Saturday, March 04, 2006

The night of the TTA Gala

One day before the Oscars, the EUROPRIX Gala takes place. The new world celebrates representatives of the old technology for linear storytelling on movie, while the old world bestows honours on the young talents for the new technology of digital storytelling.

The EUROPRIX Gala has a tradition. It is a festive occasion to celebrate the young talents and their works. From the beginning in 1998 the gala had a certain chique. In the first year it was held at the Technisches Museum in Vienna. It was a special occasion as the Museum had just been remodeld, but had not been open to the public yet. The gala vistors were the first audience, which was awaited in the multi colour floodlight lit building with steam engines.

After the Technisches Museum, there were galas in Tampere and in the North of Sweden (Lulea, my Finnish friend Cai adds). This was to express the European thought. The Europrix gala even was in Lisbon, organised by the Portugese juror Conceicao, and Cannes, as Cai remembers. But as the European contribution to the competition was reduced over time, it was not possible to cater to this European thought. (The EUROPRIX was at that time a travelling circuit of innovation and innovation in multimedia for the European Commission). So the galas came back to Vienna. Last year and this year the gala was held in the Museum of Military History in the Arsenal. It is a beautiful building with stained glass, sculptures and paintings. It is a perfect contrast to all cyber and virtual stuff shown at the gala.

The award ceremony was sizzling. You could feel the tension in hall as the ceremony started to come a climax. The presenter was Linus Felt, a Swede, who was himself a winner of the Europrix overall winner in 2002 with the childrens’ CD-ROM Pettson o Findus och mucklornas värld (Pettson and Findus and the Muckle World), and he did a marvellous job.

Broadband/Online: Guitar Shred Show – Mika Tyyskä, Lahti Polytechnic, Institute of Design (FIN)

Offline/DVD: Pantha Rei – Judit Erdélyi, Hungarian University of Art and Design (HU)

Mobile Contents: APCompass - David Wiltshire, University of Plymouth (UK)

Games: Neon Racer: Augmented Gaming – Markus Weilguny, FH Hagenberg (Digitale Medien) (AUT)

Content Tool and Interface Design: Coeno One – Jakob Leitner, FH Hagenberg (AUT)

Interactive Computer Graphics: Strip Generator – Ziga Aljaz, Academy of Fine Arts,Ljubljana (SLO)

Interactive TV & Video: No nominations in this category

Cross Media: MEMORY – Martin Bricelj, KD CodeEp (SLO)

Special Awards

ATI Award: Car Demonstrator – Alexander Peschke, Fachhochschule Salzburg (AUT) and 195/95 - Michal Balinski, Mark Siegel, Sebastian Spanache, Michal Staniszewski, Michal Witaszek, University of Lodz (PL)

EUROPRIX TOP TALENT THESIS AWARD: My Social Fabric- Steven Blyth, Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea (IT)

TOP TALENET AWARD FUSION AWARD: Virtual Air Guitar – Teemu Mäki-Patola, Helsinki University of Technology (FIN)

















The Overall winners of the Europrix Top Talent Award as well as the Broadband/Online category and the Music Fusion Award for the Guitar Shred Show, produced by Mika Tyyskä and Liina Toiviainen, Lahti Polytechnic, Institute of Design (FIN), ready to leave with their spoils. (c) Cai Melakoski

Guitar Shred Show was the first triple whammy in the Europrix Top Talent Award history.

I will comment on all categories in the coming weeks.

The whole TTA Gala was streamed by Telekom Austria Streamingportal and will be archived; the whole show will be available from Wednesday/Thursday onwards. And I had a message from Damien this morning that he had looked at the show from Paris. The show will be archived and will be on the web available by (free) video on demand by coming Wednesday or Thursday.

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