2020 Winners

aqua_forensic illuminates the invisible anthropogenic pharmaceutical pollutants—residues of human consumption. The project combines art/science/citizen science in a “hunt for a monster” and opens the discussion about our solidarity and empathy with waters beyond human perception.

Since the summer of 2019, a tremendous political movement has been happening in Hong Kong. Digital technology plays a key role in the whole movement.

BETAlight is a flexible light source that can be worn on the body and allows the user to adjust its shape, orientation, brightness, and light temperature according to his or her needs.

In this installation, two artificial ecosystems are sharing a light source. The photosynthetic cells and the computer are experimenting with different political systems granting access to this resource, allowing the system to oscillate between collaboration and competition.

The Code of Conscience is open source software that restricts the use of heavy-duty vehicles in protected land areas.

Compression Cradle envisages a future world where mechanical touch is an antidote for today’s ‘forever connectedness.’

CONTAIN a decentralized and open-source approach for testing COVID19.

Hale: An Upgrade on Patient Attire aims to create a conversation around the potential development of the hospital gown and to predict, using simple solutions, what could potentially become the future of the patient gown.

Hybrid Living Materials (HLMs) point to an exciting future for designers at the intersection of biology and technology—the grown and the made—to deliver products that are customized to a particular shape, as well as a specific material, chemical, and even genetic make-up.

INNER VALUES deals with the value of alleged waste products in animal processing.

Re:flex is the result of experiment-driven, multidisciplinary research around materials that can respond to physical stimuli. It draws inspiration from natural organisms which can adapt to changes in their environment by adjusting themselves naturally to new circumstances.

The Re3 Glass project introduces a novel, reversible building system comprising dry‐assembled, interlocking cast components out of waste glass.

Sounding Soil began when Marcus Maeder one day, out of sheer curiosity, stuck a self-developed, highly sensitive needle microphone into the ground on an alpine pasture in the Valais/Switzerland.

Stymphalian Birds is an art installation in which complex haptic interactions with feathers are sonified in acoustic soundscapes.

The Net Wanderer is a research project that explores the connection between the critical network gateways in China and the infrastructure running these gateways.

The Substitute explores a paradox: our preoccupation with creating new life forms, while neglecting existing ones.

Topographie Digitale is an interactive installation. This landscape uses electrically functionalized and pleated textiles as sensitive surfaces reacting to touch to interact with a video-projected digital clone of this scenery.

On the Eastern boundary of Europe, razor-wire fence stretches across Georgia. It marks territories occupied by the Russian invasion of 2008. Voicing Borders is an installation addressing this situation.