Waikato Finalists in Vodafone Digital Art Awards

Thursday, 24 March 2005, 4:32 pm
Press Release: Vodafone

March 24 2005

Waikato Finalists in Vodafone Digital Art Awards

A piece of interactive digital art created at Waikato University has been selected as a finalist in the Net.Art category of the first Vodafone Digital Art Awards.

The work, entitled 'WorldTree', was created by visiting Screen & Media Studies 2004 Artist-in-Residence, Raewyn Turner, and Colin Beardon, visiting Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Net.Art involves work that engages with the Internet as a medium or context. It is one of four categories in the Digital Art Awards, alongside Still Image, Moving Image and PXT/Video PXT.

'WorldTree' runs for four minutes and is based upon a written text about the night sky. It displays this in the form of a tree that grows and branches out, with the words breaking down into letters that turn into leaves, become brown and fall. A bird is used to select particular words or phrases which are then linked to an Internet search engine to introduce new text.

Finalists' work will be displayed at the Disruptiv Gallery on Karangahape Road in Auckland from 22 March – 18 April. During this time the public will have the opportunity to vote for the Popular Choice Award, which has a prize of $10,000. In May, the exhibition will move to the new Vodafone building on Fanshawe Street, where the winners we be announced.

All category winners will receive $4,000 while the overall winner(s) of the Digital Art Awards will receive a prize of $15,000. All winners also receive a Vodafone Live! GX30 handset.

Web: http://www.vodafone.co.nz/vdaa/home.jsp

ENDS

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