NTAA Awards 2014
Organization: Liedts-Meesen
Zebrastraat
Zebrastraat 32/001
9000 Ghent
Belgium
Public Award
Of the more than 2,000 visitors, 525 cast a valid vote. The following five artists received 30 votes or more:
–Patrick Tresset: 5 Robots Named Paul (105)
–Jacob Tonski: Balance From Within (52)
–Dave Murray-Rust + Rocio Von Jungenfeld: Lichtsuchende (44)
–Bart Hess: Digital Artefacts (34)
–Stefan Tiefengraber: User Generated Server Destruction (30)
The public award consists of the presentation of the work, in the course of next year, at a major European cultural centre or museum. This award goes indisputably to the artist Patrick Tresset with his work 5 Robots Named Paul. “In a scene reminiscent of a life drawing class, the human takes the sitter’s role to be sketched by five robots. The drawing sessions last up to 40 minutes, during which time the human cannot see the drawings in progress. The sitter only sees the robots alternating between observing and drawing, sometimes pausing. The human sitter is passive, the robots taking the creative sensitive role.”
Jury Award
Of the ten international judges, nine have announced their judgment. Five artists received eight points or more:
–Quayola: Captives (16)
–Jacob Tonski: Balance From Within (16)
–Patrick Tresset: 5 Robots Named Paul (14)
–Nurit Bar-Shai: Objectivity [Tentative]: Soundscapes Series (8)
–Stefan Tiefengraber: User Generated Server Destruction (8)
The jury award thus goes to two artists: Quayola: Captives and Jacob Tonski: Balance From Within. Exceptionally the price of 5,000 EUR will be awarded to both artists.
Quayola: Captives: “Captives is an ongoing series of digital and physical sculptures, a contemporary interpretation of Michelangelo’s unfinished series ‘Prigioni’ and his technique of ‘non-finito.’ The classic figures are left unfinished, documenting the very history of their creation and transformation. Industrial computer-controlled robots sculpt the resulting geometries into life-size ‘unfinished’ sculptures.”
Jacob Tonski: Balance From Within: “A 170-year-old sofa balances precariously on one leg, continuously teetering, responding internally to external forces. Relationships are balancing acts, and delicate ones at that. This idea turned into a balancing sofa as Tonski was thinking about how all of our social interactions can be found on these pieces of furniture.”
Both artists received a positive appreciation from four different judges. The proposed works respond to the requirements of the competition and its rules concerning the aesthetic use of new technologies, in response to contemporary values.
Biennal Update_5/ NTAA 2014 publication: Update_5. Technology as Context:
www.merpaperkunsthalle.org and www.ntaa.be
Art Exhibition Update_5 took place at Zebrastraat 32/001, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Organization: Foundation Liedts-Meesen
Zebrastraat: Knowledge centre
During the last few years, Zebrastraat Ghent has developed into a stimulating knowledge centre with a strong interest in art. Every two years we organize a Biennial called Update, linked with the New Technological Art Award (NTAA) contest, which tries to fill in a gap in the mainstream art world, by paying attention to the technological developments that drive our global culture.
NTAA selects and presents creations in which the culture-forming role of technology occupies a central place. Low or high tech, intuitive or experimental, the creations always draw our attention to actual innovative trends. The exhibition of achievements of the selected winners is a compass that orients you to the relevant temporal and resilient use of technology in the artistic sector.
Contact
Curator art /consultant Isolde De Buck: isolde [at] zebrastraat.be / www.zebrastraat.be
