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<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm"><span lang="en-GB"><b>VIDA,
the Art and Artificial Life International Awards</b></span><span lang="en-GB">
begun in 1999 by Fundación Telefónica, was created with the mission
of supporting creative endeavours in this singular field by rewarding
the pioneering efforts of artists. We are now pleased to announce the
launch of the </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>VIDA 14.0</b></span><span lang="en-GB">,
which for the last 14 years have been rewarding artistic projects
developed with technological media that offer innovative insights
into the study of artificial life. </span>
</p><p lang="en-GB" align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm">At a time
when the concept of life finds itself once again in uncharted
territory, a wide range of artistic initiatives attempt to illustrate
and explore this phenomenon, examining its impact on our collective
consciousness and how it affects the cultural, technological and
social mindset.
</p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0.49cm"><span lang="en-GB">Over
the past decade, VIDA has </span><span lang="en-GB">welcomed a
variety of interdisciplinary projects that respond to this situation
and brought them together in a single forum. Using formal strategies
that push the boundaries between existing practices, these projects
offer new perspectives that force us to reconsider our pre-existing
notions of life and artificial life. </span>
</p>
<div lang="en-GB"><b>What types of projects receive a VIDA 14.0? </b>
</div><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span lang="en-GB">The
VIDA Award is granted to artistic creations developed using
artificial life technology. Among the projects submitted to VIDA, the
artists’ ties to this theme and their choice of media are very
diverse. Throughout its history, the competition has welcomed
proposals that challenge the boundary between living and non-living,
between natural and synthetic, either by juxtaposing both realities
or by creating overlapping spaces for reflection. </span>
</p><p lang="en-GB" align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm">The
winning projects include robotic systems, immersive installations,
online video games, autonomous self-organising devices and
evolutionary indicators. Another common characteristic of past
winners is the use of interactive and immersive installations—a
response to today’s environment of technological entities—which
attempt to communicate with visitors by making them part of the
system. Chimerical devices that combine natural and artificial
elements, telepresence systems, network structures that operate as
artificial intelligences, invasive dynamics of increasing complexity
and acumen—these are just some of the themes addressed by the
artists who participate in VIDA. From the very first edition to the
present day, we have rewarded artists who have applied traditional
artificial life technologies to their work, such as cellular
automata, autonomous agents, neural networks, robotics, interactive
systems, virtual ecologies and evolving software. What all of these
projects have in common is that they involve emergent behaviours
which grow more sophisticated over time, react with their environment
and seem to show signs of autonomous life.</p><p lang="en-GB" align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm">In
recent years we have observed an increasing hybridisation of media
and formats among the projects submitted to VIDA, which has led us to
advocate the category’s expansion in order to trace the evolution
of this field. The competition has gradually extended its scope,
maintaining its interest in projects that involve conventional
artificial life research while also venturing into new, cutting-edge
territories such as life sciences and environmental sciences. In
short, we could say that VIDA rewards artistic projects that are
related to any dynamic life process affected by simulation.</p><div><br></div><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span lang="en-GB"><b>As
in previous years, contestants are invited to submit proposals in one
of two categories:</b></span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">CATEGORY “FINALISED PROJECTS”</span></p><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span lang="en-GB">In
this category, Vida 14.0 rewards artistic artificial life projects
developed after the year 2010. A total of </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>40,000
euros</b></span><span lang="en-GB"> will be divided among the three
winning projects chosen by the jury: </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>First
Prize: 18,000 euros; Second Prize: 14,000 euros; Third Prize: 8,000
euros</b></span><span lang="en-GB">. Seven honorary mentions will
also be awarded to projects chosen by the jury from among the
finalists. </span>
</div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><b><span lang="en-GB">CATEGORY
“INCENTIVES FOR PRODUCTION"</span></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span lang="en-GB">In
this category, Vida 14.0 helps to finance artistic artificial life
projects that have not yet been produced.</span><span lang="en-GB">
It is reserved for artists who are citizens or residents of any
country in </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>Latin America, Spain or
Portugal</b></span><span lang="en-GB">. This category is also endowed
with </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>40,000 euros</b></span><span lang="en-GB">
to be divided among the selected projects.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">IMPORTANT DATES</span></div><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span lang="en-GB">Project
submissions will be accepted from </span><span lang="en-GB"><b>23</b></span><sup><span lang="en-GB"><b>rd</b></span></sup><span lang="en-GB"><b>
April to 30</b></span><sup><span lang="en-GB"><b>th</b></span></sup><span lang="en-GB"><b>
July 2012</b></span><span lang="en-GB">.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span lang="en-GB">All
projects must be submitted before midnight (Central European Time) on
30th July 2012.</span></p>
<div lang="en-GB"><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">JURY</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span lang="en-GB">Submitted
projects will be reviewed by an international jury consisting of
</span><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Mónica Bello</span></strong><span lang="en-GB">
(Spain), </span><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Jens
Hauser</span></strong><span lang="en-GB"> (France),</span><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-GB">
</span></font></font><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Martin
Kaltenbrunner </span></strong><span lang="en-GB">(Austria)</span><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-GB">,
</span></font></font><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Karla
Jasso</span></strong><span lang="en-GB"> (Mexico), </span><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Sally
Jane Norman</span></strong><span lang="en-GB"> (New Zealand/France),
</span><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Nell Tenhaaf</span></strong><span lang="en-GB">
(Canada) and </span><strong class="western"><span lang="en-GB">Francisco
Serrano</span></strong><span lang="en-GB">, Executive Director of
Fundación Telefónica.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">INFORMATION AND QUERIES</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span lang="en-GB">You
can find the competition guidelines and the participation form at
<a href="http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/vida">http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/vida</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><span lang="en-GB">If
you have any questions about the competition, please refer to the </span><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none"><span style="font-weight: normal">FAQ
</span></span></span><span lang="en-GB">section. You may also contact
us by sending an email to <a href="mailto:vida@telefonica.es">vida@telefonica.es</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; "><br><br>
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<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>Mónica Bello</div><div>Artistic Director of VIDA</div><div>Art and Artificial Life International Awards</div><div><a href="http://www.fundaciontelefonica.org/vida">www.fundaciontelefonica.org/vida</a></div></div><div>+34 654 56 32 39</div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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