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2005, awardsLive search( total items: 6 ) Dies IraeSpecial MentionBy taking us on a dense and multi-layered, beautiful travel through all the world's infrastructure, Périot leaves us puzzled by ending on the dead-end street of a former world-war II concentration camp.  Jean-Gabriel Périot: Dies Irae , remember Living a Beautiful LifeSpecial MentionA subtle confrontation with the unbearable lightness of perfection, leaving us in a state where one can only yearn for sin..  C. Schnitt: Living a Beautiful Life In 'Lord of the Flies', William Golding describes a group of children being washed ashore on a desert island, where they design their own social structure as if it were a natural process. It is remarkable to witness how quickly the theoretical ideal formulated by the children becomes blemished. Their society degenerates into a very cruel, unjust and violent one. As introduction to Living a beautiful life, Schnitt shows a fragment from Der Katzenprinz, a Czech-East-German film made in 1978. Here, as in a vision, we see the reverse; cheerful, naked children living in a paradise where even wild animals are free from cruelty. The fragment is rather over the top, and, due also to the imagery, recognizable as an exponent of 1970s ideas on freedom and happiness. Which in turn confronts us with the fact that, by now, these ideas have become rather tainted and have been superseded by sense of reality. Although? Has anything taken their place? Cultural QuarterSphinx AwardA piece that raises ethical questions on social voyeurism as well as social behaviour. Looking at the surveillance-like images, edited in a very subtle yet very manipulative way, we stand perplex on the social interaction of an unspecified suburb community, witnessing what seems an almost common routine and leaving us with feelings of disconnection, despair, and an overall state o shock, of not understanding the reality that is presented in front of us. By registering a daily reality that we usually want to close our eyes for, Mike Stubbs confronts us with a meticulously detailed social drama and manages to open our eyes in a most powerful and sustaining way.  Mike Stubbs: Cultural Quarter Cultural Quarter presents the relationships of observation in the city to its citizens, whilst begging ethical questions about surveillance, the gaze and human behaviour. It exposes some of the gaps between developers' dreams and citizens' perceptions of what cultural space means and how to use it. Warning Petroleum PipelineSpecial MentionA computer animation that strikingly shows us the impact of an ever-increasing dependence on our energy- and production-based society.  Warning Petroleum Pipeline The movement of information across the worldwide web is invisible. Bits and bytes slip soundlessly through slender cables, to arrive, in no more than a split second, at the computer for which they are meant, where they can be used again at the click of a mouse. In contrast, the movement of oil is a messy and ponderous affair, which makes huge claims on the landscape and built-up areas. Bulky, rusty pipes traverse the fields, while trucks and tankers toil slowly over roads and oceans, accompanied by the threat of pollution and explosion. Both processes have drastically changed the world, and continue to keep economic and political relations on the alert. With its black-and-white collage-like images, 'Warning Petroleum Pipeline' is reminiscent of art that, in the early twentieth century, was intended to depict the destructive power of the emerging heavy industry. Self-PortraitBogdanka Poznanović AwardA simple, basic, yet strong idea translated very well in this personal monitor work. Headlessly sitting in front of his computer monitor and his decapitated body walking back and forth from his desk to the window of his working space, Frank Theys confronts us with the role and position of the personal computer in our daily lives taking over our daily thinking process. With the heart still pumping blood in an attempt to nourish the brain, the blood comes squirting out of his body onto the monitor screen and the appartment window, blocking his view for what has become his reality.  Frank Theys: Self-Portrait Walking from my computer to the window and back without a head. Visible CitySpecial MentionIn the animated city of Hong Kong based artist Li Hong Ting, the wry atmosphere is expressed by the colourful balloons, tied around the neck of every person in the city, in order to keep their head up high. The combination of the joyful balloons and the sinister facial expressions on the heads they are lifting up, in a setting of an increasing and 'uprising' urban sprawl, makes a dark statement on this modern city, where the only way out seems to be found on the top of the building, as a springboard for a jump into liberty. (Jan Schuijren on behalf of Jury)  Li Hong Ting: Visible City A video recorded by a security camera. |
