This year’s exhibition of the 23 winning projects in the u19–create your world category once again shows a colorful mix of refreshing ideas, critical projects and research approaches by children and young people. The exhibition will be presented as an interactive platform at the festival by the young people themselves. The winners will get to know each other and can exchange new ideas. Festival visitors will be able to see the fascinating projects and have them explained directly by the young artists. This creates a research platform at the highest level, which not only serves as an inspiration for educators and students, but also offers regional and international artists a valuable insight into the topics and priorities of children and young people.

“Gaps and Solutions — Of Things that are Missing and How one can Deal with this

By this year’s submission deadline, the year-long state of emergency had become the new normal. But, especially for young people, a year feels like an entire phase of one’s life. Despite everything, however, it would be a complete misnomer to describe these young people as ´the lost generation´. During this extraordinary and trying period, they have gained new perspectives and were able to observe societal processes that will occupy historians for decades to come. It is a generation shaped but not stigmatized by these events. These young people will decide for themselves what they do with the lessons from this time. But for now, it is about immediately coming to terms with the situation, and the entries for this year’s Prix Ars Electronica in the category u19–create your world reflect a number of coping strategies. Obvious themes were homeschooling, quarantine, and being left to one’s own devices to get through the isolation, but also the resulting yearning for intimacy and social interaction. The ways of dealing with these emotions are as diverse as people are themselves: they range from humorous resignation to struggles related to mental health, from rational solutions to creative acts of self-empowerment. […]“

Excerpt from the jurystatemet of this the Jury of the category u19–create your world 2021: Sirikit Amann, Josef Dorninger, Conny Lee, Mira Lu Kovacs, Tori Reichel

Winners in the Exhibition

Benjamin’s Recycling Centre

Benjamin Hölzl  (AT)

Young Creatives u12 Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Benjamin’s hardworking employee Robert the robot collects aluminum cans and hauls away the paper container for disposal. This robot was built using LEGO Mindstorms blueprints and is controlled with the accompanying remote control.

Black Day

Students of the MS Lehen (AT)

Young Creatives u14 Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Black Day is a series of three mixed reality games: Enter a creepy house with us, escape the treacherous traps of a crazy school or find your way as an influencer in the jungle of shady products. We take the players into a world that mixes elements of board games, adventure games, media art and comics. Among other things, the students have developed their own game format, the “game comic.

Das unmögliche Computerspiel

Students of class 1B at RG/ORG antonkriegergasse (AT)

Young Creatives u12 Prize, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The students of class 1B at Vienna’s RG/ORG antonkriegergasse have made a film on the subject of “We Save the World,” in which a much-anticipated school trip to Mars is interrupted by an alien attack. The students were fascinated by film as a medium and made great progress within only a few days. Here a few statements by the producers about their work.

digital mirror

Michael Zaminer (AT)

Young Creatives u14 Prize, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The project digital mirror is a LED wall consisting of 500 pixels. It measures 1 meter x 1.25 meters and is about 13 centimeters deep. Each pixel is 5 x 5 centimeters in size. The wall is powered by a power supply and an Arduino Uno. It is interactive, which means that the patterns and color on the wall can be changed with different influences. With a 20 x 25 pixel resolution, you can project images, patterns and more.

dine.

Tariel Immler (AT), Alexander Fetz (AT), Daniel Hiebeler (AT), Jakob Defranceschi (AT), Mathias Johannsen (AT), David Graf (AT); HTL Dornbirn

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | With “dine.” the young developers of HTL Dornbirn have developed a delivery service app to promote sustainable and healthy nutrition among students*. The app works via a unique system of collective orders, in which all order requests from a school or company are collected virtually and sent to the suppliers.

Durch den Wind

Jasmin Schlögl (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The audio work “Durch den Wind” (Through the Wind) deals with the topic of caring for people suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia. This care work is often taken over by relatives, who face enormous challenges as a result of this task. In her project, multimedia artist Jasmin Schlögl lets her 70-year-old grandmother Maria Schlögl recount her experiences when, at the age of 36, she devoted herself to caring for her dementia-stricken father-in-law.

Erster Plastikschlucker der Welt

Emilio Deutsch (AT)

Young Creatives u10 Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Emilio has seen all the polluted beaches, and he didn’t like that sight. That’s why he invented the world’s first plastic swallower. With it you can dissolve garbage, especially plastic garbage, within a few minutes. This could make the environment cleaner again.

Future / just a dream?

Leonhard Gaigg (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The project “Future / just a dream?” is a cross-genre piece of music conceived and composed by Leonhard Gaigg. Using various instruments such as alto, bass and contrabass clarinet, guzheng and synthesizer, and on the basis of the processing and alienation of the sounds, he creates versatile sound worlds.

INCERT

Isa Mutevelic (AT), Simon Effenberger (AT), David Stummer (AT); Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt

Young Professionals Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | “INCERT” is an experimental animated film that critically examines the political and social developments of the present and possible future scenarios. The short film gives an insight into the overwhelming emotions of an era marked by turmoil and refers to the major crises of our time: environmental and climate crisis, surveillance and protests against racist police violence.

