The 27th ifva Awards
Media Art Category Jury Meeting Transcript
Jury Members: Bryan Chung (Chung), GayBird Leung (Leung), Mizuki Takahashi(Mizuki), Lai Chiu-han Linda (Lai), Yuen Cheuk-wa (Yuen)
Organizer representatives: Kattie Fan (Fan), Sandy Lai, Kate Lau, Helen Lam

Fan:

Due to the novel coronavirus outbreak and venue closure, it is a pity that thisyear we are unable to have the exhibition, which jurors can see and feel theactual artworks in the gallery. For Media Art category, we had an additional
Q&A session, so that our 10 finalists could further explain and elaborate theirartwork to you directly. Hopefully this allowed jurors to have better
understanding on these works. We will then begin the discussion; you can add
your remarks to each artwork. After we go through the 10 works, we willnominate the prizes. If there are no further questions, we’ll start with the firstartwork, Ether - liquid mirror -. I would like to invite Bryan to begin first
because you are one of the jurors in the first round.

Chung: After I went through the documentation and video after the selection, I will
not put this as one of my favorites at the moment. It’s a bit site-specific andalso if you put a single individual audience member to interact with theheartbeat, it will lose some of the impact of that circular piece of metal plate
vibrating according to some sound in the location. I will not go for that work
for my shortlist.
Lai:

My first impression is that it is very neat. It looks to be a nice artwork that
invites me to want to be there. The explanation [on the roundness of the mirror]
kind of destroys the work a little bit. I remember in the documents submitted,
it doesn’t have to be round, it could be rectangular, so the symbolism seems tofall apart. In terms of technical details, the heartbeat could have beensomething else. For some reason, I cannot respond to heartbeat because it’s
everywhere in media art and cinema. There is also a chance to turn that into aninteresting sound work, but now the chance is a bit lost, the potential of theelements is not really fully deployed.

Leung: For me, this is not on my shortlist either. The artist uses the heartbeat as themain interactive element, but in my understanding, it can only sense the heartrate, it cannot sense the velocity of the heartbeat. For normal adults, the heart1

rate is similar, so each person’s feeling of the piece is almost the same. So theheartbeat is just a symbolic thing, it doesn’t really interact with the audience.
Yuen:

I tend to agree with all of you. I’d expect the work to be more multidimensional in terms of making use of the heartbeat, even if you agree withusing the heartbeat as an interactive element. It seems not to be working in
depth in terms of how the audience would go in an interaction with the space.
Ideally, I’d see if participants would be in that space for a length of time, thenhe’d be able to make use of this heartbeat interaction to feel the change ofemotions, if the space and experience is meditative enough, you’d be able toexperience the journey. But currently, the set-up and explanation are notleading us to that level of interactivity.

Mizuki: I can’t agree with you more. I don’t have any additional comments to add. I
think the idea has lack of depth, I cannot see the connections between the idea
and his decisions in shape. His appropriations of a Shinto symbolims is very
typical.
Fan:

The next one is Forgetter.

Chung: I like this piece of work and even though it has the potential to go a little bit
further. It is an interesting idea to engage the player with the insider story of
the psycho-experience of the artists creating famous artworks in the museum.
I consider it as an art game or art-related game. For me, I’d like it to go a bit
further in a certain direction. It seems it is still a single player work, in which
participants have emotional exchanges with those selection of artwork andenvironment created by the game scene, but if there was a bit more social
interactions among different players who share the experience of playing thegame or in different museums or collections of artworks, that can be a bit moreengaging. I’d consider it as one of my shortlisted items because of thesophistication and the quality of work. I can notice the creative efforts fromthis team of artists.
Mizuki: It’s a provocative piece. I agree with Bryan, it’d be nice if the game can beplayed with multiple players, and incorporate the discussion process tonavigate the players’ decisions to destroy or not. I wish they have theimagination of the idea of destruction, that they have the psychological impact
to navigate the players in that direction.
Leung: At the beginning, I didn’t know how to judge this work because it is a gameand I cannot really play the game. After watching the video, I added points forthis work because I can feel the game more. I am impressed by the graphic
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design, scene design and image design, it is well integrated and professional.
This is on my shortlist. I can see they put a lot of effort to try to explore more
possibilities on the game design and artwork.
Lai:

