[spectre] UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2005 prize winners announced [u]

[Geert Lovink [c]]

UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2005 prize winners announced

The main prize of the UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2005 - “City and 
Creative Media” goes to Indian artist Ashok Sukumaran.  His “poetic yet 
pragmatic” project SWITCH has been selected out of 242 project 
proposals by the International Jury Committee of the Award through an 
online selection process. 

The six jury members appointed by UNESCO with a balance of geo-cultural 
representation placed the highest value on this project in recognition 
of its innovative, artistic reflections on current urban environment, 
and its critical perspectives on the layering of old technology 
“electricity” and new media within city infrastructures.  Furthermore, 
it was appreciated for exploring and rediscovering urban situations in 
reactivating relations with technological networks .

On this occasion, the grand prize winner will receive 5000 US dollars 
and is invited to present his prize-winning project at the 
International Workshop on Urban Play and Locative Media (18-20 October 
2005, Seoul, Republic of Korea), organized by Art Center Nabi, the 
co-organizers of this year’s edition of the Award.

The project “re-drawing lines” by Tripta Chandola (India) has been 
bestowed the 2nd prize of 3000 US dollars for its original approach of 
experiential remapping and re-visualizing urban slum spaces and the 
hidden interactions of inhabitants by revealing the invisible layer of 
modern cities to appear as tangible reality.

The 3rd prize position has been jointly awarded to two projects: 
“Yellow Chair Stories”, by Anab Jain and “Zhong Shuo”, a collaborative 
project by Iain Mott (Australia) and Ding Jie (China).  Both projects 
will receive a prize of 1000 US dollars. 

While “Yellow Chair Stories” experiments on opening individual nodes 
into a wider network in addressing urbanity and meaningful day-to-day 
interaction with technology within physical urban environments, “Zhong 
Shuo” focuses on the creation of network in communicating on 
experiences and views suited to different cultural contexts and 
reflecting the daily lives of the community.

In addition, the NABI special honourable mention is given to the 
project “Light Attack” by Daniel Sauter (Germany), a social experiment 
elaborated on the concept of the 'moving' image and media intervention 
in the stereotyped neighbourhoods within big urban sphere of Los 
Angeles.

Members of the International Jury committee who have taken active part 
in the selection of prize winners are the following:

• President Ms Yukiko Shikata (Japan), independent media art curator 
and critic
• Mr Eugenio Tisselli Vélez (Mexico), researcher/developer in physical 
interface design and multimedia software development
• Mr Roger Malina (USA), executive editor of the Journal Leonardo and 
Board chairman of the International Society for Arts, Sciences and 
Technology
• Mr Marcus Neustetter (South Africa), media artist and joint director 
of The Trinity Session
• Mr Drew Hemment (UK), Director of the Futuresonic International 
Festival of Electronic Music and Media Arts
• Ms Sohyeong Roh (Republic of Korea), Director of Art Centre Nabi from 
Korea

The designated seventh jury member Ms Samia A. Halaby (Palestine), 
visual artist working with electronic media, could not participate in 
the jury process owing to inevitable circumstances. 

Art center NABI website for the UNESCO prize:
http://www.nabi.or.kr/unesco_award

International Workshop on Urban Play and Locative Media:
http://www.nabi.or.kr/urban_workshop2005