Sonandes (BO): Guely Morató Loredo (BO), Víctor Mazón Gardoqui (ES)
ARS ELECTRONICA
Ars Electronica represents a comprehensive approach in the confrontation with techno-cultural phenomena and enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence.
Ars Electronica is a cultural institution, an educational facility, and an R&D lab based in Linz, Austria. Like no other institution, Ars Electronica represents a comprehensive approach in the confrontation with techno-cultural phenomena and enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence. It is comprised of four divisions: the Ars Electronica Festival, the Prix Ars Electronica, the Ars Electronica Center, and the Ars Electronica Futurelab. These four divisions mutually inspire one another, constituting a circuit of creativity: The FESTIVAL as test environment and the PRIX as competition of the best and brightest—both of them international, artistic, experimental, and focused on the leading edge; the CENTER as year-round presentation & interaction platform—local, educational, and entertaining; and the FUTURELAB as R&D facility—innovative, creative, endowed with strong technical competence and implementation skills, and linked up to a global network of universities and research facilities.
LAST EXHIBITIONS
Installation shot of "Liquid Sensibilities" 2016 Grants & Commissions Program Exhibition. © CIFO | Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation. Photo: Oriol Tarridas
ABOUT CIFO-ARS ELETRONICA COLLABORATION
Launched in 2022, CIFO — Ars Electronica Awards celebrate and advance the practices of Latin American artists working with technology in the field of new media and digital art, providing up to $30,000 per recipient to develop new projects. The works are premiered in the annual Ars Electronica Festival. In addition, the resulting works join CIFO’s renowned permanent collection.
The CIFO-Ars Electronica Awards are a wonderful resource for Latin American artists worldwide. This partnership with Ars Electronica adds an important dimension to our mission and our Grants & Commissions Program as we support artists in expanding their practices and extending the impact of their work.
Founder and Honorary President of CIFO
This collaboration brings a number of really strong artists and projects to the audiences of Ars Electronica. It is not only an exciting window into the very innovative Latin American art scene but also a highly valuable source of inspiration and ideas to approach the big challenges of our time,
Co-CEO and Artistic Director of Ars Electronica
winners
HOPE – who will turn the tide
CIFO & Ars Electronica
For the third year, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) — Ars Electronica Awards celebrates and advances the practices of emerging and mid-career Latin American artists working with technology in the field of new media and digital art. Recipients are supported with up to to 30,000 USD to develop a new project. The works are premiered in the annual Ars Electronica Festival and in addition, the resulting works join the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO)’s renowned permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, with a special focus on Latin American art.
This third edition of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards marks a moment of maturity for the prize, evidenced by the quality of the projects presented, as well as their geographical, racial, gender representation, and the critical use of various technologies. The decision was challenging, and that is precisely what we aspire to. The two awarded projects stand out for their concern for current universal issues, although they take as their starting point local circumstances, such as the premature and unconscious waste of technology – for which Federico Gloriani proposes an organic community initiative for its systematic reuse – and the evident ecological and human damage caused by mining neo-extractivism in the so-called ‘Global South’ – denounced by Guely Morató Loredo with her alarming yet sublime multimedia project.
– Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Founder and Honorary President of CIFO
Winners 2024
Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica / Federico Gloriani (AR)
30,000 US dollar prize money
Mutualidad de Fantasmática Electrónica is a performative and relational project by a group of artists in Rosario City/Argentina. The setting is the industrial city’s dumpsters, where they are looking for discarded electronic devices whose individual components are still usable. The collected materials are reused as valuable assets for the art and tech community.
This act of collecting and recycling results in an installation: an optical device for displaying the silhouettes of a small selection of gleaned device components, creating a phantom image of them. The aim is to engage with levels of time; with the past and alternative futures. Federico Gloriani draws on the legacy of the Mutualidad Popular de Estudiantes y Artistas Plásticos, a community of artists in Rosario City that in the 1930s applied the labour movement principles in the art field as a pedagogic methodology.
Federico Gloriani (AR) lives in Rosario City, Argentina and is an artist and teacher, graduated in Fine Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. For some years he has been interested in the obsolete media. He made pirate radio and television transmissions over the air; he modified landline telephones to be able to send images through them; he connected a telegraph between two museums five hundred kilometers apart, among others projects. In 2018 he received the first prize in the Art and Technology Award organized by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes of Argentina. He participated in the Tsonami (2022) and Toda la Teoría del Universo (2021) festivals. In 2023, through the training program Presente Contínuo he held workshops and masterclasses with Maurice Benayub, Guto Nobrega and Rafael Lozano Hemmer. He is currently a professor at the Universidad de Entre Ríos (UADER) and a collaborator at Espacio Lab, a program focused on art, science, and technology in Rosario City.
www.fedegloriani.com.ar
Triangle of Sacrifice / Sonandes (BO): Guely Morató Loredo (BO), Víctor Mazón Gardoqui (ES)
15,000 US dollar prize money
Guely Morató Loredo’s work sheds light on the effects of large-scale lithium mining in the “lithium triangle” between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The artist deals with the profound transformation of the region, which is being accelerated by the imminent energy transition and increasing electromobility.
