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. In collaboration with the Vilém Flusser Archive at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the award honors outstanding theoretical or research-based digital arts practice.
As a media philosopher Vilém Flusser was above all an influential visionary who had already in the 1980s foreseen both the advance of digital technologies and an emerging telematic society. Thoroughly examining the new media technologies, this original thinker created philosophical fictions of a future in which new networks of communication would fundamentally alter human existence. Flusser's distinctive feature of freely moving between the traditional academic disciplines is manifested in the foundation of his "Communicological" studies. He is also known for writing and re-writing his texts in different languages, often letting the respective etymologies guide his thoughts. In a world dominated by machines Flusser -- the eternal nomad -- continuously sought to show a way to open up a space for freedom.
The
Vilém Flusser Theory Award credits contemporary artistic positions and practice based research projects which adopt Flusser's legacy through their noteworthy imagination and analytic rigour. The international jury of the transmediale.10 Vilém Flusser Theory Award consists of Sabeth Buchmann (Berlin/Vienna), Oliver Grau (Berlin/Krems), Marcel René Marburger (Berlin/Köln). The prize carries a value of 2000 Euros.
The names of the four nominees for the Vilém Flusser Theory Award 2010 were announced as part of the 10 year anniversary event of the International Flusser Lectures on 22 October 2009. We are pleased to pass these names on to you here (detailed descriptions will follow shortly).
David Link (de) for his text There must be an Angel. On the Beginnings of Arithmetics of Rays
http://www.alpha60.de/
Mina Lunzer (at/de) with the media project Syjettes
http://www.minalunzer.net/
Warren Neidich (us/de) with the research project Neuropower
http://www.warrenneidich.com/
Daniela Alina Plewe (de/sg) with the research project Transactional Art
http://transactionalarts.wordpress.com/
Information on the jury members:
Sabeth Buchmann is an art historian and critic. Since 1997 lecturer, assistant, and guest professorships at various colleges and universities; since 2004 Professor for Modern and Post-modern Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Regular articles in art journals, exhibition catalogs, and publications on art, politics and society. Since 1998 advisory board member of the magazine "Texte zur Kunst". 2004-2006 research project on "avant-garde, film and biopolitics" at the Jan van Eyck Academy Maastricht. Sabeth Buchmann lives in Berlin and Vienna.
Oliver Grau is an art historian and media theorist. He is professor of image science (Visual Studies) and head of department at the Danube University Krems. Researches mainly in the history of media art, emotions and immersion (virtual reality) as well as the history, idea and culture of telepresence and artificial life. Grau lectured at the Humboldt University Berlin and worked as an exchange professor at several international universities. In the framework of the project Immersive Art which was sponsored by The German Research Foundation he initiated the first international Database of Virtual Art (www.virtualart.at) in 1998.
Marcel René Marburger: graduated in art history, German literature and philosophy in Cologne. Research assistant and lecturer at the Cologne Cathedral, the Academy of Media Arts Cologne as well as at the Berlin University of the Arts. One of the co-editors of the International Flusser Lectures.
