GRAND PRIX & FINALISTS

GRAND PRIX

WENDI YAN

Wendi Yan (born in 1999, Beijing) is an artist, technologist, and writer narrating metamorphoses of the scientific self. She examines the cosmological, linguistic, and physiological challenges in facing alien epistemic systems across time and crafts alternative fictions of science and its history through CGI films, games, and archival displays of sculptural objects. “Dream of Walnut Palaces” is a CGI film reimagining knowledge exchange between China and Europe in the 18th century. Exploring the psyche of a fictional Daoist in a Paris lab, it examines the East-West clash of epistemic visuality and envisions an alternative to techno-Orientalism: a harmonious union of knowledge integrating Daoist metaphysics. Using Unreal Engine, 3D modeling, and AI, Yan transmutes historical images and lost ideas, giving voice to ‘ghosts’ and ‘orphans’ of the Enlightenment.

FINALIST

LENA BUI

Lêna Bùi (born in 1985, Da Nang) makes works responding to nature and people’s relationship with their surroundings. Using primarily painting and video, she reflects on the ways in which tradition, faith, death, and dreams influence our behavior and perception, weaving together stories of human resilience and worldviews that are not entirely human-centric. “dream(machine, human)” can be interpreted as a machine dreaming of a human, a machine and a human dreaming together, a machine trying to understand or predict human actions, or any other variation of the three words. The story takes place in an ambiguous time, unfolding as machine-salvaged fragments of human memories or a mythology of human demise and metamorphosis.

FINALIST

HUDA X MUNGOMERY

HUDA x MUNGOMERY (founded in 2022) is a collective formed by Dani Huda and Charlotte Mungomery in the Amazon Rainforest. Under Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s mentorship in Playlab Films’ 2022 residency, they explored the temporality of water. They continue creating works with avant-garde fervor, rejecting didacticism and fostering cross-cultural dialogue. Tirta, meaning ‘sacred water’ or ‘crossing place’ in Sanskrit, is a portal where past myths bleed into forgotten futures. Rooted in the folklore of Princess Mandalika, “Within Tirta” explores mythology and ecological urgency, questioning what we must sacrifice to sustain nature. The artists’ medium, the rare 35mm film Vistavision camera, mirrors the fragility of bioluminescence. As nature fades, humans turn to artificial awe. The closing images reveal a paradox: digital technology is severing our ties with nature, yet it may be the only way to heal them.

FINALIST

TIANYI SUN & FIEL GUHIT

Tianyi Sun & Fiel Guhit (founded in 2021, New York) examine sound, time, and narrative as material and metaphor for their simulated present. By interweaving traditional and speculative philosophies, histories, and practices, they compose multimodal performances and installations that question the temporality and dominant narratives of contemporary technological advancements. Yán wéi xīn shēng 言为心声 is a Chinese idiom meaning ‘words are the voice of the heart.’ But where does the heart go when that voice is displaced from a body? Based on the artists’ own journey building and training an AI voice model, “40 Epochs” explores the heart of identity, spiritual displacement, and the labor behind voices that engender human-like technologies. As artists of the Asian diaspora, enmeshed within is also the ambivalence that we reckon with as we confront this emerging form of self-reproduction.

FINALIST

INHWA YEOM

Inhwa Yeom (born in 1991, Seoul) creates a ‘3D performative apparatus-environment’ at the intersection of XR and AI technologies and performing arts. Aiming to include a diverse range of (non-)human behaviors, reactions, and expressions, her media creates a stage for ‘minorities’ constructed in the history of bio-colonialism and biotech-oriented systems. “War Dance” reflects on Asian women’s entanglement between production and reproduction, love and care, drawing from the Korean myth of Sun and Moon Dogs, known as ‘Bul-gae’ and the natural phenomena of sundog and moondog. Embodying their resistance and transformation in AI-powered audiovisual languages, the work invites audiences to question the unquestionable.

