Posted by Steve Dietz on October 12, 2005 12:44 AM
Ashok Sukumaran is an artist in residence at Sun Microsystems Labs for ISEA2006. It was announced yesterday that he had won the UNESCO Digital Arts Award.
The main prize of the UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2005 - City and Creative Media goes to Indian artist Ashok Sukumaran. His poetic yet pragmatic project SWITCH has been selected out of 242 project proposals by the International Jury Committee of the Award through an online selection process.
The six jury members appointed by UNESCO with a balance of geo-cultural representation placed the highest value on this project in recognition of its innovative, artistic reflections on current urban environment, and its critical perspectives on the layering of old technology electricity and new media within city infrastructures.
On this occasion, the grand prize winner will receive 5000 US dollars and is invited to present his prize-winning project at the International Workshop on Urban Play and Locative Media (18-20 October 2005, Seoul, Republic of Korea), organized by Art Center Nabi, the co-organizers of this years edition of the Award.
The project redrawing lines by Tripta Chandola (India) has been bestowed the 2nd prize of 3000 US dollars while the 3rd prize position has been jointly awarded to two projects: Yellow Chair Stories, by Anab Jain and Zhong Shuo, a collaborative project by Iain Mott (Australia) and Ding Jie (China). Both projects will receive a prize of 1000 US dollars. In addition, the NABI special honourable mention is given to the project Light Attack by Daniel Sauter (Germany).
Members of the International Jury committee who have taken active part in the selection of prize winners are the following: Mr Eugenio Tisselli Vélez (Mexico), researcher/developer in physical interface design and multimedia software development; Mr Roger Malina (USA), executive editor of the Journal Leonardo and Board chairman of the International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology; Mr Marcus Neustetter (South Africa), media artist and joint director of The Trinity Session; Mr Drew Hemment (UK), Director of the Futuresonic International Festival of Electronic Music and Media Arts; Ms Sohyeong Roh (Republic of Korea), Director of Art Centre Nabi from Korea, and lastly Ms Yukiko Shikata (Japan), independent media art curator and critic, who acted as President of the Jury Committee. The designated seventh jury member Ms Samia A. Halaby (Palestine), visual artist working with electronic media, could not participate in the jury process owing to inevitable circumstances.