The process of lithium extraction – by drying out salt lakes – plays an important role in Loredo’s central sculpture. It is transformed by the effects of saline substances falling on it, the immersive sound piece will also be corrupted. Both will be transformed by the lithium extraction data monitored in real time. The title goes back to the name “Sacrifice Zone”, which was given to the region due to the overexploitation of resources. The work is intended to express the changes in the area and their impact on the lives of its inhabitants, addresses “neo-extractivism” in Latin America and questions greenwashing.Guely Morató Loredo (BO) is curator, artist and researcher. Winner of the Cultural & Artistic Responses to Environmental Change-2023 award by the Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe-Institut. Curator of The Listening Biennial (2023). Head researcher of the ALTER residency, a mountain laboratory specializing in solutions for the period of cultural, climate and energy transition held in the Swiss Alps (2022). During 2021 she was the head researcher of the Bolivian team participating in The Witness_Openlab, annual research laboratory focusing on the anthropocene and the human footprint on the planet. She led the Gender, Science and Technology Observatory (2019-2022). She led the Medialab at the Cultural Center of Spain in La Paz (2019). She is currently curator of Wak’a, a project that involves several communities and creators who reflect on extractivism, sacredness and deep listening in the Lithium Triangle. Since 2014 she founds and directs Sonandes: Platform for Experimentation and Research, which organizes the only biennial specialized in sound art in Latin America, Puertos: Residency Program, laboratories, exhibitions and projects specialized in sound art and listening.
sonandes.org
Dualities in Equalities: Art Technology Society in Latin America.
CIFO & Ars Electronica
The collaboration between the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) and Ars Electronica has resulted in the prestigious CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards, established in 2022. These highly regarded awards celebrate and support emerging and mid-career Latin American artists exploring technology in new media and digital art. Three recipients are granted up to $30,000, empowering them to bring their groundbreaking projects to life.
In 2023, the second edition of the awards presents the exhibition “Dualities in Equalities: Art, Technology, Society in Latin America” in the frame of the Ars Electronica Festival, featuring a total of nine artistic perspectives from the region and cultural context of Latin America. The exhibition invites the six winners of the CIFO Awards to showcase their works alongside the three recipients of the CIFO x Ars Electronica Awards. The result is a compelling blend of artistic expressions, united by shared themes while distinct in their individual expression and use of tools.
The exhibition delves into the circumstances under which artists create their art and investigates the profound impact of global transformation and innovative digital technologies on their work. These themes hold widespread relevance and are actively embraced and explored by traditional art disciplines.
The exhibition represents a vibrant, critical, and diverse art scene and emerges from a shared cultural foundation. It offers a unique opportunity to explore Latin American culture through various artistic lenses, rejecting a singular viewpoint in favor of a richer and more nuanced understanding.
Nine different artistic positions have been selected, showcasing the works of individuals from various generations, dialects, life situations, and artistic genres. Together, they provide a fascinating and comprehensive insight into the mission of the collaboration between CIFO and Ars Electronica.
"Dualities in Equalities: Art, Technology, Society in Latin America" invites you to delve into the complex interplay of artistic perspectives, where diverse voices converge to illuminate the rich tapestry of the Latin American art scene.
Winners 2023
Inoculate / Ana María Gómez López (CO)
Scale: $ 30.000,-
The primary motivation for presenting Inoculate is to share information on ocular germination to a broader public. Audiences will gain access to this procedure via a multi-lingual instruction manual and a kit of specialized instruments used in this process, as well as related samples of lacrimal fluid and seed strains. The display at Ars Electronica supported by CIFO is intended to encourage reflection on the limits of the human body within the context of this intimate inter-species encounter with an external botanical entity. Likewise, Inoculate also raises critical questions on the anthropocentric mediation of plants in colonial and contemporary contexts, from biodiversity extraction and the creation of new rainforest plant hybrids in European hothouses, to the patented manufacture of molecular chimeras in pharmacological and biomedical industries.
Ana María Gómez López is an artist, writer, and researcher from Cali, Colombia currently based in The Netherlands. Her practice centers on self-experimentation and archival research in the history of science. Ana María’s work has been shown at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Fonds d’art contemporain Genève, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, V2_Lab for Unstable Media, Rencontres Internationales, and DOK Leipzig. She is a tutor at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
anamariagomezlopez.info
Wild Machines. Knots, tangles and the becoming of mechanical beings inside compost / Jonathan Torres Rodríguez (CR)
Scale: $ 15.000,-
The project proposes the creation of two biodegradable machines, made from biological materials collected from two Costa Rican ecosystems, with the goal of installing them in these ecosystems and document on video the processes through which they degrade and reintegrate into the environment. These videos will be presented in the exposition room as well, along with a third sculpture, which will degrade in the room through a humidity system activated by the guests visiting the exposition.
