TTA Jury starts

Today the jury of the Europrix Top Talent Award (TTA) starts its deliberations at the ICNM office in Salzburg. It is for the seventh time, that a selection is made of European products, produced by Young Professional up to 30 years.

It started all out when the Europrix was interdicted in 1998 at the occasion of the EU presidency of Austria. A big European competition had been organised for companies with a separate competition for students. This lasted till 2002. After 5 years the Europrix for companies was disbanded, but the students’ competition was transformed in a competition for Young Professional up to 30 years.

It is the first time in seven years that I am not part of this jury and it feels strange to sit in Utrecht, knowing that something very interesting is going on in Salzburg. It is the meeting of old jurors and meeting the new ones; strengthening the personal network, but also the network of the European Academy of Digital Media; looking for trends in multimedia. Last year for example we saw the trend of multimedia installations coming through with entries as Kick Ass Kung-Fu and content tools such as the project Bridging the Island of the Colourblind. It is interesting to look back at the Hall of Fame. But after Bahrain the work has piled up; besides young blood is needed.


Right: Kick Ass Kung-Fu; left: Neil Harbisson with his cyborg camera

The list of the jury members is up on Internet. There are 17 jury members. Some I know from juries in the past years such as Frank Alsema, Jozsef Fulop, Marcus Schmal. Other I know from the circuit such as Ania Bobrowicz, Irina Blomqvist and Sohvi Sirkesalo. Interesting is the presence of Hannah Kodicek, who was involved in the making of the encyclopaedic game Timehunt. It received a special distinction in 2003 from the TTA. It is a fabulous game that keeps you busy for a long time; you can shorten the time by going to discussions groups. Hannah is currently developing an ‘intelligent’ Massive Multiplayer online game entitled Life-Fiction with Studio 727. She told me about the new game and I am very curious to see it.

For the coming days it will be hard work for the jurors to get through the products. It will take a few weeks before we hear which projects did win.