OFFICIAL SCREENINGS

HEK

Vision Hall

Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing

HEK (House of Electronic Arts), 2025. 06. 16 – 2025. 06. 22
The premiere screening and Grand Prix announcement of the 6th VH AWARD were presented as part of the partnership between the VH AWARD and House of Electronic Arts in Basel.
Vision Hall of Hyundai Motor Group University, 2025. 06. 18 – 2025. 09. 18
Located at Hyundai Motor Group University 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.
Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, 2025. 06. 18 – 2025. 08. 31
Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing is a brand experience space for art and culture in the 798 Art District in China. The exhibition space presented the premiere of the 6th VH AWARD, along with a community-oriented talk program.

JURY

  • CHRISTL BAUR

  • SABINE HIMMELSBACH

  • MARTIN HONZIK

  • LEE SOOK-KYUNG

  • RODERICK SCHROCK

JURY

CHRISTL BAUR

Head of the Ars Electronica Festival

Christl BAUR is the Head of the Ars Electronica Festival, where she leads as an interdisciplinary researcher specializing in the convergence of art and science. She has curated and co-produced a wide range of exhibitions and performances, notably including the exhibition “40 Years of Humanizing Technology – Art, Technology, and Society” in collaboration with CAFA and the Design Society in Shenzhen, China. Baur’s expertise extends to various fields, including video art, new media technologies, computer art, biotechnology, and interactive art and she teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria.

BAUR’s contributions are not limited to practical endeavors but also extend to academic publications. She has authored thought-provoking texts such as “Art with a Lifespan: Digital Technologies and the Preservation of Bio Art” and “Intersections of Media Art & the Art Market,” which have been featured in the Journal of Visual Art Practice. Furthermore, Baur’s expertise has made her a highly sought-after speaker, gracing prestigious conferences such as ISEA, TTT2020 Vienna, Montreal Digital Week, and Vienna Art Week with her insights. In addition, her contributions to the field of media art have been acknowledged through her participation in renowned international juries, including the NTU Global Digital Art Prize in Singapore, the Global Creative Technology Design Award, and she serves on the jury of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

JURY

SABINE HIMMELSBACH

Director, HEK (House of Electronic Arts)

Since 2012, Sabine HIMMELSBACH has been the director of HEK(House of Electronic Arts) in Basel. After studying art history in Munich, she worked for galleries in Munich and Vienna from 1993–1996 and later became project manager for exhibitions and conferences for the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria. In 1999 she became exhibition director at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. From 2005–2011 she was the artistic director of the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany. In 2011 she curated “gateways: Art and Networked Culture” for the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn as part of the European Capital of Culture Tallinn 2011 program. Her exhibitions at HEK in Basel include “Ryoji Ikeda”(2014), “Poetics and Politics of Data”(2015), “Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Preabsence”(2016), “unREAL”(2017), “Lynn Hershman Leeson: Anti-Bodies”, “Eco-Visionaries”(2018), “Entangled Realities. Living with Artificial Intelligence”(2019), “Making FASHION Sense” and “Real Feelings. Emotion and Technology”(2020), “Anne Dukhee Jordan”(2023), Collective Worldbuilding: Art in the Metaverse”(2023), “Exploring the Decentralized Web: Art on the Blockchain”(2023) and “Libby Heaney: Quantum Soup”(2024). In 2021 she realized the online exhibition and conference “Hybrid by Nature: Human.Machine.Interaction” in collaboration with Goethe-Instituts of East Asia. In 2022 she curated “Earthbound – In Dialoge” with Nature for the European Capital of Culture Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. As a writer and lecturer, she is dedicated to topics related to media art and digital culture.

JURY

MARTIN HONZIK

CEO, Festival X

Martin HONZIK is an independent artist and since 2024 CCO from Festival X, Dubai(UAE), a young interdisciplinary Festival with a focus on Media Arts, Digital Culture and Digital Humanism. He has worked from 2001 to 2024 for Ars Electronica Linz in multiple Positions and Responsibilities. He joined Ars Electronica in 2001 as a Researcher and Artist at the Ars Electronica Futurelab with a focus on 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, co-curating and producing a considerable number of international Exhibitions in the context of Art, Science and Technology. Since 2021 he became CCO(Chief-Curatorial-Officer) of Ars Electronica Linz. Parallel to his Position as CEO at Festival X, he is Ars Electronica Ambassador. 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).