I haven’t decided yet whether I’d shortlist this. However, I find this artwork
has the best written proposal. I’m not just giving merit to the writing itself. To
me, it’s very important in media art for the plan to be conceptuallycomprehensive and technically informative. This is the only artwork [in thisbatch] that has achieved that. This is a reason for me to shortlist it. The samewell-written proposal gave me a bit of disappointment, though, when I went
through the actual audio-visual material. If I can accept that this is an advanced
prototype of the plan, then I would definitely give it full support. There arethings that are a bit excessive for me, such as the psychological experience
we’re supposed to have and a sense of destruction and all of that, which I do
not experience. When we make an artwork, we all have such kinds of meanings,
but it does not always go into the actual phenomenology of the playing process.
So this is where I am at this point.

Yuen:

It’s an interesting intervention of game as a medium, so the concept of turning
it into a meta-art experience is a good attempt. I want to declare that because
Alan Kwan is now a colleague of mine, I’ve known this work before thiscompetition. I was able to understand the background of this work. The latesubmission of that 30-minute video clip, that’s quite a game-changing for me.
Before the 30-minute clip, I had very weak grasp of this work. After watching
this 30-minute experience, I was able to comprehend the entire experience.
That changed the perception of the whole piece. When I coupled thisexperience with other entries, it might not be fair to other works because I was
not able to at least spend more than 15 minutes to immerse in the other works,
which are also demanding participants to engage for a certain period of time
before you can actually experience them. I just want to point out this is the
only piece we have the opportunity to engage for 20-30 minutes. That changed
a lot of my perception of this work.

Lai:

I didn’t get the chance to view the 30-minute video because it came too late. I
was working the whole morning and I did not notice it until right before themeeting. Everything I had said was about the material submitted that I had
reviewed. I think there is a question of fairness, too, because there are several
other works that are suffering from not being able to be physically presented.
Maybe at the end of this discussion we can factor in that reality.

Fan:

The next work is "I am like sea waves, going up and down.”

3Chung: For this work I try not to comment too much because he was my student and I
was assessing this piece of work as a final year project of his MA study. I hada chance to listen to the full soundtrack that he didn’t have the chance to send
it to ifva, and I also had the chance to view physically be on site and sat on oneof the rocking chairs to experience the illusion of sea waves. My comment ison the completed work with a connection to the personal story and also someof the urban landscape. He is referring actually to the North Point ferry pierand how the older generation experience that particular ferry pier. I’d like to
put it in my shortlist, but because he was my student, I am hesitant and I’m
still struggling at this moment. I experienced a very completed work with asophistication in craftsmanship of the material. He explained the use of thewhite wall as a counter-immersive way, but I don’t have a problem with thewhite wall, because the way I sit over there, it’s actually more like a prop fortheatre rather than an immersive experience. I’d speculate that his original
purpose is not to create this immersiveness by having an additional thing on
the white wall. The whole environment is more like a theatre set comparedwith a regular immersive environment like VR.
Lai:

Bryan, can I ask you a technical question? When you were sitting there andthe so-called waves were moving, did you hear any sound?

Chung: There is some machine noise coming from the moving tiles. They are not too
distracting but you can hear the continuous moving sound of the tiles.
Mizuki: I appreciate his effort to recreate kinetic work for mimicking the sea wave
movement. It is difficult to judge without experiencing it through the earpiece,
but I’m not sure if that’s the best way to stage his memory. I’m just not sure.
Just listening to the sounds from the cassette recorder and standing on theboardwalk across Victoria Harbor might be the best experience. I cannot see
the advantage of recreating this kinetic floor.
Leung: I don’ have a lot of comments about this work. The work has very personalemotion, I cannot imagine what the emotion is. I like the mechanicalinstallation. I like the choice of material, I like the installation design.
Yuen:

I agree with Mizuki that the remembrance layer is not detailed, not mature
enough on a metaphorical level, it is like putting together bridges of memoryand connecting them together. It’s a little bit weak in that sense. If I was able
to sit in that rocking chair, it reminds me of a late 80s Nintendo pixelized
experience with the mosaic speckles of sea waves. That’s a cute way of looking
into the past. That’s the fun part that connected me.

