The Edith Russ Site for Media Art has awarded three six-months work stipends for 2008. The 10.000 € stipends are sponsored by Stiftung Niedersachsen. The advertisement was answered by 431 applications from all over the world.

Edith Russ Site for Media Art awards work stipends 2008 to

Petko Dourmana (Bulgaria)
Kristin Lucas (USA)
Cornelia Sollfrank (Germany)

The Jury 2008: Sabine Himmelsbach, Warren Sack, Stephan Urbaschek, Annette Schindler, Susanne Jaschko (f.l.t.r.)

Jury-Statements

Petko Dourmana „Post Global Warming Survival Kit”

In his proposed project "Post Global Warming Survival Kit", Bulgarian artist Petko Dourmana plans to realize a multimedia installation that will recast the working place of a person, who is observing the border between the see and the land in a fictional post-apocalyptic landscape. Dourmana will create the fiction of a "nuclear winter", with ashes covering the surface of the earth, which is initiated by political groups or governments as a solution to "global warming". In this setting he is literally trying to change the vision of the viewer. By using infrared light he enhances the visible spectrum which the viewer can access through digital cameras and other technical devises. He offers the viewer the chance to experience other visual worlds or parts of our reality that would not be visible without technological devices. The jury acknowledges the idea that with his installation, Dourmana makes us aware of ecological changes that are also brought about by pollution and intoxication – things we don’t see. In his installation he brings together a fictional narration with technological devices and the limited capability of our senses (without the technology we would be helpless). Laden with irony, Dourmana stages a "nuclear winter" as the only concept man has come up with to avoid "global warming" – a rather dystopian view on our future and a desillusioned view on politics.

Kristin Lucas, „kl_v2”

American artist Kristin Lucas’ artistic projects are dealing with the issues of transformations and portraiture as a main aspect of her work. Reversing the popular concept of infusing humanity into machines, she instead applies familiar strategies of electronic media to her own life. In her project proposal "kl_v2",Lucas follows up her recent Superior Court issued name change from Kristin Sue Lucas to Kristin Sue Lucas. In the proposed project for the stipend period, she will undergo strategies to better understand the implications, limitations and advantages of being the most current version of herself. Documentations, observations and exchanges with consult experts of copyright law, genetic science, philosophy, media theory and many others will culminate in a variety of artistic formats and outputs (e.g. a weblog, podcast, videos, a comprehensive book and accompanying DVD). Lucas is staging a new "version" of herself, refreshing herself like a webpage. The jury has been impressed by how she applies technologies to herself as a second self. By applying a digital mechanism to herself, she takes a metaphor literally and opens it up to a wider context. Her project has its source in the legal context and expands into various dimensions, which have impacts on technological realities that we interact with. Her work deals with the issues of identity by using the same principles of renewal for a human being as for a technical process. She ultimately asks the question, what technology does to our bodily selves.

Cornelia Sollfrank, „Déjà Vu: First Plagiarism Detection Software for Fine Arts”

In German artist Cornelia Sollfrank’s works copyright issues are a main topic. With "Déjà Vu. First Plagiarism Detection Software for Fine Arts", Sollfrank proposes an Internet-based software project that will detect plagiarism in art. Since the digital databases of the World Wide Web have made it so easy to steal content and by copying and pasting creating new contexts, the phenomenon of plagiarism belongs to the daily routine in today’s society, especially within universities and software companies. Sollfrank’s plagiarism detection software for the arts will employ distance calculation algorithms originating from bioinformatics for matching human genome patterns thus providing scientific measuredness for a field where arbitrariness and incapability of proof used to rule. The jury was very convinced by this project and its implications. In a remix culture the question of authenticity in art seems absurd. In that context Sollfrank, with an ironic approach, provides us with a procedure to distinguish the original from the copy. She makes us reflect on cultural history and the whole notion of artistic influences and deconstruct the concept of the artist who creates from nothing as an obsolete one. Thus she releases us from the anxiety of influence by showing the impossibility of composing anything authentic.