Over 300 entries from all over the world were submitted

Innovative results of Live 2011 Grand Prix announced

The Live Grand Prix media competition attracted contestants ranging from top experts to rising talents from all over the world to participate in eight competition categories. The most reputable participant is Casey Pugh's Star Wars: Uncut. A total of 105,600 euros will be awarded to winners and for creating the works selected by international juries.

The Turku Capital of Culture year offering includes a wealth of digital culture. With the Live 2011 Grand Prix media art competition, Turku, the European Capital of Culture for 2011, challenged top artists and new emerging talents from all over the world to deliver media art and novel media applications.

The competition was launched in February 2009 with eight competition categories, including free expression, interactive works and games. Altogether, over 300 entries from all over the world were submitted before the competition deadline closed in July 2010. International expert juries awarded 13 competition entries and gave honourable mentions to 10 entries.

Casey Pugh and Star Wars: Uncut wins again

The juries used the following criteria to select the winners: innovativeness, quality of the work, originality and aesthetics.

The Open category featured a free theme for audiovisual experiences. The first prize, 14 000 euros, was shared with two works: Lithuanian Rimas Sakalauskas' Synchronisation video installation combines rare everyday realism with dreamy visions, resulting in an imaginative and fascinating visual story. And German Ulu Braun's Westcoast is a video collage introducing a unique interpretation of our world. The collage opens possibilities for a variety of different interpretations.

In the Participative Media category, the entries had to challenge the audiences to actively interact with the audiovisual works. The competition entries were asked to diversely utilise various methods, channels, terminals or media for interactivity.

The jury decided to split the first prize 16,000 euros also in this category. The first prize was awarded to two stand-out works that take different approaches to the possibilities of social media.

In Michelle Teran's Buscando al Sr. Goodbar – Like an ethnographer, Teran tracks down YouTube users who have filmed their own lives and their environment in Murcia, Spain. The work results in a bus trip during which the artist and the YouTube contributors visit the original filming sites and meet people featured in the videos. During the trip, the artist acts as a Google Earth video jockey, presenting videos filmed in locations along the bus route. The work beautifully intertwines local areas with the global network.

Casey Pugh's Star Wars: Uncut is a first-class demonstration of the possibilities of crowdsourcing. Pugh cut the first Star Wars episode, Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), into 437 separate 15-second segments. Star Wars fans then used the segments to re-create the film by utilising animation, home videos and parody.

Several alternative versions were created for each 15-second segment. The Star Wars: Uncut website uses an online voting system to select the favourite segment submissions, which will then be used to recreate the full film. Based on the voting, the online film constantly changes. The project also attracted Finnish contributors.

The project was awarded an Emmy for Creative Achievement in Interactive Media in Los Angeles in August 2010. The most reputable Live Grand Prix winner, Emmy-awarded Casey Pugh, will attend the event.

Graffiti, online paper and videomixer pleased the juries

The Digital Turku category sought experimental, alternative and creative audiovisual interpretations on urban space. The first prize, 5,000 euros was given to Evan Roth with Graffiti Analysis. The work is an open-source application based on new tools and new creative points of view. According to the jury, the winning entry combines technological innovation with social practices and challenges the sets of values of different age groups.

The Culture 2.0 category sought for social media applications that utilise Web 2.0 features to create novel, entertaining and viral artistic and cultural experiences. The jury awarded two web applications that utilise the key strengths of social media: communities and viral distribution.

SmallRivers' Paper.li is an online magazine for the future that utilises a familiar newspaper-like user interface to display news and links shared by the user’s social network. In the USA, the online service has become one of the 2,000 most frequently used online services in just a few months.

Bambuser's Mobile Live Video Mixer democratises multi-camera productions by allowing video feeds from several cell phones to be combined together as a live online broadcast or for embedding the video as part of a website, such as a blog or Facebook.

Artistic game category entries were required to be browser-based games with novel content and a fresh user interface. The first prize, 5,000 euros, was awarded to Team Catnapped's game with the same name. Catnapped has a great storyline and the application is visually very appealing. The jury praised the 3D views as personal and well-implemented.