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Lai:

I just want to make one more point which you can say is quite subjective. Thisis an impression I had after viewing all the works about what media art is up
to this moment and what we are expecting supposedly. When I saw the variety
of ways to deploy machine learning, AI and similar stuff, it suddenly occurred
to me that I would prefer works that are lighter, more mobile, and moremachine handy rather than works that rely a lot on mechanical construction.
This is my problem with the VR work (below) and with this work, both ofwhich require a lot of gears to be put together, to be assembled on site. This
may not be fair, but after looking at all the works, I want works that are very
handy, that you can just pick up and go and install it as you go. That’s mycurrent hesitation about this work. I know the North Point ferry pier very well,I don’t think I can share the sentiments of the work fully yet because I am notable to rock myself in the chair. It would be unfair to take my words to becomprehensive judgement about this work.

Fan:

The next one is (in)visible, a Taiwanese work.

Chung: This is difficult to comment because there are not too many traditional media
art elements, I consider it more like a photographic work, but using different
machines that go beyond our traditional cameras. The display that they show
to us in the diagram, I am not sure if the way they want to show is the perfectway. In the diagram, it hints that there’ll be projections in a relatively dark
environment, but when I look at those images I also question whether it should
be printed into some sort of substantial material rather than light in the dark.
The artistic decision to pick up which images to view and whether it’s goodlooking or pleasurable to look at or if there are any kind of references toexisting landscape or other texture-like material that we encounter in everyday
life. They didn’t do it very well in a sense, it seems they are just picking thegood-looking images and assemble them together as a body of work for the
display. It’s a good piece of work to show, but I’m not sure whether it’s a goodpiece of work in a competition. I’ll probably not put it on my shortlist at thismoment.
Leung: I agree with Bryan. This work has very good materials, but it isn’t complete.
They need to go through a few more steps. The images are very impressive
and they use high-end technology, but that is only the research anddevelopment stages. It still needs more things to make it more complete.
Mizuki: I appreciate the questions and comments to the artist. I struggle to find thecritical point in this work. With these new scanning machines, I don’t see theirartistic technique to realize these images and also their unique point to pick up
the images and how they communicate the reasons behind the images to the5audience. My comment may sound really harsh. The installation might help topromote the technology of these scanning machines, how good these machinesare. Unfortunately, it fails to present the artistic ideas beyond the technologies
and their application.
Yuen:

Thanks Linda for the questions, that’s spot on.

Fan:Let’s move on to the next one, Lesson, a Japanese work.

Chung: I try to comment on Lesson and Translated Landscape together. Their
presentation is the most interesting part I found in the dialogue among different
artists in the last hour. I enjoyed their presentation and the articulation of thereasons why they are doing such kinds of things. Even though I would notconsider their works perfect at this moment, some are at the very early stageof experiment with the use of machine learning tools. I found they have theunderlying principles or aesthetics to go in that direction. For Lesson, theyexperiment quite a lot. I remember they didn’t directly respond to Linda’s
questions. They made 200 choices of famous paintings, but the selection ofpaintings come without any justification at this moment. Because of thetechnology it tends to be more accurate on figurative paintings rather than
Kandinsky or other choices they make like Jackson Pollock because those are
not figurative. It’s a good approach to fit in something non-figurative for the
AI to see what may happen. This approach is what is called lost in translation
because there are two phases of translation from image to text and then text toimage again. It is a common artistic strategy in working with thosetechnologies. Personally, I’d rate Lesson a bit lower and Translated
Landscape a bit higher, because the latter is more directed in using object
detection approach in order to navigate in a cityscape. I think it can be
improved in that they have some idea about the location they are going tonavigate and why they chose such kinds of art. As I wrote in the catalogue, theimpression that came to my mind is Jeffrey Shaw’s Legible City rather thanthe concrete poetry in this work. I may shortlist Translated Landscape but not
Lesson.
Lai:

I want to follow up on Bryan’s comment. I feel the same as you. I like both,and I find Lesson a lot of fun but I think Translated Landscape is better. The
latter has some connection with “concrete poetry”, such as works by 20thcentury re-inventer Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calliqrammes (1918) whichconstruct text into the shape of whatever the poem is about [i.e. linguistic
meanings turned into typographical effect]. But that’s not the key point here. I
like it because it is immediately making the system they’re using powerful andcommunicative and there’s a light-heartedness to it. My question, if the artists
6were around, would be, “What’s next?” You started with the city, the train,
what’s going to be next? This [generative] learning curve they haveexperienced is important. As for Lesson, they do have a point there to bring in
figurative paintings and abstract paintings. Really, they did not answer myquestion, which was “If you’re doing this kind of work, you should have tried
out more and more programs because many people are uploading and sharing
this kind of system”, so the point is they it is a very important decision forthem to make. For example, what if they had chosen a state-of-the-art program
instead, and were to work with a program that makes minimum mistakes. That
could be a very important point to develop, but I didn’t hear much about thatstruggle or decision-making process. Even for the figurative painting, thedescription is not always correct. Still, I like the work because it communicateswith contemporary art, which has seen a lot of works about image-texttranslation. It communicates not only with media art but also with traditionalart in a fun way, and it’s educational, except it’s a bit simplistic. I’d shortlist
Translated Landscape.
Leung: The work Lesson reminds me a long time ago attending Linda and Hector’sclass, which was called generative art. Linda taught me something like this,about how to generate something that becomes art. This work tries to makesomething indirect, but for art people, it’s kind of direct to translate somemedium into another medium and becoming a more interesting thing. This
point is also to their advantage because being simple and direct makes thiswork more enjoyable for me. If we are to compare these two works, Lesson
and Translated Landscape, I prefer Translated Landscape too because thiswork makes better use of AI and machine learning, and turns this techniqueinto a visually more impactful work. For the work Lesson, it’s simple and not
more integrated than the other work.
Yuen:

I like Lesson a bit more than Translated Landscape. To me, there’s a layer ofwhat we can call artistic judgement or aesthetics in the use of backward
translation, from visual to text and back to visual. That’s the interesting part
because if you ask my parents or grandparents to look at contemporary art,
they would relate figuratively. They’d have a hard time understanding Pollock
and Kandinsky. In their heads, they are transforming contemporary art in a
literal sense. That’s a kind of perspective that I find interesting. But this is
entirely not the artist’s intention, but that’s the way it worked for me. By
contrasting the result of this backward translation, we immediately feel thatdifferent people having different artistic context would make different
meanings. AI most of the time becomes a stupid artistic interpreter that tells a
different side of human story. That’s why I like Lesson more than the otherone, but that’s my personal take. But if we were to look at what relates to the7artist’s own statement, then Lesson is a little weak. That’s the part that I findengaging if we don’t look at the background description of the work.
Mizuki: To be frank, I don’t like either works, both use AI technology in a too
straightforward way. It’s too obvious to let AI translate the abstract paintings
to navigate wrong translation, we knew it cannot do it. It’s very predictable, ina way. It doesn’t give me an eye-opening experience though these art works.
Translated Landscape in terms of design, the black and white using Chinesecharacters is quite a straightforward application of concreate poetry or otherpast examples. Both lean on AI technology naively. That’s my comment.
Fan:

The next work is Petri.Vista.

