[Nettime-bold] rhein.tanzmedia.web // statement of the jury

[Scott deLahunta <sdela@ahk.nl>]

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rhein.tanzmedia.web // statement of the jury
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We would like to thank the artists for participating in the first 
rhein.tanzmedia.web (http://www.rheintanzmedia.net/) international 
competition for net/ dance/ performance. The entries were extraordinarily 
diverse in the ways in which they proposed to explore the relationship 
between dance and the internet or related online communication systems. 
This has made the experience of selecting amongst them a difficult as well 
as fascinating one, and the decisions we have made after one and half days 
of deliberation reflect this variety.

The Jury awarded 3 prizes: the rhein.tanzmedia.net-Prize for production and 
presentation of the project, the Förderpreis der rhein land ag and a 
special research award of the jury. For the rhein.tanzmedia.net-Prize, we 
have selected the proposal of media artist Rebecca Allen with 
choreographers/ performers Hannah Sim and Mark Steger of the performance 
group Osseus Labyrint. This project will comprise an interactive media art 
installation linked to a live performance in another location with a 
simultaneous presentation via the web. There were several entries proposing 
to work with similar ideas, but in our opinion the collaboration of Rebecca 
Allen and Osseus Labyrint put forward the strongest integration of the raw 
corporeality of live performance with remote and mediated presences in 
which the shifting definition of audience, viewer and/ or participant is 
explored.

For the Förderpreis der rhein land ag, we have selected the proposal of 
choreographer/ researcher Ivar Hagendoorn entitled "The Fisher Account" in 
which the financial data that is moving continuously across the Internet is 
dynamically linked to a database of pre-recorded movement and movement 
sequences. Appropriating different forms of streaming data found on the 
internet to manipulate digital materials resident on a server's hard drive 
is a formal strategy explored by net and media artists for some time now. 
However, to our knowledge the connection between dance composition and 
choreographic ideas and what is essentially the live (electronic) presence 
of the internet had not been explicitly made. To choose to do this using 
the flowing pattern of bits from something as rich in significance as the 
world's financial markets presents a unique set of possibilities, and we 
look forward to seeing the realisation of this project on the web.

Although these two projects will be produced by the organisers of the 
competition (with a total amount of approx. 90.000,- Euro), the 
rhein.tanzmedia.web prize was intended to be a "competition of ideas" 
rather than finished productions. There were a number of interesting 
proposals from young artists that we felt could be more fruitfully explored 
in the context of 'research' without the expectation of final production or 
presentation.

Therefore the Jury argued for and was given the opportunity to confer upon 
Stephanie Thiersch and Micha Purucker a special award for continuing their 
research into "the possibilities of representations of kinaesthetic and 
sensuous experiences without their actual presence". This special award of 
the jury has a purse of 5000,- Euro.
The jury would like to thank the organisers of the competition for their 
hard work and vision in setting up this opportunity to further the 
inter-disciplinary explorations within the field of dance overlapping with 
emerging technologies. We look forward to seeing the outcomes of the three 
projects selected for the support provided by the competition.

Prof. Dr. Marie-Luise Angerer (Kunsthochschule für Medien, Köln)
Scott deLahunta (Dartington College of Arts, UK)
François Raffinot (IRCAM/Département Chorégraphique, Paris)
Gerfried Stocker (ars electronica, Linz)

Bonn, January 20, 2002 

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