 9 pm.
The artist Antoine Schmitt needs your helping hands to turn your own window into a blinking pixel of a huge collaborative urban screen. Set up your computer for the pulsing light at the website below, extend the time when its display goes to sleep, turn your screensaver off and put the browser to full screen, then, connect to www.citylightsorchestra.net, put the computer near a window, switch off the lights and go out and enjoy! Out on the street, visit the same web page on your smartphone and pulse in rhythm with the symphony.