Chung: This one I also wouldn’t comment too much because he is now my student.
When he was doing this work, he was a student in City University of HongKong. The work is yet to be developed into a sophisticated work. At thismoment, it is more like a demonstration of the evolution of the growth of someorganism simulated in a computer environment. Apparently, there is nointeraction, it’s a bit generative. It relies on self-reproduction and keeping a
distance between two organisms to define the growing pattern. In my commentin the catalogue, I also questioned about the metal plate and the screen display,which is working on the idea of the petri dish that we use in biological labs. It
could be more strongly related to the context. I’m not sure what sensation it’strying to arouse. It’s a bit too distant and calm between me as an audience andalso the flashing light on the screen. I haven’t seen the real work; I imagine
from the video it’d be difficult to engage with what’s happening on the screen
and the metal plate. I’ll probably not put this in my shortlist. I’ll wait to see if
the artist has more development in terms of the emotional exchange between
the work and the audience.
Leung: For me, the form and visual outcome of this work is very media art friendly
and stylish. As an audience, I can see the visual development, but I can’t really
understand the formation and progress of the work. The work seems toemphasize on the form and visual impact. It is not easy to learn deeper the idea.
Lai:

My comment is more or less the same. I really like the work’s point of
departure, which is addressing something around us. But the artist didn’t reallytake that idea any further down the road. It becomes a big jump from thinking
about how virus multiply and take that idea just to show what beautiful images
it produces and stops there. Everything about how many metal plates andscreens, why that number -- I don’t think they are defensible at this point.

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Mizuki: I agree with Linda. The layers in the concept are very thin. The application of
the technique and visual images are too straightforward. I cannot see how theartist has a unique the way of interpretation or have artistic digestion of ourenvironment through this work.
Lai:

.
Yuen:

Fan:

I want to add one short comment. Looking at this work, I demand a moreorganic relation between the scientific image and the aesthetic image – andthis I do not request from other works in this batch, but for this particular work,
I demand that. And I don’t find it.
This work is a little weak. Even if we talk about a simulation of virus orbacteria proliferation, there’s a lot more to be researched. There is not one
single way of bacteria population development, so even in terms of bringing
over a direct simulation of virus growth, there’s still a longer journey to go
through.
The next work is The Cave with a Wheeze.

Chung: I have seen this work on display at the Arts Centre. I like the work and I thinkit’s a powerful work. The other point I also raised in the last section of the jury
panel is whether it should be in animation or media arts section. That’s one
debatable categorization of this piece of work. If we put it in media arts section,
I enjoy the work. I like the simplicity of the engagement of the bodily activities,
especially after the explanation from Jess and also from the documentation. I
am happy to shortlist this work, but I’m not sure whether as an animation workor media arts work.
Mizuki: I like this artwork the most. The artist knows what she is doing and knows
what animation means. It makes sense why she needs to use this stop-motion
animation technique to portray the cloud on the wall. It reflects the emotional
status of that moment, so that all makes sense for me.
Leung: I like this work the most, because the work uses very simple ideas to express
a very strong impression. I especially like the clock installation on the video,
it’s very powerful for me. It shows the timeline and the physical effort of theartist. She chooses charcoal as the element, which is simple but gives me avery strong impression. I don’t know how to categorize media arts but for me,
this is a very good work.
Yuen:

This is a very compelling work. The emotions are really genuine, very direct
and true. The clock installation is a good choice of using the clock in place of
the artist herself. That is a very distinguishing element in this piece of work.
9Not sure if the mechanism of the clock would justify it as media art, but if wetalk about the depth of artistic expression this piece is really great. I’m gladshe shared with us the duration she spent on this piece of work. That shows
how powerful an artist could be when the devotion is there.
Lai:

