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Vilém Flusser Theory Award

In order to reflect the increasing significance of theoretical and critical practice works submitted for the transmediale Award competition, the festival has introduced the Vilém Flusser Theory Award.

Nominated works

The deliberations of the international jury - composed of Annick Bureaud (Paris), Bronac Ferran (London), Juha Huuskonen (Helsinki), Pooja Sood (New Delhi), and Christoph Tannert (Berlin) - ended with a selection of eight works being nominated for the transmediale Award 2009:

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The Laboratory Planet

Ewen Chardronnet
Bureau d'études
text

The Laboratory Planet is a periodic journal of philosophy, science and critical writing on technology, discussing geostrategic and tactical media as well as speculative issues lurking behind the ambiguous headlines of the mainstream press.

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Overbug

Hiroshi Matoba
performance

Overbug is a music-performance tool designed to compose minimal, dance and pop music. By arranging looping sound patterns, called 'Bugsounds', the program creates complex, polyrhythmic compositions.

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Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake

Perry Bard

The video artist Perry Bard invites people to a collaborative web-based, database-generated montage experiment.

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Post Global Warming Survival Kit

Petko Dourmana

This interactive multimedia installation consists of a two-channel projection and shows infrared images of the North Sea as a post-apocalyptic landscape that the observer can only see by using a night-vision device.

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Tantalum Memorial

Graham Harwood
Richard Wright
Matsuko Yokokoji

The telephone-installation is a memorial to the more than 3 million people who have perished in the complex wars that have gone on in the Congo since 1998, often referred to as the 'Coltan Wars'. The ore coltan is used as the raw material for the metal tantalum, which is an essential component of mobile phones and computers.

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Extreme Green Guerrillas

Michiko Nitta

Nitta’s project takes current green trends to the extreme. The Extreme Green Guerillas are a network of amateur self-sustaining people who have shortened their lifespan through the ultimate green lifestyle.

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Six Apartments

Reynold Reynolds
installation

Reynolds’s video installation Six Apartments is a poetic narration of resignation and decline which documents the life of six people in their apartments. The inhabitants live isolated, unaware of each other, without drama – they eat, sleep, watch television – even though their lives are overshadowed by mass media generated problems of the larger world and the upcoming ecological crisis.

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transmediale Award 2009 - winners

Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji from Great Britain received the first prize (endowed with 5,000 euros). Their installation Tantalum Memorial is a memorial to the people who have died in the wars in Congo over the metal coltan, which is used in cell phone components and has become more valuable than gold. The work also references to a 'social telephony' network used by the Congelese diaspora.

The two second prizes (1,500 euros each) go to the Berlin based US-American artist Reynold Reynolds for his split-screen video installation which shows the life of six people in their apartments, isolated and unaware of each other (Six Apartments) and to Rudolfo Quintas from Portugal for his interactive sound performance Burning The Sound about the nature of rituals, power and control.

Videos:
> Tantalum Memorial @Award Ceremony
> Tantalum Memorial tagr.tv interview
> Six Apartments @Award Ceremony
> Burning the Sound @Award Ceremony

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Burning the Sound

Rudolfo Quintas
performance

The interactive sound performance is about the nature of rituals, power and control.  It uses fire from a regular lighter to subvert patterns of rhythm, thus using technologically mediated computer sound to exorcise the sound as a spiritual strategy.

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