Subash Thebe Limbu(b.1981, Dharan) is a Yakthung (Limbu) artist from Eastern Nepal. He works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcasts. “Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous” imagines futures where Indigenous people’s actions and existence is in the space-time continuum. Through the conversation between two indigenous people from very different timelines – a Yakthung warrior from the 18th century and an indigenous time traveler from the distant future – the film asks the viewer to investigate their own potential role in the space-time continuum in searching for the possible futures to strive for, while reminding of the fight against colonialism and struggles to overcome. The work plays with the idea of time as not something rigid but ductile or weavable, which in turn paves the way for questions like how we might want to weave the future.
FINALIST
ZIKE HE
Zike He(b.1990, Guiyang) is a media artist whose recent projects are developed with research ranging from digital space and machine learning to infrastructure and deep time, and with the exploration of their shapes in daily life. “Random Access” is a mode of reading and writing datum (as in random access memory, RAM) where any arbitrary address can be accessed in equal time no matter where it is located. It also refers to how we process memory, especially in the time interwoven deeply with digital technology. As a speculative hypothesis of the experience in the Cloud World, the film is set in Guiyang, a mountainous and cloudy city, where many big data infrastructures locate, including the first iCloud data center in Asia and the host of FAST (Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope). The story follows a fictional narrative that happens on the second day after the city’s central data center unexpectedly crashes and reboots.
FINALIST
RIAR RIZALDI
Riar Rizaldi(b.1990, Bandung), works as an artist and filmmaker whose “Fossilis” is an oneiric cinema, a phantasmal science-fiction prognosis, an essay film and a tale of the verdant inferno of technological legacy, resonating the complexity of electronic waste in the 21st century of Asia where most of the discarded electronics in the planet is dumped and buried. With live-action sets built from waste materials, scenes from flea market of cannibalization parts, 3D assets and environment from abandoned projects, and AI images generated from unused images from a personal dataset, Fossilis is not just a narrative and representation on ewaste but also engages in the process of film production that involves both digital and physical waste objects as means of artistic practice.
FINALIST
SU HUI-YU
Su Hui-Yu(b.1976, Taipei) explores the connection between mass media, pop culture, memories of martial law and the post-colonial history of Taiwan and East Asia. His work “The Space Warriors and the Digigrave” combines fantasies and folk tales that hint at nationalism, Confucianism and chauvinistic values, based on a unique experience of the collective memory of the island nation during the martial law era. Using nowadays open-source AI tools combining with traditional film skills, Su wants either metaphysically or technically providing a solution of reconciliation for those who’s still struggling with the nations, identities, genders, morals, and ideologies.
FINALIST
zzyw
zzyw is an art and research collective formed by Yang Wang and Zhenzhen Qi in New York in 2017. It produces software applications, simulations and text as instruments to examine the cultural, political and educational imprints of computation.
“Other Spring” critically investigates the societal implications of computational mediation, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). The project explores the potential of “heretic computing” (Alexander R. Galloway, 2020) to challenge the monolithic idea of efficiency and precision that characterizes our contemporary information society. Set in a speculative future where an all-seeing, algorithm-driven network UNO (Universal Network Observer) dominates, Other Spring reflects on the urgency of privacy, agency, and individuality in our increasingly interconnected world, encouraging dialogue for a more humane relationship with technology.
JURY
AARON SEETO
MARTIN HONZIK
RODERICK SCHROCK
SOOK-KYUNG LEE
YUKIKO SHIKATA
JURY
AARON SEETO
Director, Museum MACAN
Aaron Seeto is the Director of Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN). He has experience with working to advance the goals of contemporary arts organizations and curating significant exhibitions for artists from Asia to Pacific regions.
Seeto was formerly a Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art, at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia where he led the curatorial team at the eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT8) in 2015. For eight years prior, he was the Director of Sydney’s 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.
JURY
MARTIN HONZIK
CCO, Ars Electronica Linz (Chief Curatorial Officer), Managing Director of Ars Electronica Festival, Prix, & 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.
JURY
RODERICK SCHROCK
Curator, Executive Director of Eyebeam
Roderick Schrock is an arts organizer and curator. As a non-profit leader, he specializes in building institutional capacity and conceives and implements programs that elevate artists’ works in society. As the executive director of Eyebeam, he guides its focus to realign societal relationships with emergent technologies. Additionally, he is the host of Informer, a podcast featuring conversations with artists, technologists, and thinkers.
He has been an active practitioner in the arts, living and working in Japan and continuing studies in the Netherlands. He has written extensively for anthologies, periodicals, and other publications. As a digital and sound artist, Schrock has been commissioned by Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, The Netherlands America Foundation, and Ostrava New Music Days, among others. He received an MFA from Mills College in Oakland.
