S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances between technology and artistic practice that effectively implement European policies to nurture innovation and benefit the art world as well. The focus is on people and projects that help address social, ecological and economic challenges this world faces. The S+T+ARTS Prize is awarded annually to innovative projects at the interface of art, technology and science that have the potential to contribute to sustainable economic and social innovation.
This year‘s exhibition showcases two Grand Prize winners and a selection of honorary mentions and nominations that demonstrate the potential of artistic and creative input to create an impact by addressing current ecological, technological and socioeconomic issues. The projects show how artists can guide us through the digital transformation to a more sustainable future by being aided by technology, caring about mental health and inclusion of society, revealing biases around computing technologies and information systems, recording of environmental damages and developing solutions to cure them. The exhibition presents striking artistic-driven innovations of different scales: from multidisciplinary collaborations and artist-tech partnerships to community-led digital investigations and individual initiatives.
The S+T+ARTS Prize has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 956603.
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ALL PLAYERS TOOL LAB.
Masatane Muto (JP), Dentsu Lab Tokyo (JP)
There are many people who have not been players due to their disabilities. But the idea for one person can be a powerful force to move the world forward, just like the alleged inventor of the typewriter who built it in order to communicate with a blind friend. Our challenge is to shift the social…
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Broken Spectre
Richard Mosse (IE)
Broken Spectre is a disquieting portrait of willful environmental catastrophe along the Trans-Amazonian Highway told through a kaleidoscope of scientific, cultural, historic, socio-political, activist, and anthropological filters.
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FANGØ a Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google Obfuscator
Martin Nadal (ES)
FANGØ is a defense weapon against surveillance capitalism. Disguised as a mobile phone charger, it operates as a microcontroller that takes control of the smartphone in which it is plugged into. Making random searches and liking random posts on popular social platforms, it aims to deceive data brokers and disrupt the data capturing process.
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Future Materials
Future Materials is a multidisciplinary platform that promotes and disseminates knowledge about sustainable materials. Its core aim is to support the transition towards ecologically-conscious art and design practices.
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Geo-Llum
Samira Benini Allaouat (IT)
Geo-Llum aims to reimagine the role of public lighting in green urban areas with a symbiotic relationship between the artificial and the natural world, focusing on a deeper understanding of microorganism community such as fundamental collaborators in the city ecosystem.
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Inside the NYPD’s Surveillance Machine
Amnesty International (INT), Superposition (NL)
Inside the NYPD’s Surveillance Machine is an interactive data visualization revealing the shocking reach of facial recognition technology in New York. The experience allows users to plot a walking route through New York City and discover how much of this route might be exposed to surveillance through facial recognition.
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It Could Be You
HsienYu Cheng (TW)
It Could Be You is a thought-provoking art project that explores privacy and identity in contemporary technology. Using machine learning and pentesting or ethical hacking, the project generates fictional personal data through synthetic data frameworks and, by gathering messages from various online forums and chatrooms, it raises questions about privacy and protection.
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Labyrinth Psychotica – The Anoiksis Experiment by Roomforthoughts
Jennifer Kanary (NL)
After the research on psychosis simulation with art and tech, the artist worked on finding a pattern in the long-ignored subjective data of lived experiencers’ voices. The investigation into their stories has led to a radical artistic research theory, the Anoiksis Theory.
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Pollinator Pathmaker
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (GB)
Pollinator Pathmaker is an artwork for pollinators, planted and cared for by humans. Created in response to human-made ecological damage, the work is a one-of-a-kind experiment in interspecies art. Bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles, and other pollinators are essential for many plants to reproduce and our ecosystems to flourish.
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VFRAME: Computer Vision for OSINT / OSI Research
Adam Harvey (US), Josh Evans (US), Jules LaPlace (US)
VFRAME is a computer vision project that develops open source image processing software and neural network models for human rights related research and conflict zone monitoring.