“A Thousand Horizons” combines CG and the repetitive page-turning of a book, captured through an unfamiliar perspective. Through the constantly expanding and changing horizontal landscape of the symbolic time of ‘day’, it explores the digital and analog media’s temporal, spatial, and material properties, metaphorizing human reason, action, and interaction. It casts questions into the being between macro – micro, external – internal, conceptual – abstract, real – fantasy, nature – artificial, body – mind, captivating visitors into a synesthetic experience.
FINALIST
YOUNGKAK CHO
“Highway like a Shooting Star” explores the idea of roads as witnesses to civilizations, and the most innate of human systems. The artist presented an AI machine-learning algorithm with diverse depictions of roads, which in turn created a work completed it via intervention of the other, sans a human emotive presence. By hypothesizing the process and outcome where machines or technological systems become leading bodies in a future society, the artist beckons visitors to consider what roles and significance human beings will embody in this not-so distant future.
FINALIST
CHANSOOK CHOI
“Black Air” deals with the human dichotomy in engaging with the land that we occupy, and the critical responses to them. The human need for development, driven by modern rationalism, creates an austere dichotomy with rigid boundaries and stratification to everything. The others in that dichotomy are unable to own land, and become border-crossing nomadic beings. Through such an approach, the artwork redefines the earth as a subject of connected empathy, as well as the founding platform of humanity, and not so much an object of possession.
JURY
BERNHARD SEREXHE
DOOEUN CHOI
MARTIN HONZIK
JURY
BERNHARD SEREXHE
Art historian, author, independent international curator, certified expert for electronic and digital art
Dr. Bernhard Serexhe consulted ongoing international exhibitions on GLOBAL CONTROL AND CENSORSHIP(2016-2019) and expertise on the preservation of digital media art, since 2016 independent curator and certified expert for electronic and digital art; lecturer for the conservation and curation of media art at the University of Berne, Switzerland; since 2016 independent curator and certified expert for electronic and digital art; lecturer for the conservation and curation of media art at the University of Berne, Switzerland; 2006-16 chief curator of ZKM | Media Museum Karlsruhe, Ph. D. on the Cathedral Saint-Lazare in Autun, Burgundy (France), consultant for the Council of Europe, 1994-1997 curator of ZKM | Media Museum, 1998-05 head of ZKM | Museum Communications, since 1998 lecturer media art and museology at the State Academy of Fine Arts St. Petersburg and the Universities of Berne, Basel and Karlsruhe, 2008-12 professor for aesthetics and media theory at Istanbul BILGI-University, since 2010 director of the EU Research Project www.digitalartconservation.org.
JURY
DOOEUN CHOI
Independent Curator
DooEun Choi served as co-curator of Aurora 2018, the light, video, and sound festival in Dallas, Texas. Choi’s recent projects include Uncanny Valley?, Da Vinci Creative 2017 at the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture; Han Youngsoo: Photographs of Seoul 1956–63 at the International Center of Photography at MANA, New York (2017); Why Future Still Needs Us: AI and Humanity at Art Center Nabi and QUT Art Museum in Brisbane (2016–17); Automata, The International Digital Arts Biennial, at Arsenal Montreal (2016); Sense Of Wonder, Da Vinci Creative 2015, at the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture; Boundless Fantasy: Media Art from East Asia at the Charles Wang Center, New York (2014); Anima, on the work of Choe U-ram, at Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul (2013); Spell On You, Mediacity Seoul 2012 Biennale, at the Seoul Museum of Art; and Seeking Silicon Valley, ZERO1 Biennial 2012, at Zero1 Garage in San Jose, California.
JURY
MARTIN HONZIK
CCO, Ars Electronica Linz (Chief Curatorial Officer), Managing Director of Ars Electronica Festival, Prix, and Exhibitions, Linz, Austria
Martin Honzik is an artist CCO of Ars Electronica Linz, and Managing Director of the Ars Electronica’s Festival, Prix and Export. He studied visual experimental design at Linz Art University (graduated in 2001) and completed the master’s program in culture & media management at the University of Linz and ICCM Salzburg (graduated in 2003). Besides being independent Artist in several art projects, he joined the staff of the Ars Electronica Future Lab as a researcher, in 2001, where, until 2005, his responsibilities included exhibition design, art in architecture, interface design, event design and project management. Since 2006, Martin Honzik has been Managing Director of the Ars Electronica Festival, the Prix Ars Electronica, the Exhibitions in the Ars Electronica Center and Ars Electronica Export. He has been curating a considerable amount of international exhibitions in the context of Art, Science and Technology. Since 2021 he became CCO (Chief-Curatorial-Officer) of Ars Electronica Linz.
