The high-tech skills of digital artists were showcased last week, with the unveiling of the winners of the 2004 New Channel digital art competition in Johannesburg. Most digital design work is created for commercial purposes, but the New Channel competition, co-ordinated by Digerati, the digital arm of the TBWA\ network of communication agencies, offered artists an open call to express their creativity under the theme "Made at Play".
The winning entry, a fingerprint-driven biographical website, titled 'Made' 83', won its creator, Brad Blundell, a cash prize of R20 000 sponsored by Standard Bank. Blundell is a student at the Vega Brand Communication School.
When New Channel started in 2001, it was the first significant digital art exhibition in Johannesburg. Since then, others have followed, including several endorsed by UNESCO's Digi-Arts Africa. However, Jason Levin, the managing director of Digerati, believes digital art still has a lot of ground to gain in South Africa.
He comments, "The international art scene is certainly taking digital art more seriously, but locally it's a bit slower to catch on. Some of the traditional art fraternity still finds computer-based applications being called art hard to swallow."
As a company that works with digital technology every day, Digerati hopes New Channel will influence their industry.
"We want to work in an environment fuelled by innovation, originality and change. Of course creativity is messier, less convenient and less predictable than "best practice", but that's the point. It's impossible to be neat when it comes to creating magic and making true discoveries. These things are never expedient," comments Levin.
He adds, "Playing is the best form of experimentation. It helps us think and create, and thereby discover. While this is a process that seems self-evident, it is consciously and actively excluded from most work environments. We want to use New Channel to overturn the paradigm of banning play in favour of getting down to 'real work'. We picked the theme 'Made at Play' for this year's competition to reflect our belief that the fun stuff is as important as the serious stuff."
First runners-up in New Channel 2004 were Cobi Labuschagne and Jane Cheadle for a mesmerising video piece titled 'The Swimmer'. Third prize went to Kayalethu Mtshali for his piece 'Omakhelwane' ("neighbours" in Zulu). The work of the other 17 finalists included DVD pieces, digitally-created stills, digitally produced musical pieces and a number of interactive and passive works created in animation applications.
To view the 20 finalists, visit www.newchannel.co.za.
