ARTFORUM | 1 June 2018

ArtForum has reported that Art Foundation Pax, a Swiss organisation dedicated to the promotion of digital and media-based art,  has awarded the inaugural Pax Art Award to !Mediengruppe Bitnik founders Domago Smoljo and Carmen Weisskopf.


Inaugural Winners of Pax Art Award Announced

The Art Foundation Pax, a Swiss organization dedicated to the promotion of digital and media-based art, has announced the first winners of its Pax Art Award. The three awardees are the London and Zurich–based artist group !Mediengruppe Bitnik, established by Domago Smoljo and Carmen Weisskopf; the Swiss visual artist Lauren Huret; and the artist collective Fragment.in, founded by Laura Perrenoud, Mar Dubois, and David Colombini in Renens, Switzerland.

!Mediengruppe Bitnik will receive around $30,000 to support the production of new work and for an acquisition by the foundation, and Huret and Fragment.in will each receive about $15,000 for their contributions to the field of media art. The prizes will be presented on June 14 at the Haus der elektronischen Künste (HeK) in Basel.

The jury comprised Mónica Bello, head of arts at CERN, Geneva; Nicolas C. Bopp, president of Art Foundation Pax; Davide Fornari, head of research and development at ECAL, Lausanne; Sabine Himmelsbach, director of HeK; and Fausto De Lorenzo, owner of De Lorenzo Art and Museum Management & Consulting GmbH.

Founded in 2017, Art Foundation Pax is sponsored by Pax insurance company and collaborates with HeK to promote Swiss artists, who use, and critically reflect upon, media technology in their work.

Link to the article