Prix Forum – Digital Musics & Sound Art
The Prix Forum – Digital Musics & Sound Art is an open discussion between the top three winners of Prix Ars Electronica 2021 and the jury. Alexander Schubert (Golden Nica/ Convergence), Rashin Fahandej (Award of Distinction / A Father’s Lullaby), and Douglas McCausland (Award of Distinction / Convergence) will be on the panel. Juror Cedrik Fermont will moderate the session.
Convergence, Alexander Schubert (DE), Credit: Alexander Schubert (DE)
Convergence, Douglas_McCausland (US), Credit: Douglas_McCausland
A Father’s Lullaby, Rashin Fahandej (US), Credit: Rashin Fahandej (US)
Artists:
Golden Nica ‘Convergence’Alexander Schubert (DE) (1979): He studied bioinformatics, multimedia composition. He’s a professor at the Musikhochschule Hamburg. Schubert’s interest explores the border between the acoustic and electronic world. In music composition, immersive installation, and staged pieces he examines the interplay between the digital and the analogue. He creates pieces that realize test settings or interaction spaces that question modes of perception and representation. Continuing topics in this field are authenticity and virtuality. The influence and framing of digital media on aesthetic views and communication is researched in a post-digital perspective. Recent research topics in his works were virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and online-mediated artworks. Schubert is a founding member of ensembles such as Decoder. His works have been performed more than 700 times in the last few years by numerous ensembles in over 30 countries.
Award of Distinction ‘A Father’s Lullaby ’ Rashin Fahandej (US): Artist, filmmaker, and assistant professor of emerging media at Emerson College. Her projects center on marginalized voices and the role of media, technology, and community co-creation to ignite social change. A proponent of “Art as Ecosystem,” she defines her projects as “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices by creating connections between public places and virtual spaces. Her projects are supported by Boston Mayor’s Office, Boston Center for the Arts, ThoughtWork Arts, Scatter VR, Mass Cultural Council, and American Arts Incubator-Austria. She is the recipient of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Boston’s Foster Prize.
Award of Distinction ‘Convergence’Douglas McCausland (US): Composer/performer interested in new aesthetic and technological domains, who explores the extremes of sound and the digital medium. Through his work, he investigates the intersections of real-time electronic music performance, bespoke interfaces, spatial audio, interactive systems, machine-learning, and experimental sound design. With a background as both a conservatory musician and music technologist, Douglas is currently a doctoral fellow at Stanford University, working towards his DMA in Composition under the supervision of Chris Chafe and Patricia Alessandrini.
Moderated by Juror Cedrik Fermont
Cedrik Fermont (CD/BE/DE): Berlin-based Belgian-Congolese composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, radio host and label manager (at Syrphe) who operates in the field of noise, electronic, electroacoustic and experimental music since 1989. He has toured extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. His main research focuses on electronic, electroacoustic, experimental and noise music from and in Asia and Africa. In 2017 he released together with Dimitri della Faille the book Not Your World Music about noise music in South-East Asia, winner of the 2017 “Golden Nica” Prix Ars Electronica in the “Digital Musics & Sound Art” category. syrphe.com/c-drik.html