Last year, the national student award was given to Niklas Gustafsson from the Aalto University School of Art and Design for his work The Third Eye. Respectively, the Creative Idea for Mobile City Guide award was given to the Local Buddy application from Tampere in November 2009.

Detailed descriptions for the winning entries and the honorary mentions by the juries are available at the Live 2011 Grand Prix website (www.turku2011.fi/en/livegrandprix_en).

The Jury has reached a decision

During intensive Jury sessions on September 10-11th Live2011.com Grand Prix´ international jury members have chosen the works to be awarded. The winners of first second and third prizes in each category will be informed during Wednesday 16th of September. Winners of honorary mentions will be informed next week. The awarded works will be published soon in the context of Turku European Capital of Culture 2011. They will be also shortly available at www.turku2011.fi. Stay tuned.

Live2011.com Grand Prix Jury sessions 10th-12th of September

We thank all participants of Live2011.com Grand Prix for submitting their works. Entries were made from Europe, Asia, North & South America. The jury sessions start on September 10th. The awarded artists will be contacted during the week that follows the jury sessions. Winners will be announced in Turku in the end of November. More info coming up in following weeks. Stay tuned.

Testing av Bambuser Live Editor

This is the embedded window of Bambuser Live Editor where an administrator can select and edit a "broadcast" from several live [and on demand] mobile video sources. Audience, voluteers, participants can #tag their videos with a specific search criteria (can be several of them) and administrator gets the video sources to his interface.

Live2011.com GP deadline extended to August 2

Due to the user peak on our servers just before the deadline, we have decided to prolong the Live2011.com Grand Prix submission date until August 2, 2010.

Please submit your work before that date and you will be participating in one of the biggest media art awards of 2010.

Here are some examples of the work that is suitable for our quite flexible categories:

• Open: Digital media-art that doesn´t fit our other categories. The works have to be accessible over the Internet (e.g. in form of a video).
• Participative media: The category focuses on interaction between the user and the artwork.
• Digital Turku 2011: Experimental, alternative, creative and non-stereotypical audiovisual interpretations or representations of cityspaces. The work does not have to be from or involve Turku.
• Culture 2.0: How to combine art or creativity and social media? Creative application, viral artwork or perhaps a collaborative community art project on the Internet?
• Artistic game: Creative games that rejuvenate the online game genre with their functionality, interactivity or unique, novel approach.

Live2011.com Grand Prix Jury members are finally revealed

Live2011.com Grand Prix´ international jury is finally revealed. See all the jury members here.

Event Award @ FutureEverything 2010, Manchester 12-15 May

The next Live2011.com Grand Prix will be given in FutureEverything 2010, Manchester, England in 12-15 May. The festival formerly known as Futuresonic - after 15 years, Futuresonic returns as FutureEverything.

Continuing Futuresonic’s pioneering approach to the digital world and contemporary art, this year’s art programme features art and design projects across the city, from urban interventions by leading figures in visual culture to inspirational approaches to visualising data. All art exhibitions and events are FREE to attend.

For more info visit:

http://www.futureeverything.org

Winner of the Event Award @ EMAF 2010 is Brett Gaylor: RIP - A Remix Manifesto

The award of 1500€ donated by Turku 2011 at the European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück was presented to the opening film "RIP - A Remix Manifesto"(CDN). The jury stated: "Filled to the brim with an enormous amount of material this movie takes a clear stand in the global debate on copyrights. In its style and structure imitating the internet, it creates a platform for the development of excellent controversial ideas and discussions."
Members of the jury:
Jean Francois Guiton, Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka, Stephan Sachs

Event Award @ European Media Art Festival (21-25 April 2010)

Next Event Award will be given at EMAF 2010 (21-25 April 2010)in Osnabrück, Germany. Please check out their excellent program at www.emaf.de

"The motto of the 2010 festival is MASH UP,
reflected in film programmes, lectures and specials.

