Ars Electronica Prize

The winners of this year’s Ars Electronica Prize challenge perceptions, perspectives, digital obsessions bringing to the surface hidden worlds and social issues.

3,677 entries were submitted from 106 countries for the Ars Electronica Prize 2017. This year’s prizewinners come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Slovenia and Austria.

David OReilly, Everything, Golden Nica award for Computer Animation, Ars Electronica Prize 2017 — **Top:** Robert Miller, Nico Rameder, Daniel Wetzelhütter, Max Wolschlager, *Big Poop Data*, netidee Special Prize, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Miller, Rameder, Wetzelhütter, Wolschlager. **Above:** David OReilly, *Everything*, Golden Nica award for Computer Animation, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo David OReilly

The five main categories are Computer Animation/Film/VFX, Hybrid Art, Digital Music & Sound Art, Create Your World and the netidee Special Prize. For each category the jury assigned a Golden Nica, an Award of Distinction and a series of Honorary Mentions. The winner of Computer Animation is David OReilly, from Ireland, who created Everything, half-game/half-work-of-art, where everything that users see can be played with. It includes commuting back and forth between the microcosm and the macrocosm, and permits observation of the entire universe from the point of view of thousands of subjects as well as objects. Players can also read the thoughts of many of the objects in the game, thoughts ranging from the philosophical to the absurd. The narrator’s voice is that of philosopher Alan Watts, who died in 1973.

Maja Smrekar, K-9_topology, Golden Nica award at the Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Borut Peterlin — Maja Smrekar, *K-9_topology*, Golden Nica award, Hybrid Arts, at the Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Borut Peterlin

The Hybrid Art prize went to Maja Smrekar, Slovenian, for her artwork K-9_topology which revolves around issues humankind has been wrestling with since time immemorial. Digital Music & Sound Art prized Cedrik Fermont and Dimitri della Faille (Belgium, Canada, Germany) with their book Not Your World Music: Noise in South East Asia, on art, politics, identity, gender and global capitalism. It features noise & sound art, electro-acoustic, experimental and industrial music of the past and present in Southeast Asia, giving an anti-sexist and anti-colonial contribution to a discourse on society, social representation, inequality, marginalization and colonialism.

Cedrik Fermont, Dimitri della Faille, Not Your World Music: Noise in South East Asia, book & CD, Digital Musics Golden Nica, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Dimitri della Faille — Cedrik Fermont, Dimitri della Faille, *Not Your World Music: Noise in South East Asia*, book & CD, Digital Musics Golden Nica, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Dimitri della Faille

Winner of the Create your world section, Lisa Buttinger (Austria) conceived the nonvisual-art an image that is simultaneously visible and invisible, where Cellophane foils and air bubbles trapped in a layer of adhesive refract in a highly artistic way the light shone onto them. The netidee Special Prize went to the Big Poop Data by Robert Miller, Nico Rameder, Daniel Wetzelhütter, (all Austrian): a satirical approach to the subject of online privacy and clean technical implementation sensors as a means of gathering information about WC-goers’ use of toilet paper and water, as well as the average length of time they take to do their business. It is a critical commentary on the increasingly pervasive obsession with digital data-gathering, and as an appeal to safeguard our digital privacy.

Lisa Buttinger, nonvisual-art, Create your world Golden Nica award, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Martin Hieslmair — Lisa Buttinger, *nonvisual-art*, Create your world Golden Nica award, Ars Electronica Prize 2017. Photo Martin Hieslmair

Ars Electronica Prize 2017
Ars Electronica Center
Ars-Electronica-Straße 1, Linz
Austria

Ars Electronica Prize

The winners of this year’s Ars Electronica Prize challenge perceptions, perspectives, digital obsessions bringing to the surface hidden worlds and social issues.

Latest on News

Latest on Domus