Conceptually, the project aims to make speculative technologies visible: Technologic devices created with materials and manufacturing techniques that are closer to ancestral knowledge, with materials of biological origin belonging to ecosystems that are specific, renewable and respectful of the environment. These devices turn into speculative design pieces by reconnecting with organic materiality with the new technologies, allowing us to imagine a scenario where machines become hybrids with their environment, where they expire and reintegrate.
This project makes use of the power that speculative thought provides to imagine a present world that revalues to matter, a place of technologies whose preprogrammed expiration is in relation to the needs of the environment and not those of the economic system. Technologies that use energetic and material resources with balance. If technological devices generate discourse and create knowledge (Deleuze), it is urgent to think of the nature of these technologies. What if machines could become compost? Compost that decomposes in the modern world and blends in with the leaves and bugs. How could we achieve it? What new processes would we need? How to think of this between us all?
Precarious machines, soft, fragile. Possible machines of functions that are still uncertain. Wild machines.
Jonathan Torres is a visual artist and professor of design and prototyping at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) within the schools of: Plastic Arts (Material Workshops), Biology (Biomimetics Laboratory) and Medical Technologies (Design and Manufacturing of Orthosis and Prostheses). He is an investigator at the Institute of Investigations in Art (IiArte – UCR) and coordinator of the EnTrópico Project: Experimental Laboratory in Electronic Arts from the recovery of electronic waste components generated at the UCR. Constantly playing with the active force that curiosity implies, his pieces make the viewers face images and objects whose structures invite thorough scrutiny. The use of fragile materials along with complex mountings in unconventional spaces turn the spectator into a co-creator, a co-destroyer, eliciting games where interaction is crucial. His recent artwork explores the concept of the post-natural, focusing on materiality as a symbolic element and questioning the techno-scientific discourse.
www.behance.net/jonathantorres52Añoranzas (Yira Yira). Longings (Yira Yira) / Joaquín Aras (AR)
Scale: $ 10.000,-
Through his projects, Joaquín Aras presents a poetic approach to film preservation. Many of his works have brought attention to lost or forgotten films. Moving away from scientific methods, public policies and hegemonic narratives, his practice embraces myth, memory and emotion along with their limitations.
“Añoranzas (Yira Yira)” is an homage to Argentine cinema pioneer Federico Valle who produced the first animated feature in the world and started Argentina´s first news program. Tragically, most of Valle´s films were lost in a fire in 1926 and was forced to sell what was left of his films to a comb factory to use their celluloid as raw material.
The project, which aims to revert Valle´s cultural loss, consists in experimenting with current technology to recycle old plastic combs and turn them into projectable film. Mixing Historic research and film recycling, the process will result in an experimental abstract film that will be screened with a 16mm projector.
Joaquín Aras (1985, Argentina) is an Argentine artist and filmmaker. His work focuses on the emotional space between the audience and media, and how narrative experiences can preserve memory while challenging historicity. His works were exhibited at MAC-Niterói (Brazil), Museo Moderno (Argentina), Grand Union (UK), Bienalsur, Bienal de Arte Joven. He was part of the CCA Kitakyushu Fellowship Program (Japan) and was awarded a residency at Gasworks+URRA (UK) with support of Érica Roberts and arteBA.
joaquinaras.com.ar
A parallel (r)evolution — Digital Art in Latin America
CIFO & Ars Electronica
Six artists working in art and technology from across Latin America debut major new commissions within the Ars Electronica Festival at the Lentos Art Museum. The exhibition showcases the works of the inaugural CIFO-Ars Electronica Award recipients, Dora Bartilotti (MX), Electrobiota Collective (AR/MX), Thessia Machado (BR), Amor Muñoz (MX), and Ana Elena Tejera (PA). Their works reflect the ways Latin American artists employ technology such as electronic textiles and AI computers as media to explore individual and collective identity, culture, and history.
Launched this year, the CIFO–Ars Electronica Awards celebrate and advance the practices of emerging and mid-career Latin American artists working with technology in the field of new media and digital art, providing up to $30,000 per recipient to develop a new project. In addition to the exhibition the resulting works join the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO)’s renowned permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, with a special focus on Latin American art.
The five new works created by the CIFO-Ars Electronica Award recipients represent how artists across Latin America are using technology to grapple with the complex global challenges of our time. Projects were awarded by a selection committee of curators and scholars in contemporary art and new media: Tania Aedo, Sergio Fontanella, Hemma Schmutz, Martin Honzik and Christl Baur. The evaluation was based on conceptual merit, including the artistic and research motives for the project, as well as the context in which the work was created and the artist’s entire body of work.
The result of the submissions, overwhelming in their diversity, has more than provided proof of the excellence of media art while addressing the required social-ecological transformation of our society. A cross-section of the submitted works clearly demonstrates the unique nature of Latin American Media Art as a distinct category owing to its cultural and historical imprint. As such it represents an important extension of the Ars Electronica network and perspective on Media Art.
This inaugural exhibition demonstrates the integral role that the Latin American cultural sphere has played in technological developments worldwide, and how critical artistic positions have long accompanied and reflected on those developments.
Winners 2022