Enabled through the financial support of the Stiftung Niedersachsen the Edith Russ Site for Media Art offers three works stipends for artists in the year 2006. The stipends have a duration of six months and are endowed with 10.000 Euro each. The international call was again answered by many applications (322). The awarded artists will present their works on Tuesday, 25 July at 7 p.m.

The Jury 2006

Michael Connor, British Film Institute, London Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität, Oldenburg Karin Ohlenschläger, Medialab Madrid, Madrid Sabine Himmelsbach, Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg

The Decision of the Jury

ubermorgen.com (Lizvlx / Hans Bernhard) for the project "Amazon Noir – The Big Book Crime" Annina Rüst for the project "Rock'n Scroll" Corinna Schnitt for the realisation of a video installation (yet without a title)

The statements of the Jury

ubermorgen.com, "Amazon Noir – The Big Book Crime"

Hans Bernhard (ubermorgen.com)

ubermorgen.com proposes a subversive online work that questions the inconsistencies in the enforcement of copyright law. Using the aesthetics of Film Noir, a corresponding plot, and protagonist, the project allows users to 'legally' steal and redistribute copyright books from amazon.com. A programmed software-bot is going to outwit Amazon's "search-inside-the-book"-system and will be capable of using the search results to compile entire books. ubermorgen.com points out the hypocrisy of the digital copyright lobby. Past work of the group has infiltrated mainstream media outlets, bringing questions about civil rights, patent, copyright and democracy in the digital age to wide audiences. The proposed project will enter into direct conversation with media, legal and business entities and consumer behaviours. The piece is a performative media-installation and thus continues the historical tradition of happenings and performance art. Provoking reactions from conventional media and business is an integral part of the project.

Amazon Noir is a ubermorgen.com, Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico project.

Annina Rüst, "Rock'n Scroll"

Annina Rüst

"Rock'n Scroll" offers a software-structure for spontaneous dance-happenings in places equipped with wireless internet access. Users can remix and sample sounds using devices such as laptops, computer accessories, and mobile phones. This equipment serves both as receiver and transmitter of sounds and creates a sound-environment, involving everyone who participates. The work serves the development of a software-programme with a creative, innovative, and participatory application for communication. "Rock'n Scroll" reflects the way the production and consumption of music have begun to merge, creating a collective listening and dancing environment where everybody is the DJ. Creating a public soundscape by social interaction, the project intervenes in wi-fi zones, asking us to look up from our screens and engage physically with our environment.

Corinna Schnitt

Corinna Schnitt

Corinna Schnitt's proposed video installation will address the issues of home, private happiness, leisure, work, and prosperity. Families of diverse ethnic origins, different cultural and social contexts are invited to a picnic in a playground-setting constructed in a film studio– daily life takes place in an estranged setting. The artist will present the results of these encounters in a video installation. Schnitt's work portrays social behaviour and interaction. She uncovers the implicit ideology of domestic space and leisure time, infused with a wry sense of humour. Combining this with a rigorous formal approach, a clash between realism and absurdity is created. The artist's work is dealing with the question how we construct our reality: ideas and expectations are contrasted with social context and behaviour. Combining disparateinfluences from the history of video art, Corinna Schnitt develops an interconnection between different traditions.