13 prizes awarded at the Design Center Linz

5. September 2024

© tom mesic

A work that explores the relationship between technology and power, the first AI-generated music video and a project on mental health care were among the award-winning projects at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival 2024, which has the motto “HOPE who will turn the tide”. A total of 13 awards were presented on Thursday evening – from the Nicas to the StartsPrizes to the Award for Digital Humanity.

The artistic director of Ars Electronica, Gerfried Stocker, was the main moderator for the evening and welcomed the guests from politics, art and science. After speeches by Linz City Councilor Doris Lang-Mayerhofer (ÖVP) and her colleague Dietmar Prammer (SPÖ) as well as by Governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP), the first purely AI-generated video for the song “The Hardest Part” by Washed Out led to the awards ceremony. The American Paul Trillo won the Golden Nica in the new AI and Art category with this work.

The relationship between technology and power

Australian AI scientist Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, Professor of New Media at the University of Novi Sad, received a StartsPrize from the EU Commission for “Calculating Empires”, in which they examine the relationship between technology and power over the past five centuries, as well as the cultural initiative of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva from the hands of Stelzer and Peter Friess of the EU Commission.

The StartsPrize Africa, awarded for the first time, went to the “Balot NFT” project of the Congolese initiative Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (Art Circle of Congolese Plantation Workers).

The “Increase” initiative by Kerstin Neumann and Robert Papa received a Citizen Science Award from the European Union. It aims to use research into the cultivation of European pulses to create knowledge about native crops and their diversity in order to increase agricultural benefits.

The other two awards in this category went to the Spanish OpenSystems group for its “CoAct for Mental Health” campaign, which involves affected people in research into mental health care, and to the SeaPaCs project, which aims to combat plastic pollution in the oceans.

Methane clouds and reassurances

Two further Golden Nicas in the categories New Animation Art and Interactive Art+ went to Beatie Wolfe (GB) for “Smoke and Mirrors” and the French Diane Cesutti for “Nosukaay”. In her moving video work, Wolfe contrasts the methane clouds emitted by industries with the placating lies of large corporations.

In the game-generated installation, Cesutti combines a loom from the West African Manjago with a computer to create a textile machine.

The award for Digital Humanity, made possible by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, went to the Dutch theater group De Toneelmakerij, whose performance “Patchwork Girl” addresses sexting, slut-shaming, empowerment, dealing with one’s own sexuality and a lack of ethics on the Internet.

The two prizes from State of the Art(ist) went to the Ukrainian Nina Bulgakova for “Fertility Performance” (together with Anastasiia Mostova and Kateryna Zhuravlova), a dance performance that explores the ritual connections between femininity, eternal earth and fertility. Said Ahmed Mohamed Alhassan from Sudan was awarded for the installation “Haawriya”, which uses visual and auditory elements to trace the civil protest for freedom, peace and justice during the Sudanese revolution (2019).

Refugee routes across the Mediterranean

The Golden Nica from the U19 competition went to Jakob Gruber from Henndorf am Wallersee for his video “Flutes of Freedom”, which deals with the dangerous refugee routes across the Mediterranean.

The gala was livened up with performances by the artist Daniel Simu and the combo of robopsychologist Martina Mara, rapper Yasmo and MC Flip. The winning works – some of which were shown at the gala – can be seen at the festival until Sunday.