JURY

LEE Sook-Kyung

Director, The Whitworth, University of Manchester

Prof LEE Sook-Kyung is Director of the Whitworth at The University of Manchester. She was previously Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, working in exhibitions, collection displays and acquisitions. She curated “Nam June Paik” at Tate Modern in 2019 with Rudolf FRIELING, which was on tour to Stedelijk Art Museum, Amsterdam, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and National Gallery Singapore 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). She headed a major multi-year research initiative Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational at Tate Modern, overseeing its strategic vision and associated programming in relation to exhibitions and acquisitions.

LEE has been actively curating international art exhibitions beyond Tate. She was Artistic Director of the 14th Gwangju Biennale in 2023, titled soft and weak like water, which explored themes of resistance, indigeneity, decoloniality and ecology. She also served as the Commissioner and Curator of the Korea Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, representing MOON Kyungwon and JEON Joonho. She worked with the artist Yuko MOHRI as Curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.

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.

NOMINATORS

  • LEONHARD BARTOLOMEUS

  • RITIKA BISWAS

  • CHELSEA CHUA

  • DIAN INA

  • TAN HUI KOON

  • WU DAR-KUEN

  • JOEL KWONG

  • RIZKI LAZUARDI

  • MANUPORN LEUNGARAM

  • SUBASH THEBE LIMBU

  • DO TUONG LINH

  • IRIS LONG

  • SEO DONGJOO

  • zzyw

NOMINATORS

LEONHARD BARTOLOMEUS

Leonhard BARTOLOMEUS a.k.a Barto(b. 1987) is a curator at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media(YCAM), Japan. After graduating from the Jakarta Institute of Art, he joined ruangrupa(and later became Gudskul Ekosistem) until his departure to Japan in 2019. While working with the artist collective, he developed his interest in the intersection between art, education, and community engagement, which then influenced many of his curatorial projects such as Kolektif Kurator Kampung(2017-2021) Kurikulab: Moving Class(2021), The Flavour of Power(2022), Iida Kaido Kikitori Art Project, and Speculative Library(2023). While working full-time in Yamaguchi, he is still actively doing guest lectures and workshops in various schools and passionately researching various possibilities of using art as a means of learning. He lives and works in Yamaguchi, Japan.

NOMINATORS

RITIKA BISWAS

Ritika BISWAS(b. 1995) is a nomadic curator and independent artistic researcher. Her practice enmeshes eco-critical experiments and climate justice, particularly within Majority World contexts. She grew up in Kolkata, India and holds a Liberal Arts degree from Yale-NUS College and an MPhil in Film and Screen Studies from the University of Cambridge. Ritika was curator and special projects producer at New Art Exchange Gallery(UK, 2019-2021) and Artistic Director for the Sea Art Festival(Busan, 2021). In the past three years she has worked with 421 Arts Campus Abu Dhabi, MMCA Seoul, Project 88 Gallery, Arts Council Korea, and the British Council, among others. She is currently the Curator in Residence at Fondation Fiminco, Paris.

NOMINATORS

CHELSEA CHUA

Chelsea CHUA is a cultural worker who frequently works with artists, photographers, curators and filmmakers across Southeast Asia to develop projects such as exhibitions, screenings and talks. She is Program Director at Objectifs, a visual arts centre in Singapore focused on photography and film, where she oversees its collaborations, developmental programs and residencies, aimed at fostering dialogue about visual culture and pushing the boundaries of image-making.

NOMINATORS

DIAN INA MAHENDRA

​Dian Ina MAHENDRA is an art manager and organizer based in Jakarta. She is currently the Head of Exhibitions at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara(MACAN), where she has been a part of the founding team since mid-2016. She has extensive experience in working with a number of institutions in Indonesia, advancing their reach and programming of contemporary art to strengthen the art ecosystem in the region. With a background in Political and Cultural Studies, her interests lie in the issues of decolonization, community engagement in the arts, and internet technology. She is the managing editor for several publications, including “Pressure and Pleasure: An Anthology of Contemporary Indonesian Writing Inspired by the Work of Agus Suwage”(2023), “Melati Suryodarmo”(2023), and “Arahmaiani: The Past Has Not Passed”(2024).