I prefer to speak last because I know this person really well. I know this work
and was at her studio at one point in the middle of the work’s making, and had
a long discussion. I appreciate everything that has been said, and I think there
is no problem in how to defend this as media art. Media art is the intersectionof a lot of things that cannot be named properly including many animation andvideo pieces. Media art has that position that combines many things. Say,
would this work be allowed into the Animation Category? If not, so here wego, we welcome this work. Or, if this would not be accepted in the Open
Category, here we have media art. It is not difficult to defend this work because
the accent of media art is in the procedural nature of the art process, and thiswork is the result of very precise procedures [which we call algorithm incomputing]. In fact, some aspect of it is almost inhumane rule-based
procedures which she confirmed with us. You can say that before we had thecomputer, the machine was already there, and it was built upon procedures andrules, the small steps amounting to the formation of a system. All of this could
be used to describe this work. I read the instructions for the jurors. One criticalpoint must be made about this work’s highlight of labor. Labor is a major issue
in computational art these days. Artist labor could become so invisible that it’dbe nice to see a work in which labor is foregrounded once again. As far as I
know, the clock has always been there on that wall, so, the wall is also a partof the documentation of time. I like this work and I do not have any problems
thinking that by spirit, action, method and procedure it is a media art piece.

Fan:

Just one note from the organizer’s point of view. Whether it is media art oranimation, we’d leave the decision to the entrants when they submit theartwork to us. Usually, we’d ask the entrants if they’d like to stay in the
category that they applied in. We had a similar issue with the Animation
Category this year. We had a discussion with one of the experimental
animations, whether it was possible to put it in a gallery or a movie theatre.
The major difference is the presentation, how they’d like to use or occupy the
space as a film or video installation, or they’d like it as a single channel screen
space to be shown in a movie theatre. This is the differentiation from theorganizer’s point of view. The next work is Uber Existence.

Chung: I like this work, but it is difficult to judge or evaluate without the participation
into the performance. I try to relate it to some of the older works like locative
media artworks that Linda and I had done many years ago.
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Lai:

I See Where You Are in Central, that one?

Chung: Yes, at the Microwave International New Media Festival. This work is morereflecting the current situation of the reliance on food delivery and these kindsof remote and unnamed labor, rather than just play around with the location ofa city. There are some missing things which are reflected in the questions they
didn’t answer directly, about the Uber business. We heard about in Hong
Kong’s FoodPanda where they have this labor complaint about the
exploitation of delivery workers. In this work I’m not sure where they areforegrounding this key issue, but they highlight some of absurdity of some of
the users requesting people to act or perform in different situations. This has
to potential to reflect on the exploitation of labor, but that is yet to come in the
artwork. This work is not easy to evaluate without evidence of participation in
front of us.
Mizuki: I have the same comment as Bryan about the ethical aspect of the Uberbusiness, and how much the artist is aware of it. The artist says he enjoys
working with delivery for Uber in Tokyo, he said it’s the most enjoyable
experience. It reflects the working environment among the younger generationin Japan. I can see there’s a lot of potential and pivotal points in this work, likethe body hacking, also labor exploitation, the business model of Uber. I don’t
think the artist is aware of these controversial points in the business. From theartwork, this Uber Existence is more like a proposal to Uber. As a performance,
I wonder how much he understands what he is doing with the performabilityof his proposal.
Lai:

It is true the work is overtly romantic to me, and that could be a problem. Forme, the problem lies more in what to do when taking up locative media as anart form. Now, instead of pushing it forward to explore what it could do for us,
it remains just a demo of its capability. It’s hard not being part of that and justlooking at the documentation. Yet I don’t want to rule out the work’s chancefor its being a piece of documentation because there is no other way this work
can be presented to us at this point.

Leung: I don’t know how to judge this work also. The idea is very interesting, but I
will comment on the presentation. For example, how to choose the laborcharacters. There are a lot of interesting things they could add in the work. At
the moment the work only has a single idea, it still needs a few more steps.
Yuen:

To me it brings up the question about finding your remote agent, about
experiencing things in the metaverse. Eventually we all stay at home and11experience things elsewhere via a digital avatar, or use the Uber Existencewith a true human body. What could be very interesting to develop this work
is how this setting would come back with a question to the audience. Right
now, it’s more the idea of making fun of such a platform or relationship, butdoesn’t go further. I think it has a lot of potential, it evokes some questions inme like what is the point of fulfilment and joy by having somebody else torepresent you to go worship and fortune telling, that kind of thing. The
engagement and participation are what is valued, so that’s something very
interesting to look at, but this work has not got into that layer yet.
Chung: What I expect is some kind of reflection from the team that they, for example,
interviewed those who participated and ask them how they feel when they needto suspend the agency and do whatever they need to do and instructed by an
unknown stranger in front of some weird situation. That kind of dialogue may
help us to make better judgement in this case.
Yuen:

I also want to add one point, if the subjectivity of this work is positioned at theagents, the one who is hired to do things, it will be way more interesting to me.

