Adri Schokker wins STRP Talent Pit Award 2011 with "Reconstruction of a Catastrophe"
From giggling while your body profile pictures is taken being transferred to a container with hundreds of dead miniature bodies. Adri Schokker convinced the jury of his talent with his work, "Reconstruction of a Catastrophe”. The STRP audience particularly liked the work, "Hourglass" by Sandra Stoycheva, which in turn won the "Public's Choice Award’.
Vivian van Gaal presents the Award (made by artist Gijs van Bon) to Adri Schokker
Photo: Boudewijn Bollmann
Ten nominees had a chance to win a cash prize of € 1000, an exhibition space in the next STRP edition and a masterclass of V2/Nimk The Agency. The jury consisted of Sander Veenhof (AR media artist), Ine Poppe (passionate art & technology journalist for Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad), Vivian van Gaal (art programmer STRP Festival) and jury chairman Margriet Schavemaker (head of collection & research at contemporary Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam).
The list of nominees consisted of different disciplines from dance to visual arts to software, but as a common denominator they all find their balance between art & technology.
The jury was impressed by the quality of the projects, but critisised that some artworks lacked a certain reflection on society. The chosen winner Adri Schokkek based his work on the earthquake disaster in Japan. His work runs parallel to the lack of emotion you can experience while being confronted with images of the most terrible disasters or battlefields. What happens if you yourself are part of the disaster, when your own body is lying in the battlefield?
Schokker’s experience starts in a place where you can choose from different body profiles. Hands in the air? A leg up? After this, your photo is quickly being transformed into a miniature 3D print, which in turn is placed within a diarama of the catastrophe. Suddenly there is a turning point and it appears the installation is not funny at all, you are lying amidst dead bodies. Adri Schokker is ambitious and would like to create a much bigger disaster than the small diarama. In addition, he would like to give each miniature figure a chip, which gives you the opportunity to find yourself with a metal detector in the middle of the battlefield.
The jury was convinced by the way Schokker begins his installation with interactive fun, which is then transformed into a small sculpture that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. In other words, Schokker plays with the conventions of interactive media art, and forces his audience to reflect on their expectations.
"Public's Choice" winner Sandra Stoycheva received an honorable mention in the jury report. The jury found her work very poetic and delicate. It is an aesthetic work that has real museum potential. Therefore it is to no surprise the audience awarded her work "Hourglass" with the Public’s Choice Award. Instead of top to bottom, the liquid flows upwards which gives a contrary view on time.
For STRP it is important to give young talent a platform. This year’s EXPO also presents Joris Strijbos’ winning work, ‘Phase=Order’.
You can still visit STRP Festival until November 27th with tomorrow the top of electronic music like, Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin, The Field and Beardyman.