Winners of New Zealand's inaugural Digital Arts Awards

The winners of the inaugural Vodafone Digital Art Awards were announced at Vodafone's new building venue on Auckland 's waterfront. (12-05-05)

The awards evening celebrated the first digital art awards in New Zealand with the six winners receiving more than $40,000 in cash prizes.

Image: Overall winner of Vodafone Digital Art Awards 2005 is Campbell Kneale with his workMcCahonoid2004 from the Still Life section.
Winners of New Zealand's inaugural Digital Arts Awards

The winners of the inaugural Vodafone Digital Art Awards were announced at Vodafone's new building venue on Auckland 's waterfront. (12-05-05)

The awards evening celebrated the first digital art awards in New Zealand with the six winners receiving more than $40,000 in cash prizes.

Image: Overall winner of Vodafone Digital Art Awards 2005 is Campbell Kneale with his workMcCahonoid2004 from the Still Life section.
The winners were selected from 37 talented and creative finalists in this exciting new medium. They have been chosen from four unique categories which include; Still Image, Moving Image, Net.Art and PXT/Video PXT.

Judges Tobias Berger, Susan Ballard and Steve Russell found they had plenty of discussion and a fair amount of unanimity on selecting the winners.

"The work of the winners, the finalists and the entrants overall invoke and respond to the possibilities and promise of the digital art medium.

"The inaugural Vodafone Digital Art Awards has provided a solid launching pad for answering the question, "What defines digital art?" and significantly provides long-overdue national recognition of the art form," says Judge Steve Russell, who is the manager of the New Zealand Film Archive Mediaplex in Wellington .

Vodafone General Manager, Company Relations, Lynley Kirk-Smith says it's great to see how many creative New Zealanders have responded to the country's first Digital Art Awards.

"At Vodafone we feel closely linked to the field of digital art. After all, there's a natural synergy between the creativity and modernity of digital artists, and Vodafone's exploration of new ways to use digital technology to mobilise future generations.

"This link is important to us and that's why we felt in creating these awards, that we would be a relevant and appropriate partner for New Zealand 's digital art showcase," she says.

The Still Image Award goes to Sean Kerr, for his work "Fountain Pic". Kerr is the Head of Studies in Intermedia and Time-based Arts at Elam in Auckland .

With her artwork "Remote" 21-year-old Holly Shin wins the Moving Image Award. Her work depicts the banality of everyday life experiences and how they are affected by technology. Shin is a student at the Elam School of Fine Art in Auckland .

Net.Art winner Nicholas Spratt discusses the implications of viewer participation in his "A Whole Lot - Par 2". The work "pre-enacts" the scenario of a website that self-destructs after a certain number of visits. Spratt is a co-director of the artist-run space Rm103 in Auckland and a lecturer at the Unitec School of Design.

Auckland multi-media and video artist, Amber de Boer has won the PXT Award with her sexy circus acrobat, "Let Me Remember You As You Were".

Each of the four category winners will each receive $4,000 in cash.

The Overall Winner of the Vodafone Digital Art awards and the recipient of $15,000 goes to Campbell Kneale of Waiwhetu in Wellington with his Still Image "McCahonoid2004". His digitised replica of the infamous McCahon painting is blasted and erased in a Space Invaders-styled arcade game.

The Popular Choice Award and the recipient of $10,000 goes to 22-year-old Business student, Donald Saw for his PXT titled "Moon".

Each of the winners also receives a Vodafone Live! Sharp GX30 handset.