Media Art from Latin America awarded 45,000 US Dollars

• More about the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards & CIFO
• More about the winners 2024
• Images via Flickr
• Press text as PDF

(Linz/Miami, March 5, 2024) The CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards 2024 are honoring innovative media art from Latin America for the third time in a row. More than 100 submissions by artists from 15 countries made it through the selection process –  Federico Gloriani (AR) and Guely Morató Loredo (BO) have prevailed with their concepts and can look forward to prize money totaling 45,000 US dollars.

The CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards not only recognize outstanding art projects, but also promote their development and realization. Artists from the fields of new media, digital art and technology can submit entries.

Sculptures, Sound Installation and Projections

This year’s winning projects use modern media technologies to address the ecological (im)balance and the use of raw materials in Latin America. The common link: a reflection on sustainable alternatives.

Federico Gloriani discusses the recycling cycle of electrical appliances with his installation Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica and receives 30,000 US dollars for his innovative concept. With Triangle of Sacrifice, Bolivian artist Guely Morató Loredo focuses on the ongoing lithium mining in the “lithium triangle” between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile and receives prize money of 15,000 US dollars.

The (sound) sculptures and projections can be seen for the first time at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024 before they become part of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation’s (CIFO) collection of Latin American art.

Winning projects 2024

Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica / Federico Gloriani (AR)
30,000 US dollar prize money

Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica is a performative and relational project by a group of artists in Rosario City/Argentina. The setting is the industrial city’s dumpsters, where they are looking for discarded electronic devices whose individual components are still usable. The collected materials are reused as valuable assets for the art and tech community.

This act of collecting and recycling results in an installation: an optical device for displaying the silhouettes of a small selection of gleaned device components, creating a phantom image of them. The aim is to engage with levels of time; with the past and alternative futures.

Federico Gloriani draws on the legacy of the Mutualidad Popular de Estudiantes y Artistas Plásticos, a community of artists in Rosario City that in the 1930s applied the labour movement principles in the art field as a pedagogic methodology.

Triangle of Sacrifice / Sonandes (BO): Guely Morató Loredo (BO), Víctor Mazón Gardoqui (ES)
15.000 US dollar prize money

Guely Morató Loredo’s work sheds light on the effects of large-scale lithium mining in the “lithium triangle” between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The artist deals with the profound transformation of the region, which is being accelerated by the imminent energy transition and increasing electromobility.

The process of lithium extraction – by drying out salt lakes – plays an important role in Loredo’s central sculpture. It is transformed by the effects of saline substances falling on it, the immersive sound piece will also be corrupted. Both will be transformed by the lithium extraction data monitored in real time. The title goes back to the name “Sacrifice Zone”, which was given to the region due to the overexploitation of resources.

The work is intended to express the changes in the area and their impact on the lives of its inhabitants, addresses “neo-extractivism” in Latin America and questions greenwashing.

CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards – Multi-stage selection procedure

The winners of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards emerge from a multi-stage process: First, an advisory panel of 20 scholars, curators and artists invite Latin American artists to participate in the competition. In 2024, 104 submissions were received, which were reviewed by a five-member jury – Laura Welzenbach and Christl Baur (both Ars Electronica), Asher Remy-Toledo (Hyphen Hub), Jazmín Adler (University of Buenos Aires) and Sergio Fontanella (CIFO). Based on the shortlist, the CIFO Board of Directors and Gerfried Stocker, Artistic Director of Ars Electronica, made the decision on the “CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards 2024”.

Statements

“This third edition of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards marks a moment of maturity for the prize, evidenced by the quality of the projects presented, as well as their geographical, racial, gender representation, and the critical use of various technologies. The decision was challenging, and that is precisely what we aspire to. The two awarded projects stand out for their concern for current universal issues, although they take as their starting point local circumstances, such as the premature and unconscious waste of technology – for which Federico Gloriani proposes an organic community initiative for its systematic reuse – and the evident ecological and human damage caused by mining neo-extractivism in the so-called ‘Global South’  – denounced by Guely Morató Loredo with her alarming yet sublime multimedia project.” 

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, CIFO Founder & Honorary President

“Through their outstanding projects, Federico Gloriani and Guely Morató Loredo exemplify Ars Electronica’s reflection of the environmental and societal challenges caused by the rapidly accelerating technological progress of today. We are delighted to enrich the vibrant discourse at Ars Electronica with such remarkable artistic statements and eagerly anticipate fostering dialogue with the Latin American art scene.”

Gerfried Stocker, Künstlerischer Leiter Ars Electronica 

About the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO)

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros established the non-profit Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in 2002. The foundation’s mission is to support and foster cultural understanding and educational dialogue among Latin American artists and global audiences. CIFO serves as a platform for emerging, mid-career and established Latin American artists through the Grants & Commissions Program, including the new CIFO-Ars Electronica Award; the CIFO Collection; and other related art and cultural projects in the United States of America and internationally.