[spectre] 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award

[Leonardo/ISAST]

For immediate release
1 March, 2005
contact: isast at leonardo.info

The 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award

Leonardo/ISAST is pleased to announce that the First Leonardo Global
Crossings Prize has been awarded to Abdel Ghany Kenawy and Amal Kenawy, of
Cairo, Egypt, a brother-sister team who have been collaborating on
large-scale installations since 1997. These works, whether tower-like
structures containing glass balls rising up towards the ceiling or tunnels
leading to a block of frozen ice in a room surrounded by chiffon,
demonstrate that there is no "natural" barrier between the worlds of art and
science.

The Kewanys' unique collaboration is built partially upon Abdel Ghany's
background in the physical sciences and Amal's background in filmmaking, yet
their individual efforts cannot be so neatly defined as singularly
"scientific" or "artistic." Committed to their creative processes, they work
very closely together on every aspect of their projects from
conceptualization and structural design to production and execution in their
workshop. Characteristic of all their projects is the power of texture and
image, and sensorial play with surfaces between spaces (loosening up the
inside/outside polarity)--whether it is a "textured" video, the texture of
light projected on a triple screen of chiffon, the texture of human hair
bows on a pair of wax legs in a display case, or the textures (acoustic and
visual) of a beating heart on which a pair of lace gloved hands is sewing a
white rose appliqué.  For examples of their work see
http://www.thetownhousegallery.com/html/artists/amal_abdelghany_kenawy.htm. 

The three runners-up for the 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award are Regina
Célia Pinto (Brazil---web-based and CD-ROM art), Kim Machan
(Australia---curator, arts producer and consultant) and Shilpa Gupta
(India---Internet, video and installation works).

Other nominees for the 2005 award included: Andres Burbano (Colombia),
Kibook (collaborative team of Visieu Lac [Vietnamese-Australian], Mark Wu
[British-born Chinese] and Stefan Woelwer [Germany]), Nalini Malani (India)
and Hellen Sky (Australia).

The 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award, funded in part by the Rockefeller
Foundation, was juried by an international panel of experts co-chaired by
Nisar Keshvani (Singapore) and Rejane Spitz (Brazil). The award recognizes
the contribution of artists and scholars from culturally diverse communities
worldwide within the emerging art-science-technology field. The award is
part of the Leonardo Global Crossings Special Project, supported by the Ford
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. For additional information about
the Leonardo Global Crossings Award, please visit
http://leonardo.info/isast/awards.html. 

Leonardo/ISAST serves the international arts community by promoting and
documenting work at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and technology,
and by encouraging and stimulating collaboration between artists,
scientists, and technologists. 
Our activities include publication of the art, science and technology
journal Leonardo; the Leonardo Music Journal; the Leonardo Book Series; the
Leonardo Electronic Almanac; and Leonardo On-Line (all published by The MIT
Press). More information about Leonardo/ISAST http://leonardo.info 

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