Art meets technology meets Commission funding
The STARTS prize has honored innovative European artists since 2016.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.
A new exhibit at the Bozar Center for Fine Arts highlights ecological collapse through the work of two artists who used innovative technologies as part of the artistic process.
Both were awarded this year’s S+T+ARTS Prize, funded by the European Commission.
It will surprise no one to learn the name is really an acronym: science, technology and the arts. STARTS!
A jury made up of cultural, technology and innovation experts singled out these two projects, both highlighting ecological collapse, for “the potential and the desire to create an impact,” its official statement says.
In one room, a video shows visitors a garden full of flowers seen through a pollinator’s eyes. It is one of many gardens that have been carefully brought to life using Pollinator Pathmaker — a sophisticated algorithm drawing on expert insights and a curated plant database to generate blueprints for any user wishing to plant their own.
“If pollinators designed gardens, what would humans see?” That’s the question artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg wanted to answer.
You can feed it some information and it generates a plan for you based on geographical location, time of the year and other such considerations one needs to keep in mind when planting a garden. I wouldn’t know.
Elsewhere, visitors will see a series of photographs depicting deforestation in the Amazon, taken through multispectral cameras attached to drones. The work makes an by showing the scale of the impact illegal activity has had over the years on endangered lands. Artist Richard Mosse refers to it as “counter-mapping.”
Unlike the Parliament’s LUX Film Award — which pays in prestige the same way interns are paid in experience — the STARTS prize comes with cash: €40,000, divided evenly between the two winners. Compare that to the Turner Prize, the UK’s biggest art award, which is £25,000, the equivalent of €29,000.
Not too shabby!
The exhibit closes January 21st.
Something of value
Belgian artist Fred Eerdekens creates an interesting kind of sculpture, combining language with visual elements to bring to life a message.
This installation is part of the National Bank of Belgium’s contemporary art collection and usually lives in its cantine, for all to see at lunchtime. This photo was taken while the piece was on display as part of an exhibit the bank put on earlier this Fall.
Happening soon
Tomorrow, the Brussels Operette Theater is putting on ‘H.M.S. Pinafore,’ a comic opera in two acts. The show will be in English with Dutch and French subtitles.
Art Antwerp, a contemporary art fair and cousin of Art Brussels, continues until Sunday evening.
A guided tour of the Royal Museum’s current exhibit of Ukrainian art is taking place in French on Saturday. The exhibit itself closes on January 28th.
That’s it for now, thank you for reading! Next week we’ll be looking ahead at 2024, before taking a short holiday break.
Enjoy your weekends,
Ana
