An interactive digital projection by a University of SA lecturer was one of the first pieces of new media to be lauded during the Absa L'Atelier Art Competition, held at the Absa Towers, in Johannesburg.
Christiaan Hattingh's submission made it into the top 10 finalists of the art competition and he was also awarded a merit prize with a value of R2 000. Hattingh's work, "Generate-mutate-translate", is an interactive digital projection that is a fantasy based upon generative algorithms and artificial life.
According to Hattingh, his win is one of the few times an interactive piece has made it to the top 10 finalists in the Absa Art Competition's 22-year history. The 34-year-old multimedia lecturer says his work took two months to conceive and a further nine months to create.
"I worked between three to four hours a day, for the past nine months, to complete 'Generate-mutate-translate' and a lot of the time was spent on figuring out the different software needed and doing all the translations," notes Hattingh.
University of Witwatersrand interactive digital media lecturer Tegan Bristow believes it is imperative that South African corporate art collections recognise new media, especially interactive digital and online artworks.
"I feel that collections can no longer ignore the fact that this generation and the next engage and communicate through this medium and it is only inevitable that artwork should be made in it."
Hattingh hopes to have a solo exhibition and sees his success at L'Atelier as a boost for an art form that he says is "doubted".
"I've sent my work to the Sasol art competition and I hope to build on what I exhibited at L'Atelier. The only problem is that some people have their doubts about new media as an art, because they think it's all about building Web sites."
Bristow concurs with Hattingh and says new media can't be considered art if the work is a practical application and something "new" and "cool", and does not engage the audience in any form of commentary, criticism or evocation of meaning through interaction.
Bristow explains interactive digital art is that which uses technology as its medium. "It is, therefore, often critical (in a post-modern way) of a medium that has become ubiquitous to everyday communication, work and entertainment for most people," she says. "Interactive digital arts can comment and engage on a cultural level on what has become a 21st century way of being."
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