Today, the reinterpretation and re-coding of media content, works of art and music take place in popular culture and art alike. In the process, mashing up citations and references evolves into the aesthetic, satirical and subversive stylistic device, where it also infringes on the rights of third parties. "

The following Event Award granted in in FutureEverything, Manchester (12-15 May)

Event Awards are chosen from each festivals submissions by the respective festival´s Jury .

Becks in Turku and Bridge Collapse - Two things within a week proving the strength of mobilecasting

Beckham's arrival into Finland today to have surgery on his ruptured achilles tendon and last week's collapse of Myllysilta in Turku have proved the power of transmitting the events to the net with the help of mobile broadcasting services. Or perhaps we could call them narrowcasting.

Even if the images delivered live to the internet from user's and ordinary people's mobile phone might not be as spectacular as professional cameramen's, they make it possible that individual people can deliver their "own newscasts" direct to their Facebook walls and transmit the events to their social network. In some cases it can be a powerful tool in people's hands in demonstrations against totalitarian regimes.

In case of Turku, the service used was Bambuser. The service Live2011.com team uses regularly. Technology developed by couple of students from Åbo Akademi and brought to live with a company of Swedish friends.

Here's what Norwegian VG writes on the Becks in Turku.

Local Buddy is the winner of Creative Idea for Mobile City Guide -category

Local Buddy by Timo Pietilä et al. is the winner of Mobile City guide category in the new media and media-art challenge Live2011.com Grand Prix.

Local Buddy is an innovative city guide concept for the new generation of smartphones. It makes use of advanced features such as GPS tracking, touch screen and digital compass to locate and guide users to interesting places in different cities around the world.

Local Buddy stood out of its competitors with its innovative and intuitive UI design. Local buddy makes use of a radar and compass hybrid UI, while simultaneously offering a possibility to use a map. Overall the concept was solid and aspects such as user created content and revenue logics were taken well into account.

Concept design: Timo Pietilä
Programming & Software Design: Olli Raivola & Timo Härkönen
Producer: Bertta Häkkinen
UI and usability consulting and design: Joel Hakulinen
Graphic Design: Hanne Zenjuga

Artistic Game category´s rules updated

We´ve updated Artistic Game category´s rules by not limiting the games to be Flash or Java based. Basically if your game works online in Firefox and preferably also in Chrome, Safari, IE 7 & 8 it is welcome to take part. We will not accept games that require a client download to be functional. This means that you can now take part with games created with e.g. Unity3d.

Have fun developing and remember to think out of the box.

Live2011.com -team

Niklas Gustafsson wins the National Student Award in the world’s biggest media art competition

European Capital of Culture, Turku 2011, has announced the winners of the National Student Award category as part of its comprehensive media art competition. On the basis of the total sum of its prizes, the Live2011.com Grand Prix is the world’s biggest media art competition. The competition is comprised of eight separate categories. The National Student Award was a national category intended to inspire future minds studying in Finland; all other categories remain open to both national and international submissions.

Works were submitted to the competition from many institutions all around Finland. The most entries were submitted by Lahti University of Applied Sciences, the University of Lapland and Turku University of Applied Sciences. The submitted works ranged from games to animation and interactive sound art that utilises brainwaves.

National Student Award given to the Aalto University School of Art and Design

The Third Eye / Niklas Gustafsson

Product Placement / Matti Niinimäki

Digital Captures / Johannes Neumeier

The jury evaluating the works narrowed the tough competition down to seven finalists, and selected The Third Eye, submitted by Niklas Gustafsson, a student at the Aalto University School of Art and Design, as the overall winner.

The jury's decision was based on their appreciation for the computer animation that served as a well-thought out and polished work, comprising an intriguing story, skilled animation and an audio track made specifically for the work. The work stood out in style, with some similarities to older Pixar animations.

The second place prize was awarded to Product Placement, submitted by Matti Niinimäki, a student at the University of Lapland. His praiseworthy animation featured brand mascots who criticise the advertising world they represent. The work exploited previously recorded interviews with marketing professionals within a novel visual environment.

