Bogdanka Poznanović Award

R. Arnold: The Morphology of Desire

The Morphology of Desire is an ongoing experimental media project which explores the commodity representation of gender and desire in popular culture, and the relationship between the still image and illusion of cinematic motion, using digital morphing to animate romance novel cover illustrations as a never-ending dance of unrealized desire. This third version uses of DVD scripting capabilities to randomly sequence the order of image and text as a continuous but non-repeating loop that is constantly shifting narrative implication.

Tim Deussen: Where is the mistake?

The moderator of a game show animates the viewer to find which of two pictures has a mistake in it. You tell us where the mistake is, and you will win a big prize. Satire about our media culture, and what happens when political topics are picked up by mainstream TV.

J. Schmuch, U. Gollner: Memento

Memento is an interactive video installation that allows interaction between visitor, machine and other visitors through time. Each visitor leaves his/her shadow behind to interact with other people creating a virtual environment where all the shadows of former and future visitors are interacting together.

babel: Urbanalities

Part short story, poem, animated comic and musical, 10 scenes in 10 minutes, based loosely on the story of one young woman's day in a modern city. The text is generated randomly as you watch, so you will never see exactly the same story twice.

Special Mention

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 1

Soviet Unterzögersdorf (pronounced 'oon-taa-tsee-gars-doorf') is the last existing appanage republic of the USSR. The enclave maintains no diplomatic relationship with the surrounding so-called 'Republic of Austria' nor with the Fortress 'European Union'. The downfall of her motherland -- the Soviet Union - in the early 1990s had a particularly bad effect on the country's economic situation. It is a great challenge to secure survival for the small but proud confederation. External reactionary forces put the country in danger. It’s a lack of respect due to a morally corrupted and perhaps even non-existing unity of the peoples. The goal of a glorious future is almost unreachable. But there are a handful of people who don’t give up on a vision for a better tomorrow. Let us tell you the stories of the brave citizens in the beautiful little country of Soviet Unterzögersdorf. It’s a story that will go into history.

Velvet explores states of mind, dreams, and memory. The piece has four sections that transition one into the other. Interactivity plays a significant role, not only for navigation, but for the generation of meaning. The imagery includes black and white photos from the former East Berlin; surrealist color composites from the U.S. and abroad; and video –both black & white open source material from 1950’s America and recent color work of my own. All of the images, sound, scripting, and concept are my own. The piece is both whimsical and disturbing, providing an approximate 10 minute viewing experience.

SWAMP: IED

The current U.S. led war in Iraq has suffered enormous casualties, where the toll on civilian lives is vague and many times unreported. The number of U.S. casualties is reported and monitored, many of which are the result of I.E.D.s (improvised explosive devices). Overall, the media coverage of these atrocities is given very little attention, often overshadowed by more personal and spectacular stories, such as child abductions and runaway brides. SWAMP's I.E.D. project aims to give real and physical presence to the death and violence occurring in the Middle East, by creating direct physical pain from the event of killed soldiers, whose toll and details are silently relegated to small or no print. A Custom software application continuously monitors a web-site (icasualties.org) that updates the accumulation and personal details of slain U.S. soldiers. When new deaths are detected the data is extracted and sent wirelessly to custom hardware installed on the I.E.D. armband.