Share Prize

Jury Statement

Anne Nigten — manager of the V-2 Lab and director of the Patching Zone in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Stefano Mirti — architect, designer, and teacher from I-D Lab in Milano.
Bruce Sterling, author journalist from Austin Texas and guest curator of Share Festival, chairman of the Share Prize jury.

So –  as you may know, we three members of the jury were responsible for picking these six pieces of art.  We love all of them dearly.  Nevertheless only one can take home the SHARE prize — the digitally-manufactured SHARE Prize.

Our artists have created extraordinary works where digital images crawl out of screens and onto human fingers, where digital sound samples leave the computer to become solid chunks of wood carved on  lathes.   We also have a large, synaesthetic, immersive installation, two multi-user interaction pieces suitable for groups, and one of the scariest and most physically confrontational
pieces of electronic art yet created.

We were much taken by D3D’s Virtual Identity Project. The fine Italian aesthetics work at an eye-candy level, while also raising substantial questions about identity and our data shadows on the modern net.

We very much appreciated the muscular appeal of our runner-up, Emmanuel Andel’s knife hand chop bot.  This installation mesmerized everyone who saw it in action — it’s a fearsomely strong work of art, which provokes dripping sweat, racing heartbeats — it’s the personification of the hidden violence of new media!

It struck us that our winner and runner-up are the  feminine and masculine version of the same artistic concept.  It’s a pity they can’t marry — but only one can win.

With its mixture of subtle feminine menace and charm, our winner is a piece that was universally beloved by everyone who attended SHARE:  Delicate Boundaries. We were encouraged by its poetics of social networking — everyone contaminated by these sprites immediately wants to share the infection with someone else.   We also admired the sophisticated programming, and very clear and limpid user-interface.   A hearty welcome from Torino to an American artist with global appeal, Christine Sugrue.

Honorary mention to Knife.Hand.Chop.Bot by Emanuel Andel.

The winner of Share Prize 2008:
Delicate Boundaries, Cristine Sugrue (USA)

Digital technologies are integrating more and more with our everyday lives as the boundaries between virtual and real get closer. This installation creates a space where the goings-on within our digital devices are capable of stepping out into the physical world: small insects made of light jump out of the screen towards the spectators and make contact. As the two systems try to fathom each other out, they create a new realm of responsibilities, intimacy and boundaries between virtual and real.

Honorary mention:

Knife.Hand.Chop.Bot, Emanuel Andel (AUSTRIA)

Emanuel Andel has created a “terrifying” installation that plays with the user’s perception and senses, and the machine’s sensors and processes. A robot holds a blade that it uses in the famous ”Five Finger Fillet” knife game. The user places his/her hand in the machine and the game begins: the machine stabs the blade between the user’s fingers, slowly at first then more quickly.

D3D, Virtual Identity Process, Italia

http://www.master-naba-d3d.net/vip

By interacting with the surface of a touch-sensitive table the users generate a hyperbody composed of a dynamic flow of communicating sounds and particles. The graphic visualisation of the group recalls, in a metaphorical sense, the concept of a social network. The spectators soon realise how they can operate the machine and, in most cases, begin performing choreographed dance-like movements and create a musical composition.

www.master-naba-d3d.net/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=64

Tampopo, Yamada Kentaro

“Tampopo” means dandelion in Japanese.

The video installation allows visitors to interact with the screen by blowing on giant dandelion heads. This simple action, often carried out to express a wish, brings back a flood of childhood emotions and memories.

OWL PROJECT, Sound Lathe workshop, Gran Bretagna
http://variableg.org.uk/owlweb/soundlatheworkshop.htm

A carpenter’s workshop transforms the sounds of working wood (cutting, sawing, and fixing together) into genuine small objects with the help of a “sound lathe”. This machine records audio data coming from real hand-working processes and mixes them with the dust, sawdust and sounds of the workshop to produce unique, one-off, often flawed objects that become a sort of material souvenir of how we construct furniture.

Scenocosme, SphèrAléas, Francia
www.spheraleas.com

This curious semisphere is capable of making the user interact with images and sounds to produce audio-visual forms. Designed as a home for real-time musical and visual interaction, the igloo contains a full-emersion chamber serving as a screen for a large projection. Visitors can sit and lie beneath the domed roof, where they are able to manipulate the sensors with their hands to create, or just lay back and dream.