NOMINATORS

TAN HUI KOON

TAN Hui Koon(b.1982, Malaysia) is the Senior Curator of the National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur(2010-current), at the Collection and Conservation Department. Her curatorial involvement included community art project: Gerakan Seni(2015), “National Collection: Mapping on Malaysia Modern Art History 1920-1970”(2016) permanent exhibition, “101: Malaysian Women Artists’ Exhibition”(2017), The 1st KL Biennale 2017, “Attention: New Media”(2019), Young Contemporary Award(2019) and “NUSA”(2022-2025). Besides curating national collection shows, she also curated artists’ solo exhibitions which included “CHANG Yoong Chia: Second Life”(2018) and “Arang: Ronnie MOHAMMAD”(2018). Besides NAGKL, she is also involved in different curatorial projects such as Contemporary Forum(2017); Ilham Gallery; Ipoh International Art Festival(2019), and “NUSA National Collections Permanent Exhibition”(2022-2025). She also is one of the judges 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 and Technology Media Platform at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab(C-LAB) and has been a slashie across different fields: Art creation/curation/teaching/writing/administration. He was the former director of Taipei Artist Village and Treasure Hill Artist Village, chairman of Taiwan Art Space Alliance(TASA), and chief 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 activism, but also considers social and technological issues of the Anthropocene.

NOMINATORS

JOEL KWONG

Joel KWONG, a media art curator, writer, producer and educator based in Hong Kong, is currently the Program Director of Microwave Festival(www.microwavefest.net) and the founder of SIBYLS-a creative consultation & production agency. Over 18 years of experience, her most recent projects include the Microwave Festival 2023, “Urban Canvas: On & On curation for Airside”, and Reimagine Heritages. She has also given talks and lectures in many festivals and institutions, e.g. Ars Electronica in Linz, Transmediale in Berlin, ACT Fest in Gwangju, and conducted teaching in many tertiary institutions in Hong Kong including CUHK, CityU, PolyU, APA, and Lingnan U.

NOMINATORS

RIZKI LAZUARDI

Rizki LAZUARDI(b. 1982) is an Indonesian artist and curator who works mainly with moving images and expanded cinema. He studied film and media art at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. Institutional archives and authority are instrumental in his artistic narratives and gestures. His works and programs have been presented in many festivals, exhibitions, or institutions, among others IFFR Rotterdam, Jakarta Biennale, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, Image Forum Tokyo, Museum MACAN, and Singapore Art Museum. From 2021 to 2023, Lazuardi was in the program advisor team for Berlinale Forum. Next to his curatorial and studio practice, Lazuardi also edits art publications and essay videos, among others, “Mutual Unknown” and “Collecting Entanglements and Embodied History” by Goethe-Institut. In 2020, Lazuardi co-initiated Indeks, a Badung-based curatorial platform.

NOMINATORS

MANUPORN LUENGARAM

Manuporn LUENGARAM is a curator, producer and researcher based in Bangkok, Thailand. She focuses her works in the areas of art, digital media and social practice in the context of Thailand and Southeast Asia. Since 1997, she has worked with non-profit art organizations in Bangkok including About Art Related Activities, The Queen’s Gallery, Bangkok, and Jim Thompson Art Center. She was also a former manager of Arts Network Asia (ANA), a Singapore-based, regional arts network and an enabling grant body that encourages and supports artistic collaboration and exchange within Asia. She is curator of the 2023 Thailand Biennale Chiang Rai, organized by Thailand’s Ministry of Culture. 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 member of the editorial committee of The Modern in “Southeast Asian Art: A Reader, published by National Gallery Singapore”(2023).

