The jury was pleasantly surprised by the technical qualities of the realization of much of the work screened.. but shied away from making judgements based primarily on these criteria.
There was a notable presence of work based on appropriated or found footage and inevitably one of these became the subject of a special mention. This was the case with The Shape of Things.. (Oliver Pietsch) which reflects the primeval fears in us all with humour, wit, impeccable timing and the frisson of possible truth. He produced a collage entirely his own.
As a complete antithesis to this the charm and simplicity of the narrative structure of Raftman’s Razor (Keith Bearden) touched us with its naive sophistication. We recognized the central void of the comic structure and the final adolescent disillusion. It was not without its own underlying horrors and was executed with impeccable technique.
However the jury surprised themselves with their eventual selection of Plot Point (Nicholas Provost) as the ultimate winner of this year’s Sphinx award. Rather than the use and abuse of third party images, the director collected his own footage around Times Square recreating the tensions and conventions of dominant hollywood forms with masterly editing and a perfect eye. He inverts the paradigm of appropriation. We’re still wondering where he got us.
For the installations and performances the jury was confronted with a difficult decision given the disparate nature of the works.
Stairs received an honourable mention for its poetic time remapping of human presence in an architectural space.
Diamond forms under pressure (Ocusonic) uses state of the art software to create precisely that.. An audio-visual diamond .. from a singularity a compelling multiplicity.
Bogdanka Poznanović Award, main prize for the installation or live piece went to Natures (Quayola) which expands on his work seen in single screen video programs. His use of motion tracking software develops a multilayered aesthetic reminiscent of the Vorticists of the early 20s. It appears to make visible the energies connecting things. The more you look at it the more you see in it.. A treat for aesthetes. Although its not live, its what’s happening now.

Jury members:
David Larcher, Jan Verbeek, Zoran Pantelic