Image: AEC/Richard Mosse
Since 2016, the EU Commission has been awarding the Starts prizes to projects that combine science, technology and art. The organization has been in the hands of the Ars Electronica Center (AEC) since the beginning.
This year, the prize, which is worth EUR 20,000 each, goes to two environmental projects from Great Britain and Ireland. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg receives the trophy in the “Artistic Exploration” category, which will be presented at the Ars Electronica Festival from September 6th to 10th in Linz. In her project “Pollinator Pathmaker” she tries to design attractive gardens and parks for insects. The British uses artificial intelligence for this. Anyone can use the pollinator.art platform to create an algorithm-based planting plan that is tailored to the property. “It’s like a living sculpture,” says Ginsberg. Gardens have already been laid out in Cornwall, London and Berlin.
Irishman Richard Mosse, who lives in New York, received the prize in the “Innovative Collaboration” category. With his video project “Broken Spectre” he and his team document the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. In a 74-minute video installation, thanks to a specially developed imaging process, he shows the rainforest as never seen before. He relies on three stylistic devices: images from a bird’s eye view, in black and white and greatly enlarged close-ups.
There were a total of 1637 submissions from 78 countries. From this, the jury filtered 18 nominations, ten honorable mentions and two winners. “Many of the works are based on the ecological crises,” said Gerfried Stocker, director of Ars Electronica. Collaborations are central issues in society, said Linz Mayor Klaus Luger: “Diverse companies are often superior to companies with one-dimensional structures.”
Source: Nachrichten