NOMINATORS

SUBASH THEBE LIMBU

Subash Thebe LIMBU is a Yakthung(Limbu) artist from Yakthung Nation(Limbuwan) from what is currently known as eastern Nepal. He works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcast. His Yakthung name is Tangsang(Sky). Subash has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins(2016), a BA in Fine Art from Middlesex University(2011), and an Intermediate in Fine Art from Lalit Kala Campus, Kathmandu. His works are inspired by socio-political issues, resistance and science/speculative fiction. Notions of time, climate change, and indigeneity, or Adivasi Futurism as he calls it, are recurring themes in his works. Subash is the co-founding member of Yakthung Cho Sangjumbho(Yakthung Art Society) and Haatemalo Collective. He is based in Newa Nation(Kathmandu) and London.

NOMINATORS

DO TUONG LINH

DO Tuong Linh is a curator, art researcher, and writer based between Hanoi(Vietnam) and New York City(US). Linh holds a BA in Art History and theoretical criticism from Vietnam University of Fine Arts and an MA in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa at SOAS University of London(UK), with the prestigious Alphawood scholarship. She is part of the curatorial team of 12th Berlin Biennial. Linh is currently a part of the Bard Curatorial Studies program class of 2025. Linh has engaged in various art exhibitions and projects in Vietnam, Southeast 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. She participated in many international cultural arts programs such as Asia Cultural Council research fellowship(2023); Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial(Slovenia, 2019); Association of Art Museum Curators conference, New York, USA; Mekong Cultural Hub(Taiwan, 2018 – 2019); CIMAM International Museum Workshop(Oslo, 2018); Asia Culture Center(Gwangju, 2018); Tate Intensive at the Tate Modern Museum(London, 2018); and French Encounter at Art Basel in Hong Kong(2018). Some of her notable curated exhibitions include “Citizen Earth”(Hanoi, 2020); “The Foliage 3” at Vincom Center for Contemporary Arts(Hanoi, 2019); “Geo-Resilience of the All-world” at La Colonie(Paris, 2018); “No War, No Vietnam” exhibition at Galerie Nord (Berlin, 2018); and SEA Currents(London, 2017).

NOMINATORS

IRIS LONG

Iris LONG(irislong.xyz) is an independent curator, writer and a Berggruen Fellow. Her research focus is on art and computing, as well as critical infrastructure studies. 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), “Earth Heat Flow: The Visitor Who Returns to Solar Time”(Inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale) among others. She has been on the art juries of multiple programs such as ISEA and SIGGRAPH ASIA. In 2021, she initiated Port: Under the Cloud, a long-term research and curatorial project on the infrastructures of science and technology in China. In 2024, she initiated the inaugural artist-in-residence project at the Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University.

NOMINATORS

SEO DONGJOO

SEO Dongjoo is a multimedia artist, designer, and researcher who works with diverse mediums and encompasses artistic, public, and commercial contexts. He is the recipient of numerous awards, such as Winner of the Adobe Design Achievement Awards(2008), the Lotte Museum of Art Young Artist Award(2019), Finalist in the Hermès International Scarf Design Competition(2019), and Grand Prix of the VH Award(2019). His works have been presented in various venues, such as the Ars Electronica Festival, Amorepacific Museum of Art, Technische Sammlungen Dresden, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. He received his BFA in Visual Communication Design at Kookmin University, Korea, and his MA in Visual & Media Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He has worked as a creator of ZER01NE since 2020. (homepage: dongjooseo.com)

NOMINATORS

zzyw

zzyw is a New York-based art and research practice formed by QI Zhenzhen and WANG Yang in 2014 that explores how technology shapes our world and imagines more ethical and communal alternatives. Through software prototypes, writing, and educational initiatives, zzyw studies the impact of modern computing on culture, politics, ecology, and education. zzyw’s work has been exhibited internationally in China, Singapore, Austria, Japan, Canada, South Korea, and the US. They’ve held prestigious residencies at Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, and Babycastles, were members of the New Museum’s NEW INC incubator, and actively contribute to critical discussions on technology through essays in cultural magazines and academic publications. zzyw are also dedicated educators, teaching at institutions like the University of Connecticut, The Cooper Union, Teachers College at Columbia University, New York University, and the City University of New York.