Fan:

The last work is N1801.

Chung: I wouldn’t choose this on my shortlist. It’s not easy to comment without
experiencing the process. From the documentation I understand there is somekind of light and narration and sound, meant to trigger some memory or
imagination. How this relates to the story of the grandma and our own
background, I cannot see the connection about this work without experiencing
it. The format of this work I’m also not very sure about. I imagine I’d be lying
on the moving bed and wearing the headset, and being driven around indifferent locations. There is also documentation of people holding your hand
and walking in some location. I am not sure about the navigation and the flowof this experience is, is it like some theme park experience by wearing theheadset with flashing lighting? It is rather unknown in the experiential aspect,
so I would not consider this work.
Lai:

My position has been made quite clear earlier on. I prefer not to choose a workthat requires very heavy gears. Bryan pointed out something which I want to
respond with another analogy. I felt uncomfortable with works that try torecreate a psychoanalytic therapy kind of situation, or something like a selfhelp retreat camp where I have to be “stimulated” in order to think and feel.
This is issue that can be broadened to questioning where are we today [withvirtual and augmented reality], VR with the headset has been with us for quitea while. How critical can we be about believing in a specific type of immersion
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of this kind? What are we supposed to do? How are we going to deal with thepassive (-versus-active) role that is prescribed the moment you enter this room?
I normally would feel extremely uncomfortable; in cases like that, I usuallydidn’t even want to enter that room. But it does not mean there is no value inwanting to share experiences. I like the point the artist makes about the reallife experience of closing his eyes to experiencing fireworks, which inspired
this work, and that is a very good moment. That is how artists start to makethings, but the rest of it, about being put on the bed and having to be led bypeople’s hands, I think we can be more critical about immersion.
Leung: I try to stand in the jury position to give more sympathy on this kind of work
because we can’t actually experience the work and just experience the work
based on the documentation. Some works are at an advantage because they arescreen-based, but this kind of work we can’t really experience it. But I can’t
give higher marks for it because I can’t really understand what’s theexperience he is trying to create. I can feel that his intention is to try to combine
different kinds of VR experience and physical space experience into the work.
Based on the documentation I can’t get the experience because of the newmaterials he added.
Mizuki: I don’t understand why it is necessary for the audience to walk around thephysical space with the gear. They cannot see anything except for the pulse
with the closed eyes. I failed to get the point.
Yuen:

From a performance perspective, I think there is more to experience aside fromthe visual part. It is difficult to evaluate at this point. With the VR headset, if
you walk around the space with other participants, there is this disorientationthat could be interesting. This juxtaposition between the abstract visual and thesoundscape could create another layer of story, but we don’t have that material
to evaluate. I agree this piece of work would be not quite getting us to a
destination at all and not strong in terms of making an artistic statement. The
only thing I could see is a good attempt is they are not trying to use VR headset
to create high-definition recreation of a scene. You use the medium to relate toa real-life experience of abstract color and brightness changes in thesurroundings. That’s an interesting approach, but that’s only a very small partof the experience design. Not particularly intriguing.

Fan:

We have gone through discussion on the 10 works. Now we’ve come to themost exciting part, the prizes. There are a few ways to do this. One option is
you can nominate the Gold Award, or you may shortlist some works so that we
can narrow down the discussion.

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Mizuki: I know who I’m going to give the Gold Award to. My Gold Award nominee is
The Cave with a Wheeze.
Leung: Me too.
Yuen:

This piece gets straight in. I vote this work for the Gold Award as well.