Juck uf

Students at Bundesgymnasium Dornbirn (AT)

Young Creatives u14 recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Constant sitting in our everyday lives has become a problem of society. Due to the Corona pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, we are sitting for even longer periods of time, and the consequences of this, from muscle shortening to a higher mortality rate, will be with us for a long time to come.

Kranfahrzeug auf vier Ketten – LEGO Technic

Leopold Kastler (AT)

Young Creatives u10 Prize, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The crane vehicle is made of LEGO Technic components. It travels on four tracks driven by four motors – all remote controlled. For this purpose, not only motors, but also batteries, cables and receivers for remote control are built into the vehicle. There are also three extra motors: one for the linear drive that moves the crane up and down, and two for the winch that can be used to lift loads.

Liebe ist kein Spielfilm

Sabine Wimmer (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | In the short film “Liebe ist kein Spielfilm” (Love is not a feature film), Sabine Wimmer humorously points out the differences between cinematically staged romance and reality. Using talking film posters, she interweaves parodies of love movie classics with her own narrative.

Little Dancing Stars: Alle im Takt

Sarah Hölzl (AT)

Young Creatives u10 recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, people were not able to attend dancing lessons or go to a disco. But because dancing is much more fun with a partner, the robot has become the dance partner. Why should robots only be used for work? Vernie, the LEGO BOOST ROBOT, was programmed to enable it to waltz.

re-wire

Felix Senk (AT), Emil Steixner (AT), Max-Jakob Beer (AT); Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt

Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The project “re-wire” is a sculpture that can be used as an instrument. The intention of the three artists was to combine a musical project with the ecological idea of upcycling. So they built a modular synthesizer out of electronic scrap and found materials. They recorded the sounds for it themselves during the creation of the object, for example when sawing the boards.

Realitätsverlust

Fabian Ahammer / Wenzelhumer (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | “Realitätsverlust” is an expressive creative work that addresses a variety of socially relevant issues and leaves room for the artist’s own associations. The pencil drawings deal with the relationship between man and technology, with surveillance, pressure to perform, the feeling of alienation and loss of freedom.

Reunited

Clara Weiss (AT)

Young Creatives u14 Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | For years, humans constructed so many buildings without any regard for nature that there were no longer any open spaces left on Earth. Green spaces were covered over and animals were driven from their natural habitat. For fear of not having sufficient room, people started stacking their houses on top of each other to take better advantage of the available space. As a result of the massive CO2 emissions, the last small remnant of nature was obliterated once and for all.  But Mother Nature was not yet completely destroyed.

Silence

Felix Zorn-Pauli (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The animated short film Silence is an interpretation of the poem “Today and Tomorrow” by Paul Celan. In a few scenes Felix Zorn-Pauli reproduces the atmospheric mood of the poem in an abstract staging. It was important to the artist to express his personal interpretation and his own feelings about the text.

smartLantern – die smarte Straßenlaterne

Christoph Steiner (AT), Moritz Vögl (AT), Simon Schmidmayr (AT), Jan Reinsperger (AT); HTL Rennweg

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | smartLantern is a newly developed type of street lighting that is more resource-efficient than conventional lanterns and offers additional functions. Thanks to built-in brightness and radar sensors, the smartLantern only lights up at full intensity when it is really needed.

Sprechende Teslaspule

Nikolaus Juch (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The Talking Tesla Coil can play back any audio sequence without pre-processing. For example, it can play human speech or music directly from a smartphone in real time. During playback, the power of the Tesla coil becomes sensually perceptible: visually, it offers an impressive spectacle of colored flashes, and the ozone produced in small quantities can be smelled.

The 2020 Rise Up

Gregor Franz (AT), Johannes Rass (AT), Julian Pixel Schmiederer (AT)

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The documentary film The 2020 Rise Up deals with global protest movements: from local offshoots of the worldwide climate protests to rallies about the inhumane conditions in Greek refugee camps and anti-government mass protests in Hong Kong.

The Click

Caroline Bär (AT), Zara Dineva (AT), Julia Scheiwein (AT), Anna Zoglauer (AT); Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt

Young Professionals recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | The Click is an animatic short film that takes up various current social debates such as gender roles, parent-child relationships, adoption ethics and racism and processes them both humorously and critically.

Upcycling Stadt

Lisa Marits (AT)

Young Creatives u12 recognition, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | Lisa is very interested in upcycling and strongly believes that it is becoming more and more important for our future. That’s why the idea came up that we humans could also live in upcycling buildings. The parts of the city are mostly made of upcycled material: a plastic bottle house that you can live in; an Innocent bottle that became a pool; an Amazon cardboard box that she turned into a supermarket.

Urban Green: Bamboo Bicycle

Angelina Djukic (AT), Lukas Gabesam (AT), Japleen Khurana (AT), Alina Schweighofer (AT); Euregio HTBLVA Ferlach

Young Professionals Award, Prix Ars Electronica 2021 | In the project “Urban Green: Bamboo Bicycle”, an environmentally friendly manufacturing process of bamboo bicycles was developed. The four artists did not want to accept that the conventional construction of bamboo frames uses non-environmentally friendly fasteners and toxic paints.