He currently teaches in the Curatorial Practice MA Program at the School of Visual Arts and has taught at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM), California College of the Arts, and New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He sits on the Netherlands America Foundation Cultural Committee, and was a founding board member of Art+Feminism. He regularly juries and nominates for national and international art awards.
JURY
SOOK-KYUNG LEE
Director, The Whitworth, University of Manchester
LEE Sook-Kyung is a director of the Whitworth at The University of Manchester. She curated “Nam June Paik” at Tate Modern in 2019 with Rudolf Frieling, which was on tour to institutions in Europe, USA, and Asia until early 2022. She has also curated several collection exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern, including “A Year in Art: Australia 1992″(2021-2023), “CAMP: From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf”(2019-2020) and “Xiao Lu and Niki de Saint Phalle (2018-2019). Lee was previously Exhibitions & Displays Curator at Tate Liverpool and curated a number of exhibitions and collection displays including “Doug Aitken: The Source and Thresholds”(2012-2013, as part of Liverpool Biennial).
Lee was a Senior Curator of International Art since 2019 she had been led the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational and the artistic director of the 14th Gwangju Biennale in 2023. She also served as the commissioner and curator of the Korean Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Lee has convened and participated in several international symposiums and conferences at the Tate and internationally, including “From Alexandria to Tokyo: Art, Colonialism and Entangled Histories”(Digital conference with Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2020), “Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futures”(Tate Modern, 2019), and “Territories Disrupted: Asian Art after 1989″(National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, 2017). She has also written and lectured widely on modern and contemporary art, and her publications include “Nam June Paik”(with Rudolf Frieling, exhibition catalogue, Tate Publishing, 2019) and “MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho”(exhibition catalogue, Korean Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015).
JURY
YUKIKO SHIKATA
Curator & Critic
Yukiko Shikata is a president of AICA(International Association of Art Critics) Japan, Artistic Director of Forest for Dialogue and Creativity. Visiting professor at Tama Art University and Tokyo Zokei University, lecturer at Musashino Art University, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences(IAMAS) and the Postgraduate School of Kokugakuin University. Her activities traverse existing fields by focusing on .
In parallel, working as a curator of Cannon ARTLAB(1990-2001), Mori Art Museum (2002-2004), senior curator of NTT InterCommunication Center[ICC](2004-2010), as an independent curator, realized many experimental exhibitions and projects. Recents works include SIAF 2014(Associate Curator), KENPOKU ART 2016(Curator). Works in 2020 including the Symposium of AICA Japan(Chairperson), MMFS 2020 (Director), “Forking PiraGene”(Co-curator, C-Lab Taipei). Works in 2021 including the Forum “Information as a form of “(Kyoto Prefecture), “EIR(Energies in Rural)”(Co-curator, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre + Liminaria, Italy, ongoing), “Forum Spirits as Energy｜Stone, Water, Forest and Human”(General Incorporated Association Dialogue Place). Juror of many international competitions, many co-publications. Essay series “Ecosophic Future” at HILLS LIFE.
NOMINATORS
BI XIN
DO TUONG LINH
IRIS LONG
JE BAAK
JOEL KWONG
JOSELINA CRUZ
MANUPORN LUENGARAM
MICHELLE HO
MIKI FUKUDA
RITIKA BISWAS
RIZKI LAZUARDI
TAN HUI KOON
WU DAR-KUEN
NOMINATORS
BI XIN
BI Xin is a curator and writer based in Shanghai. As well as being the Executive Director of Chronus Art Center, she also leads the curatorial vision of public events at CAC. Her curatorial practices focus on the intersection of arts, decentralised technologies and contemporary social-culture/subculture.
NOMINATORS
DO TUONG LINH
Đỗ Tường Linh is a curator / art researcher in Hanoi, Vietnam. Đỗ holds a BA in Art History and theoretical criticism from Vietnam University of Fine Arts and a MA in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa at SOAS(University of London), UK.
She has engaged in various art exhibitions and projects in Asia, Europe and beyond since 2005. She is a fellow researcher for Site and Space in Southeast Asia – a research project run by the Power Institute, University of Sydney, Australia funded by Getty Image Foundation, USA. In 2022, Đỗ is the one of curators from the artistic team of the 12th Berlin Biennale.
NOMINATORS
IRIS LONG
Iris Long is an independent curator with a research focus on how art responds to computing. She was shortlisted for the first M21-IAAC Award(International Awards for Art Criticism). She has curated exhibitions around art and technology, such as “Lying Sophia and Mocking Alexa”(Hyundai Blue Prize), “Blue Cables in Venetian Watercourse” and so on.