Chung: I am not totally sure. I need to look at the innovation of technology and otherelements. In terms of a piece of artwork and its emotional engagement andpower, this is worth Gold. But not in terms of innovative use of technology.
The ones I shortlisted are Forgetter, The Cave with a Wheeze and Translated
Landscape. These three works I’d like to highlight. If a lot of jury members
consider The Cave with a Wheeze for Gold, I’m also fine.
Lai:

I also want to nominate three shortlisted works. Forgetter, The Cave with a
Wheeze and Translated Landscape.

Fan:

For Linda and Bryan, do you have any Gold Award nominations?

Chung: For me, there are only two choices for Gold, Forgetter and The Cave with a
Wheeze. For a more holistic way of looking at works, The Cave with a Wheeze
is better.
Fan:

That means you also pick The Cave with a Wheeze as Gold?

Chung: Yes.
Fan:

Linda, what do you think?

Lai:

I have no objections. I just highlighted works we should discuss. I have noproblem if that is the Gold and everybody agrees. Do we want to decide so
fast? I’m okay with it.

Fan:

Usually the Gold Award is less difficult to decide. If you all agree that The
Cave with a Wheeze is the Gold Award, we have one work decided. The
winner will get $30,000 cash prize, and also a separate prize for this artist.
Every year we have a collaboration with Goethe-Institut Hongkong to host asolo exhibition for the selected finalist. This year, we have selected Lau Chingwa (The Cave with a Wheeze) as the artist to do the solo exhibition next year
during the festival. Now we move on to Silver Award.

Yuen:

Let us cast the vote for Forgetter?
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Mizuki: Forgetter is my second place.
Leung: Me too.
Fan:

Are you all saying that the Silver should go to Forgetter?

Chung: That is my vote for Silver, Forgetter.
Fan:

Linda?

Linda: Ok.
Fan:

So everyone is okay with Forgetter getting Silver?

(The jurors agreed.)
Fan:

Now for Special Mention. We don’t have a Bronze Award but have a Special
Mention instead. You can easily consider the Gold and Silver the best andsecond best. For Special Mention, sometimes the jury want to give this award
to someone that has something special to mention and highlight. This is thereason why we call this award Special Mention. So you may shortlist
something as rank number 3, or nominate some works that have some special
quality that you like to recognize and highlight.

Lai:

I propose Translated Landscape because it’s a lot of fun. It is wholesome on
its own, although it’s not very sophisticated.

Chung: I agree.
Mizuki: Do I have to select?
Fan:

Do you want to withdraw this prize?

Chung: Do you have other choices?
Leung: I choose Translated Landscape for Special Mention.
Yuen:

If I were to choose works for Special Mention, I’d choose 3. I like "I am likesea waves, going up and down.”, Lesson and Translated Landscape.

Fan:

It is not so often we withdraw the Special Mention. if you find the 10 finalist
15artworks are not up to standard, that’s okay too.
Lai:

I don’t think of Translated Landscape as the third. I chose it because it’d begood to include a work that’s deploying AI -machine learning. Even Lesson isa lot of fun, and I already declared I like Translated Landscape more. This is
another observation for this year, many of the works seem incomplete becauseof the circumstances. Whatever seems complete, I want to support it, and that’s
Translated Landscape.

Mizuki: I don’t have any strong objections to giving Translated Landscape Special
Mention. I don’t cast a vote but I won’t stop other jurors giving the Special
Mention, that’s my stance.
Fan:

If we don’t object, then we will give Translated Landscape the Special
Mention. This year. Each of you may have different choices and views ofartworks, we have your collective decisions on the prizes, and I hope you are
happy with the results.

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27th ifva Media Art Category Award Winners
Gold Award
The Cave with a Wheeze
Lau Ching-wa (Hong Kong)

Silver Award
Forgetter
Yang Jing, Kwan Tsz-wai Alan (Hong Kong)

Special Mention
Translated Landscape
Tomoya Ishibashi, Kento Niikura (Japan)

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