Requiem for an Exit is a large-scale robotic installation. At its center stands a four-meter-tall robot—armless, immobile—its presence defined by a hyperrealistic projected face and a voice generated through AI synthesis and human performance. The work suggests that violence may not only be cultural, but biological—etched into our DNA. Its monologue draws on historical atrocities—from ancient genocides to the Holocaust and contemporary displacement—asking whether such violence is a tragic exception or a recurring pattern in human history. It questions the myths of progress and the ethics we assign to technology, suggesting how responsibility is increasingly outsourced to systems and code. Evidently, machines remember what we prefer to forget. Requiem for an Exit excels across all of the criteria that guided this year’s jury. It extends animation’s frontier by welding together disciplines that rarely share the same studio: industrial robotics, CGI, large-language-model scripting, generative voice, hydraulic choreography, projection-mapped sculpture, and site-responsive sound.
Prix Ars Electronica 2025
Golden Nica – New Animation Art