The third prize was awarded to Johannes Neumeier from Turku University of Applied Sciences. In his series entitled Digital Captures, Neumeier has moulded digital material in the same manner as with traditional sculpting. The line between the virtual world and the real world is successfully dispelled, and the work reflects a human touch.

In addition to these works, four entries were awarded with honourable mention.

The winning entry will move on to the final in another suitable category of the Live2011.com Grand Prix competition. The submission period for the competition’s main categories will close on 30 June 2010.

The winners of the National Student Award in the Live2011.com Grand Prix competition:

• 1st prize €1,500: The Third Eye / Niklas Gustafsson (Aalto University School of Art and Design)
• 2nd prize €1,000: Product Placement / Matti Niinimäki (University of Lapland)
• 3rd prize €500: Digital Captures / Johannes Neumeier (Turku University of Applied Sciences)

Honourable mention:

• Empty Kitchen / Sampo Sirén (Lahti University of Applied Sciences)
• Xmasheat / Jussi Karnijoki, Miika Pyykkö and Antti Rantanen (Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences)
• Dancer as a Painter/ Aku Meriläinen (University of Lapland)
• Brainwave Music Lab: Performative Experiments on Human Test Subjects / Marko Alastalo et al. (Theatre Academy Helsinki)

The entries can be viewed online at www.turku2011.fi/grandprix

The jury members for the National Student Award were Jari Jaanto (producer and co-founder of IRC-Gallery), Andy Best (media artist and senior lecturer in Digital Arts at Turku University of Applied Sciences) and Sonja Kangas (game researcher and Gamelab Director at Paf, the gaming authority in the Åland Islands).

What is common with Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Habbo, Twitter, Wikipedia, Vimeo and YouTube?

Yes, they are all social media sites and services, but they all also run with MySQL. MySQL is in the core of all these system, it is the place where users and their content is storaged, a database system.

MySQL is free and therefore it allows innovators like Mark Zuckerberg, Jimmy Wales and many others to create services which we all love and use in our everyday life either in our work, entertainment or in our networked social life.

But now MySQL is under a serious threat. Oracle - one of the MySQL's competitors - is trying to acquire Sun Microsystems who possesses the rights to MySQL. Since teh Oracle is the market leader of the proprieraty database systems it is been afraid that the company will kill the MySQL and end its Open Source policy. This can really affect to the services we all use today and damage the development of next facebooks and wikipedias.

If you want to see what services run with MySQL, here's the link: http://bit.ly/6sMqm5.

Finnish inventor of the MySQL, Monty Widenius, has started a petition for EU's competition authorities who still can deny the acquisition of Sun by Oracle. Go to the address: www.helpmysql.org and sign the petition now, and invite your friends to do the same. Facebook group 'Save MySQL from Oracle' has roughly 2300 members. Petition is signed already by 20,000 people (situation on 5th Jan 10).

The coming digital capital of culture, Live2011.com, will run with mySQL. At least that is the plan, so if you wondered why this was blogged, there's the answer.

And happy new year to everyone!

Jarmo
from Live2011.com team @Turku2011

Student Award finalists announced

The Live 2011 Grand Prix Student Award is over and the finalists have been selected.

Participant works came from all over Finland and differed from games and animations to interactive sonic installations.

The Live 2011 Grand Prix Student Award jury has hand picked 7 works as the category finalists, and the finalist works can be seen at our Youtube channel

And the finalists are:

Brainwave Music Lab: Performative Experiments on Human Test Subjects /Marko Alastalo et al. (Teatterikorkeakoulu)

Dancer as a Painter/ Aku Meriläinen (Lapin Yliopisto)

Digital Captures / Johannes Neumeier (Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu)

Empty Kitchen / Sampo Siren (Lahden Ammattikorkeakoulu)

Product Placement / Matti Niinimäki ( Lapin Yliopisto)

The Third Eye / Niklas Gustafsson (Taideteollinen Korkeakoulu)

Xmasheat / Jussi Karnijoki, Miika Pylkkö and Antti Rantanen (Metropolia)

The jury will select three winners to be awarded, and the results will be announced in January 2010.