SHARE PRIZE 2007


“Digital Affinity/Communities Now”

In 2006 the Share Festival launched a world wide call for proposals for artists working in the field of digital art and culture. This is the 3rd edition of the Festival and the first time the Share Festival included a prize competition.

From over 200 submitted works, an international jury shortlisted six works that were exhibited at the festival, from which one prize winner is selected. The entries came from all over the world and included diverse art forms addressing a wide range of artistic, social and cultural issues. Many of the entries were interdisciplinary in character, reflecting the diversity of creative approaches. Like with many other festivals, there is one prize only that is not tied to a specific technology or genre but rather to their combination and to the expression of ideas.

Jury Statement

The quality of the entries was high and the majority were from young emerging artists. This confirms the need for platforms where artists can present and reflect on their work and that of their colleagues. In this way, the jury considers the prize to be a stimulus for new production and to create visibillity for digital art practice (still rather peripheral to the contemporary art world).

The theme of the Share Festival 2007 was Digital Affinity/Communities Now. Much consideration was given to processes and protocols that regulate communities through creative, reflexive, technological and innovative exchanges: Communities then are not just new forms of aggregation, but a way of being and living, a collective and humanitarian project, a culture that links one billion and 80 million people today. The bonds between these people are not just geographical or family based, but inspired by cultural, ideological and political affinity.

This critical concern is an important one when technologies appear to be more and more social in character sometimes referred to as social technologies or more commonly perhaps web 2.0 but questions remain as to the nature of these social interactions, the quality of participation and the seemingly ineviatble recuperation by big business (YouTube is the latest initiative to go this way). These issues of sociability, popularity and accessibility were noticable in many of the entries for the competition and in particular in the shortlisted works.

The jury was also particularly interested in works that do not focus on technology as a mere functional tool but as cultural expression and social critique. At the same time the jury was interested in the impact and interaction of the works with wider communities of interest and diverse audiences that go beyond just art. Shortlisted works rework existing platforms, hardware, software that are familiar to everyday users. The shortlisted works demonstrate emergent models, strategies and proposals to bring into our experience new political and economical relations and realities of contemporary technological culture. They reflect these issues both critically and playfully.

The Jury

  • Alex Adriaansen, director “v2”, Rotterdam
  • Carolyn Christov Bakargiev, chef curator “Museum Castello di Rivoli”, Torino
  • Gefried Stocker, director “Ars Electronica”, Linz
  • Joasia Krysa, curator “University of Plymouth
  • Vicente Matallana, director “LaAgencia”, Madrid

The selected Entries are

2007 – Winner

Human Browser

Cristophe Bruno (FR)

A human being embodies the World Wide Web, the sum of all the speeches of mankind.

Human Browser is a series of Wi-Fi performances based on a Google Hack, where the usual technological interface is replaced with the oldest interface we know: the human being.

Thanks to its headset, an actor hears a text-to-speech audio that comes directely from the Internet in real-time. The actor repeats the text as he hears it. The textual flow is actually fetched by a programme that hijacks Google, diverting it from its utilitarian functions. Depending on the context in which the actor is, keywords are sent to the programme and used as search strings in Google so that the content of the textual flow is always related to the context.

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2007 – Honorary Mention Winner

½ Eighty Eight

Nils Völker (DE)

The work confronts us with the issues of copyright, hacking and the Internet as a free land, increasingly monopolized by large corporations.

The Bad Guys (The Amazon Noir Crew: Cirio, Lizvlx, Ludovico, Bernhard) steal copyrighted books from Amazon.com – by using sophisticated robot-perversion-technology coded by supervillain Paolo Cirio.

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2007 – Entry Selected #3

Sensity

Stanza (UK)


Sensity is made from real time data that is collected across the city in real time and visualized as a dynamic public installation which is also viewable online.

Sensity visualizes the patterns we make, the forces we weave, which are all being networked into retrievable data structures that can be re-imagined as artworks.

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2007 – Entry Selected #4

ACFC

Gregory Shakar (USA))


The Analog Color Field Computer is an interactive video and sound installation.

It’s sculptural computers produce surging pulses of colours and tones, conveying a symphony of sonic texture and luminescent patterns into the sparsely lit exhibition space. Each ACFC provides controls for users to adjust its hues, pitches and rhythms.

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2007 – Entry Selected #5

AShockbot Corejulio

5Voltcore (AT)


Shockbot Corejulio creates aesthetic information out of disfunction in the form of audio and visual output. Shockbot Corejulio is built out of three main parts: (1st) the programme that controls the shockbot, (2nd) the controlling circuit board, that operates, via relays, the (3rd) motors that then move the shockbot.

The computer sends impulses to the robot that subsequently moves on it’s tracks targeting random points within the computer hardware.

5Voltcore are Emanuel Andel and Christian Guetzer.

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2007 – Entry Selected #6

Mikro Orchestra Project

MOP


The Mikro Orchestra Project is experimental and audiovisual, based on using the Game Boy command section as a musical instrument. The project designer’s main goal was to produce new space for sound based on tones from the Game Boy command section. The group has been together since 2001 and currently has six performers.

Mikro Orchestra Project are Jaroslaw Kujda (aka mikrokilla) – leader, Pawel Janicki – vj and producer, Mariusz Jura, Agnieszka Kujda, Malgorzata Kujda, Tomasz Prockow – vj and programmer.

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