Image: Peter Grubmüller
These include very impressive works, many on the topic of climate change, but artificial intelligence and democracy also play a major role.
The climate activist group “Last Generation” provided a surprise moment at the beginning of the event. Two members had chained themselves in cages at the entrance to the track hall, two others had approached Gerfried Stocker, the artistic director of Ars Electronica, before the gala and he gave them the stage to make a statement. In it they called on politicians and the population to finally take their concerns about climate protection seriously.
The program then began, with the presentation and presentation of the EU Commission’s StartsPrizes. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg received the prize for her interactive work “Pollinator Pathmaker”, a guide to a pollinator-friendly garden by Georg Häusler, Director of Culture at the European Commission. Richard Mosse was honored by City Councilor for Culture Doris Lang Mayerhofer (ÖVP) for his 47-minute film “Broken Specter”, which vividly describes deforestation and ecocide in the Amazon.
The inaugural European Prize for Citizen Science trophies went to Sarah Lebeer for “Isala”, a map based on the vaginal microbiome, to Sofie Burgos-Thorsen for “Urban Belonging Project”, which describes Copenhagen from the perspective of its underprivileged residents, and to Ugo Vallauri for “The Restart Project: The Right to repair and Reuse your Electronics.” The prizes were presented by IDSA founding president Stefanie Lindstaedt as well as Katja Schechtner and Christina Rami-Mark from the founding convention of the Institute for Digital Sciences Austria.
The Masakhane organization, represented by Chris Emezue and Ndapewa Onyothi, received the Foreign Ministry’s Award for Digital Humanity for the third time for its project of the same name, which counteracts the underrepresentation of more than 2,000 African languages in machine translation and communication programs. The prizes from the State of the Art(ist) competition went to Taiye Ojo for “And If We Observe The Present: Conversations with Bodo Oilfields” about the exploited but beautiful land of the Ogoni people in Nigeria and to Mahsa Aleph for “Jowhar”, a poetic project that recycles words. Tammy Lantry and Michaela Limberis received the CultTechxArs Electronica Award for the app “Art Meets,” which brings together artists, art lovers and the public. These awards were presented by diplomat and art manager Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, the curator and co-founder of “Artists at Risk”, Marita Muukkonen, and the founder of the Vienna CultTech Association, Dimitry Aksenov.
The Golden Nicas from the Prix Ars Electronica went to Ayoung Kim for her animation masterpiece “Delivery Dancer’s Sphere”, Winnie Soon for her censorship-critical work “Unerasable Characters Series” and Atractor Estudio + Semantica Productions, represented by Juan Cortés, for “A Tale of Two Seeds: Sound and Silence in Latin America’s Andean Plains”. The Australian Robin Fox received the Isao Tomite special prize for his latest work “Triptych,” which creates images and sound from tension. They received their trophies from State Councilor Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, representing LH Thomas Stelzer (both ÖVP) – Stelzer and Mayor Klaus Luger (SPÖ) had apologized -, the designated Colombian ambassador Laura Gabriela Gil Savastano and Christoph Hans Schumacher from the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce.
The winners of the U19 competition will receive their prizes in a separate ceremony on Saturday in the area of the youth festival “Create Your World” in the PostCity in Linz, including Sonja Höglinger for “Fading Voices” and the Eggenburg Music Middle School for Class!-Lernen -Prize for her “Hey[a]rophone”.
Source: Nachrichten