She is on the art jury of ISEA 2019, and the art jury of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2020. In 2021, she initialized “Port: Under the Cloud”, long-term research and curatorial project on the infrastructures of science and technology in China.
NOMINATORS
JE BAAK
Je Baak graduated from Seoul National University and Royal College of Art in UK. He has held solo exhibitions in London and Seoul and participated in several group exhibitions such as “New Visions New Voices”(2013), “Samramansang”(2017) at MMCA Korea and “Korean Eye”(2012) at Saatchi Gallery, “THE FUTURE IS NOW!”(2014-2015) exhibition at MAXXI Art Museum in Italy, Media City Seoul 2016 at Seoul Museum of Art,
Lux” in 180 Strand London, Seoulight in DDP, Seoul and at Ars Electronica exhibition in Austria.
Baak has received several prominent recognitions. He was awarded the Grand Prize of Joongang Fine Arts Prize in 2010 and won the Grand Prix of the VH AWARD in 2016 by Hyundai Motor Group. Baak’s works are in the collections held by MMCA, DDP, Kumho Museum, Museum of Art in Seoul National University and Joongang Ilbo and proceeding many projects with companies such as Hyundai Motor Company, LG and etc. He is currently educating art & technology and installation art as a professor of the department of sculpture, Seoul National University.
NOMINATORS
JOEL KWONG
Joel Kwong, an international media art curator, writer, producer and educator based in Hong Kong. She is currently the Programme Director for Microwave Festival, and the founder of SIBYLS. Over 15 years of experience, her most recent involved projects includes Future Media Art Festival in Taiwan, Microwave Festival, “Fireflies: The Glowing Dots”(2021) online exhibition, Connecting the Dots Media Art Archaeology Online Project etc. She has also given talks and lectures at many festivals and institutions, including Ars Electronica in Linz, Transmediale in Berlin, ACT Festival in South Korea; the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo etc.
NOMINATORS
JOSELINA CRUZ
Joselina Cruz is currently Director and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design(MCAD), De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Manila. Cruz has worked as a curator for the Lopez Memorial Museum in Manila and the Singapore Art Museum.
She was a curator for the 2nd Singapore Biennale in 2008 and curated the Philippine Pavilion for the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. She is a Fellow of the Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectuals, and the Asian Cultural Council. She studied art history at the University of the Philippines, and Curating Contemporary Art(MA, RCA) at the Royal College of Art, London. She writes essays, reviews, criticism and commentary on art and culture.
NOMINATORS
MANUPORN LUENGARAM
Manuporn Luengaram is a curator and researcher based in Bangkok, Thailand. She works primarily in the areas of art, digital media and social practice in the context of Thailand and Southeast Asia. She was also a former manager of Arts Network Asia(ANA), a regional arts network.
In 2018, she joined the Jim Thompson Art Center’s curatorial team, overseeing artists’ commissions and projects. In 2020, she was an assistant curator of the 2nd Bangkok Art Biennale. In 2021, she was Director of Projects at 100 Tonson Foundation in Bangkok where she curated a new two-part video installation by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
In her art historical research, she is a co-editor of an anthology of Southeast Asian Contemporary Art, a Thai version, published by Thailand’s Ministry of Culture(2015); a research assistant for “Artist-to-Artist: Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai, 1992-1998”, published by Afterall Books(2018). She has joined the editorial committee for Writing the Modern in Southeast Asian Art publication, which will be published by National Gallery Singapore (2022).
NOMINATORS
MICHELLE HO
As director of the ADM Gallery at the Nanyang Technological University, Michelle Ho launched a new curatorial vision connecting contemporary art and new media with the university’s research fields. With more than 15 years curatorial experience in Southeast Asian art, some of her exhibitions include “Vertical Submarine and the Amusement of Knowledge and Illusion”(2022), “Reformations: Painting in post 2000 Singapore Art”(2019) and “Exceptions of Rule: Counterpoints to Truth”(2018). Formerly a curator at the Singapore Art Museum, she led the acquisition strategies of its contemporary art collection from 2013 to 2015, and co-curated exhibitions with museums like Queensland Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and Kunsthaus Zurich. She was co-curator of the 2013 Singapore Biennale, and was curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.
NOMINATORS
MIKI FUKUDA
Miki Fukuda is a editor of a webzine and exhibition catalogues related contemporary arts, coordinator of exhibitions, talk events and workshops related to media art. In the early 1990s, participated in making the conceptual planning of NTT-InterCommunication Center[ICC], In the 2000s, has worked at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation as a curatorial staff, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences(IAMAS) as a lecturer, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Since as a production manager. Director of Media Design Research Inc. since 2015.
