The transmediale.01 has organized the first competition that includes an art award for software. This competition acknowledges the artistic work done by hybrid artist-programmers who are neither ‘interactive media artists’ nor ‘net artists’, but whose aesthetic material is code and whose expressive form is software programming. One definition suggested for Software Art is that it encompasses projects in which self-written algorithmic computer software - stand-alone programs or script-based applications - is not merely a functional tool but in itself an artistic creation. Through the competition and panel discussion, the transmediale hopes to stimulate the debate about software as a motor of cultural innovation. Does software serve a merely instrumental function, or does it offer new and creative cultural perspectives? Is computer code a genuine artistic material like paint or digital images?