What is artistech?

Co-ordinated by Digerati (the digital company in the local TBWA\ stable), the competition called for entries from individuals and organisations in the digital, Web and electronic media industry from October last year and exhibited the 16 best works at the opening event last night.

The competition entries were displayed alongside a selection of local and international "benchmark" works which include submissions from last year's winners and selected pieces by digital creators from Spain, the UK and Austria, including: Radiotopia (a project exposing what is happening in the international sound art environment from the 2002 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria), projects by Ubermorgen, 0100101110101101.ORG, Tomato, jodi, and a compilation series from the MTN and the sanman (southern african new media art network) collection.

"The quality of 2002-3 entries was erratic, although on the whole there was an improvement on New Channel 2001's submissions. Some entries were disqualified because they were made to fill a Client brief, or were pieces of self-promotion and therefore of a commercial rather than self-expressive nature" explained curator, Marcus Neustetter.

Greg Rom, digital freelancer new to the job market and star of the 2002 graduating class of Vega, The School of Brand Communication, walked off with the honours, and a R15'000 cash prize sponsored by Standard Bank. His work called "Huso's Journey" is a naively rendered, three-stage digital game that takes the user through a tongue-in-cheek exploration of the meaning of the word "huso" (Celtic for sadness/sorrow).

The two runner-up works also contain elements of light-hearted insight: a parody of World War II called "LEGOWARS" by Michael Louw and Gregoire Pienaar, which uses stop-motion 3-D enhanced animation and LEGO figurines to tell its tale, and "You are here" by Dror Eyal and Stacy Hardy, an interactive exploration of a series of Cape Town's best known landmarks, revealing their character and raison detre as interpreted by its pair of creators, along the way.

New Channel was established in 2001, by Digerati, to provide artists, designers and innovators working in the digital and electronic media industry a platform to showcase their non-commercial expressive, freestyle work, and be rewarded for it. The belief underpinning the initiative is that recognising and encouraging personal artistic expression is the most likely way to foster real innovation in the digital communication industry.

"I think personal discovery, be it solo or collaborative, is the most intense," argues Digerati MD, Jason Levin, "and New Channel hopes to encourage and present those discoveries, in public exhibition form, back to not only the industry, but also to a South African audience who are exposed to very little of this type of work."

"Curating this year was really exciting and there was some really good work, but we hope to see more entries that really push the boundaries of experimentation in future New Channels," said co-curator Deirdre Pretorius. "The opportunity to win a big cash prize is great, but so is the opportunity to meet other digital innovators and exchange ideas." added Neustetter.

New Channel 2002-3 runs at Vega The School of Brand Communication in Benmore until 1pm Saturday, 22 February 2003. Call Danielle Le Baitte on (011) 322-3326 for more details.