70 works by artists from 20 countries have been longlisted for the 2017 Lumen Prize, the award that seeks to raise the profile and appreciation of digital art.
Now in its sixth year, the award also sees selected artworks taking part in an annual tour, with venues in Brighton, London and St Petersburg confirmed for the 2017/18 tour.
Organised across a number of categories including Moving Image, 3D/Sculpture, Web-based, and Interactive, with each category boasting a $1,000 prize, the overall winner of the $3,000 Gold Award will be announced in September at a ceremony in London.
Longlisted UK-based artists include Seb Lee-Delisle whose project The Mindfulness Machine has been selected for the 3D/Sculpture Award category. Described as ‘a robot that likes to colour-in’, the machine was exhibited earlier this year in ‘Humans Need Not Apply’ at the Dublin Science Gallery where it produced over 300 artworks during the show’s run. Lee-Delisle has also been longlisted in the Placemaking Special Commendation Award category for the work PixelPyros.
In the Web-based Award category, London-based Julie Freeman has been longlisted for her project A Selfless Society, an abstract animation inspired by the cooperative lifestyles of mole-rats and their altruistic nature. Freeman created the animation as part of the umbrella project RAT Systems working with Marcin Ignac and a team at the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary University, London.
Another London-based artist, Anna Ridler, has been longlisted in the VR/AR category for her project Wikileaks: A Love Story, an installation that mines the classified information site to find ‘an unlikely story of love in the workplace’. Using data from real emails and based on 10,000 pages of documents from the site, the work seeks to identify the ‘collision of public and private that sits at the heart of the Wikileaks project’.
Longlisted in the Interactive category, Lawrence Lek’s Europa, Mon Amour is a virtual world based on a dystopian London set in the days after the UK decided to leave the EU. The work continues Lek’s exploration into virtual worlds as models to explore the effects of urban transformation from a first-person perspective.
Other UK-based artists to make the longlist include: Damien Borowik (Cherry Blossom and Mountains, Still Image Award), Moritz Behrens and Konstantinos Mavromichalis (Vivid Sentiment Cocoon, Placemaking Special Commendation Award), Paul Brown (Builder/Eater, Colour Version, Moving Image Award), Samuel Capps (R/E:volve, Moving Image Award), Joseph Anthony Connor (Unaccountable AI, Artificial Intelligence Award), Fabio Dartizio (The desire to stay in the sun, Web-based Award), Tadej Droljc (CAPILLARIES CAPILLARIES, Student Award), Jake Elwes (Latent Space, Student Award), The Glass Cyphers (The Murmuration Cloud, Placemaking Special Commendation Award), Heinrich & Palmer (Light Wave, Moving Image Award), Jonathan Hillson (The Flagellation of Christ, Moving Image Award), Hirsch&Mann (Within, Placemaking Special Commendation Award), Will Hurt (Abstract Playground AP1, Interactive Award), Zarah Hussain (Numina, 3D/Sculpture Award), ITHACA (The Storm, 3D/Sculpture Award), Jiayu Liu (Ocean Wave, Placemaking Special Commendation Award), Luca Margherita Damiani (Ssssshhooeesss…., Still Image Award), Marco Pantaleoni (We Are Humans, Student Award), SDNA (Waking Dream, Moving Image Award), Stanza (The Nemesis Machine – From Metropolis to Megalopolis to Ecumenopolis, 3D/Sculpture Award), Universal Everything (Screens of the Future, Moving Image Award) and Dave Webb (BeHere, Interactive Award).
2017 Lumen Prize Shortlist will be announced online on 1 September, with the winner announced 20 September at a ceremony at the Frontline Club, London. Voting for the People’s Choice Award opens 1 August 2017. lumenprize.com
Images:
1. Anna Ridler, Wikileaks: A Love Story.
2. Seb Lee-Delisle, The Mindfulness Machine.
3. Julie Freeman (with Marcin Ignac), A Selfless Society.
4. Lawrence Lek, Europa, Mon Amour (view: Outside the Rio Cinema).
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