update_6

In reply to the call for projects for the international contest New Technological Art Award (NTAA) 2016, 487 candidates representing 59 nationalities worldwide have registered. The contest is organized by the Liedts-Meesen Foundation in the context of the biennial update_6.

Out of these projects, an international jury has selected 21 nominees with the proviso of practical realisation in the update_6 exhibition:

1024 architecture (France)—Walking Cube
Assocreation (Austria/Thailand)—Solar Pink Pong
Alessio Chierico (Italy)—Trāṭaka
CREW_Eric Joris (Belgium)—The Pavilion (working title)
Michiel De Cleene (Belgium)—Reference Guide
Dries Depoorter (Belgium)—Sheriff Software
Verena Friedrich (Germany)—THE LONG NOW
Julien Grossmann (France)—Breakaway Songs
Elias Heuninck (Belgium)—Lightkeeping
Wim Janssen (Belgium)—Black Board - White Cube
Michael Kugler (USA) & Sebastian Wolf (Germany)—Brume
Marc Lee (Switzerland)—Pic-me
Michael Mandiberg (USA)—Print Wikipedia
Quadrature—Jan Bernstein, Juliane Götz, Sebastian Neitsch (Germany)—Satelliten
Theresa Schubert (Germany)—Growing Geometries (Tattooing Mushrooms)
Karina Smigla-Bobinski (Germany)—SIMULACRA
Maja Smrekar (Slovenia)—K-9_topology: ECCE CANIS
Stanza (UK)—The Reader
Diemut Strebe (Germany)—Sugababe
Bill Vorn & Louis-Philippe Demers (Canada)—Inferno
Lien-Cheng Wang (Taiwan)—Regeneration Movement

RESERVE
Neil Mendoza (UK)—The Electric Knife Orchestra
Koen Vanmechelen (Belgium)—Open Secret – C.C.P.

This jury was composed of head of the jury Martin Honzik (Head of Department Prix/Festival Ars Electronica) together with Peter Weibel (Director, ZKM Karlsruhe), Jean-Marie Dallet (Artist, Research Professor at the Université Paris 8), Alain Liedts (Zebrastraat, Liedts-Meesen Foundation), Stef Van Bellingen (Consultant for Zebrastraat, Artistic leader contemporary art platform WARP), Paul Dujardin (Artistic Director, BOZAR), Nick Ervinck (Artist, Winner of the Update II Public Award), Alain Thibault (Artistic Director of Elektra), Edwin Carels (Curator New Media exhibitions), Karen Helmerson (Program Director for Electronic Media, Film & Visual Art at the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)) and Ralph Dum (Scientific Officer and Senior Expert of the European Commission).

The nominees will compete for the coveted Prize of the Jury and Prize of the Public, which will be awarded at the end of the exhibition during update_6 (to be held from November 5 until December 4, 2016 at Zebrastraat Ghent, Belgium).

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.

Participants of update_5 won different international awards: Nurit Bar-Shai (Israel), JD Beltran + Scott Minneman (USA), Jo Caimo (Belgium), Martin John Callanan (UK), Mattia Casalegno (Italy), Mats Dekock (Belgium), Alisa Goikhman (Israel), Bart Hess (Netherlands), Beverley Hood (UK), Karl Jeron (Germany), Nandita Kumar (India/New Zealand), Ebru Kurbak (Turkey) + Irene Posh (Austria), Keith Lam (Hong Kong), Lia (Austria), Dave Murray-Rust + Rocio Von Jungenfeld (Germany), Stéfan Piat (France), Quayola (Italy, winner Prize of the Jury), Stefan Tiefengraber (Austria), Jacob Tonski (USA, winner Prize of the Jury), Patrick Tresset (France, winner Prize of the Public), Alex Verhaest (Belgium).

Exhibition: Lee Lee Nam
During the same period Zebrastraat shows work of the South-Korean artist Lee Lee Nam. His works are located at the intersection of tradition and modernity, humanity and nature, East and West, analog and digital, originality and duplication and of neoliberalism and digital technology. Often referring to art history, he creates a dialogue between different traditional and modern media technologies and their cultural history. He lifts the barrier between diverse cultures and periods of time and questions the habits of perception and handling with art.

There will be a catalogue of the update_6 and Lee Lee Nam exhibition.

Contact NTAA: Art Consultant Isolde De Buck and Annelies Geenen, annelies@zebrastraat.be / T +032494/881 559