Young Professionals
Honorary Mention
Mankind’s most revolutionary invention has spread throughout society like a virus. The smartphone has infiltrated our everyday life quietly and inconspicuously and exerted an enormous influence on it. The price we pay for the convenience these devices offer us has a different significance for each of us, but its sum remains the same. Every one of us is responsible for oneself; one must decide whether one places the services provided by Google Maps, Instagram, Amazon, and WhatsApp above one’s own privacy. But these devices impact nearly every other area of our lives as well—in the case of young people, it is particularly their health that is affected. “Text neck” is a posture problem now recognized by medical professionals, and studies from South Korea show that some 80 percent of young people in that country are now nearsighted. Every year at a lavish event, Apple’s newest device is unveiled, and since a segment of society capitulates to capitalist ideology and buys the latest iPhone in order to define themselves among the masses, millions of smartphones also become redundant each year. These superfluous phones are then burned at enormous e-waste dumps in Third World countries, with the emissions having a huge impact on climate, nature, and environment. Because social media and the smartphone go hand in hand, the WWW collection devotes itself primarily to the networking of social media users, with the seemingly perfect image that is presented to the outside world, with their transparency and the longing for beauty and perfection. In the Virus collection, the risks and problems that smartphones bring with them are visualized. The individual articles of clothing/sculptures are to be seen as an artistic exploration of the topic and are aimed at raising the viewers’ awareness of the risks of technological indulgence.
Preview Video
Project Credits / Acknowledgements
Photos: Armin Rafili
Hair & makeup: Lilly Evita
Models: Miao Yan, Jan Kössl, Elias Geser, Chiara Fahrner, Alma Kathan
Support teacher: Julia Wetrov
Biographien
Florian Sigl (b. 2000) and Ria Kathan (b. 2000) have known each other since their high school days. When both of them decided to enter the fashion department at the Ferrarischule Innsbruck, their paths crossed again. The five years they spent together at school led to a close friendship that formed the foundation for a respectful collaboration for their final project. They had the opportunity to exhibit their work at the 2019 Design- & Erfindermesse in Tirol, winning first prize in the Fashion & Design category. In the future they want to use their work to share their thoughts about the risks and effects associated with the excessive use of smartphones and social media.
Jurystatement
WWW.VIRUS reflects the omnipresent consumption of smartphones and social media in a fashion collection. Instead of aiming to please, Ria Kathan and Florian Sigl take a critical look at how we deal with current technologies and address the almost incomprehensible impact they have on our lives. The sculptural, critical, and committed approach to this topic convinced us to award the work an Honorary Mention in the Young Professionals category.
Talent Talks
As a complementary international part of the category u19–create your world of the Prix Ars Electronica, jury member and moderator Conny Lee (AT) is talking with some of this years winners about their ideas, creativity and future visions.