Announcing the best student new media art projects of MFRU31
20. Sep 2025
Mladinski kulturni center Maribor je v okviru 31. Mednarodnega festivala računalniške umetnosti objavil javni poziv za študentske nagrade intermedijskih umetniških del MFRU31.
Na poziv se je prijavilo 35 študenov_. Člani strokovne žirije Davide Bevilacqua, Vid Koprivšek in Lara Mejač so soglasno odločili, da:
– prvo nagrado prejme Oskar Kandare: M3AT
– drugo nagrado prejmeta Beti Frim: Pixel Mah in freakygreenfish: KAKO SEM POSTAL PREROK SVETEGA ALGORITMA, POTEM KO SEM DO KONCA SKROLAL PO DRUŽBENEM KOLAPSU
– posebno omembno prejme Sofia Talanti: PSY 000 T3 - Regulator simbiocena
Vsi_ umetniki_ prejmejo denarne nagrade, dobitnik prve nagrade pa bo svoje delo predstavil na samostojni razstavi v Mariboru v letu 2026.
Iskrene čestitke vsem nagrajencem!
1st AWARD
Oskar Kandare: M3AT
Oskar Kandare's M3AT project uses the retroactive connection between physical and virtual space as the starting point for a project that stands out in terms of both conceptual perfection and technical implementation. The process of researching the function of a disused and broken gimbal was followed by the development of custom-made software that simulates and learns movements in space. With a focus on the repurposement and reverse engineering of discarded and damaged equipment, the theme of the body in digital space goes beyond derivative or generic solutions and demonstrates that invention is especially made possible at unpredictable and neglected points of technology. Oskar Kandare therefore receives the first MFRU31 student award.
2nd AWARDS
Beti Frim: Pixel Moss
In Pixel Moss, Beti Frim addresses themes of ecocentricity and interspecies coexistence from a position of playfulness and by deliberately prioritizing fiction over the transparency or efficiency of real-world measurements. Moss appears both directly as an organism within a ceramic installation and as an “author” of a blog generated by an LLM on the project’s website. The project thus becomes receptive to the paradoxes the artist perceives within the aforementioned themes and critically confronts the analytical dissection of the biological world into mere metrics. Beti Frim receives the second MFRU31 student award.
freakygreenfish: HOW I BECAME THE HOLY ALGORITHM’S PROPHET AFTER DOOMSCROLLING THROUGH THE COLLAPSE OF SOCIETY
The work HOW I BECAME THE PROPHET OF THE HOLY ALGORITHM AFTER SCROLLING TO THE END OF SOCIAL COLLAPSE by the artist freakygreenfish is part of a multi-year project in which the artist creatively expands the field of painting into the realm of computer art. The awarded work materializes the saturated experience of TikTok within an interactive digital environment, visualizing the social network as a place where the phenomenon of doomscrolling has led to the birth of a new, fictional religion. By merging the narrative structures of video games with a complex multimedia spatial installation, the work opens new possibilities for understanding the economy of attention. freakygreenfish also receives the second MFRU31 student award.
SPECIAL MENTION
Sofia Talanti: PSY 000 T3 – Regulator of the Symbiocene
In their project PSY 000 T3 – Regulator of the Symbiocene, Sofia Talanti uses dysfunction of the thyroid gland—hypothyroidism—as part of a speculative scenario for regulating and cooling the Earth’s surface. Metabolic slowdown, which within human understanding belongs to the domain of illness, is relocated into the new body of a soft robot, or cyborg, which simulates the slowing of climate change based upon real data. The installation, designed as a control room, does not merely serve the function of visualizing these processes, but also integrates the viewers into the process. Sofia Talanti receives a special mention at MFRU31.