NOMINATORS
RITIKA BISWAS
Ritika Biswas grew up in Kolkata, India and holds a Liberal Arts degree from Yale-NUS College, Singapore, and an MPhil in Film and Screen Studies from the University of Cambridge. She was a curator and special projects producer at New Art Exchange, UK, and Artistic Director for the 2021 Sea Art Festival: Non-/Human Assemblages, for the Busan Biennale. Currently working on experimental virtual art platforms and decolonial digital strategies, her practice exists at the nexus of deep research, eco-critical play, collaborative kinships, and justice, particularly within the Global South.
NOMINATORS
RIZKI LAZUARDI
Rizki Lazuardi is an Indonesian artist and curator who works mainly with moving image and expanded cinema. He obtained his MA in film and media art at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. Central to his practice is subjects related to institutionalized information. His works and programs have been presented in many festivals, exhibition, or institutions, among others IFFR Rotterdam, Jakarta Biennale, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, Image Forum Tokyo, and Singapore Art Museum. In 2019, he was commissioned to conduct artistic research on the colonial-related film archives at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum. Lazuardi is a program consultant for Arsenal Berlin at the Berlinale Forum.
NOMINATORS
TAN HUI KOON
Tan Hui Koon(a.k.a. Koon) Diploma in Visual and Digital Art from Limkokwing University, BA(Hon) in Fine Art from University Science Malaysia(USM) at 2007. Her curatorial involvement included community art project: “Gerakan Seni”(2015), “National Collection: Mapping on Malaysia Modern Art History 1920-1970 permanent exhibition”(2016), “101: Malaysian Women Artists’ Exhibition”(2017), “The First KL Biennale – KL Beloved”(2017) and “Minta Perhatian: Media Baru”(2019), Artist’s solo exhibition: “Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life”(2018) and “Arang: Ronnie Mohammad”(2018), Curatorial team of Contemporary Forum(2017), Young Contemporary Award(2019) and and Ipoh International Art Festival(2019). She was a jury of UOB Painting of the Year 2020.
NOMINATORS
WU DAR-KUEN
Wu Dar-Kuen is an artist, Curator, Currently working as the Director of Contemporary Art Platform at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab(C-LAB), and has been a slashie across artist, curation, teaching, administration, writing. He was the former director of Taipei Artist Village and Treasure Hill Artist Village, chairman of Taiwan Art Space Alliance(TASA), and a curator at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. Endeavoring to bridge art and social practices, He not only reflects on the social conditions of Asian countries with his unique artistic language, but also consider social and technological issues of the Anthropocene.
OFFICIAL SCREENINGS
HEK
MACAN
Objectifs
Ars Electronica
EVM
Vision Hall
Virtual Ceremony
House of Electronic Arts, 2024. 06. 10 – 2024. 06. 16
The screening during Art Basel 2024 is made by the first-time partnership between VH AWARD and HEK, a renowned institution dedicated to digital culture and the new art forms of the Information Age.
Museum MACAN, 2024. 02. 29 – 2024. 04. 21
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara(Museum MACAN) is Indonesia’s preeminent institution for modern and contemporary art. In collaboration with Museum MACAN, the 5th VH AWARD exhibition was held from February 29, 2024 to April 21, 2024.
Objectifs, 2024.01.21 – 2024.02.04
For the first time, the VH AWARD and the National Arts Council of Singapore (NAC) collaborated to bring the 5th VH AWARD Exhibition to Singapore as part of the 12th edition of Singapore Art Week (SAW), Taking place at Lower Gallery of Objectifs.
Ars Electronica Festival 2023, 2023.09.06 – 2022 09.10
Ars Electronica is one of the world’s most important media art festivals, a “Festival for Art, Technology and Society”. In 2023, the question focused on was “Who Owns the Truth?”. The five artworks were held on Deep Space 8K, a large-scale immersive media site.
The ELEKTRA Virtual Museum, 2023.05.03 – 2024.05.31
The EVM offers a unique 3D experience that goes beyond the virtual tours that have already been offered by ELEKTRA. The five finalists’ works were viewed as a part of the exhibition “METAMORPHOSIS METAVERSE”, Pavilion 2.
Hyundai Motor Group Vision Hall, 2023.05.03
Located at Hyundai Motor Group’s Mabuk campus in Yongin, South Korea, the Vision Hall is an immersive exhibition space that demonstrates the Group’s commitment to innovation, sustainability, and human-centered mobility.
The 5th The VH AWARD Virtual Ceremony, 2023.05.03
The 5th The VH AWARD Virtual Ceremony, held at online platform Common. Garden, celebrated the journey of five finalists who creatively explored and questioned a diverse range of issues and trends across Asia.
