Among the winners this year was Samson Young. The Hong Kong-based artist, born in 1979, won the Prix Ars Electronica of Distinction for digital music and sound art. Represented by the galleries Edouard Malingue and Experimenter, it was his installation Muted Situation #22: Muted Tchaikovsky’s 5th (2018), combining sound and video which won the jury over. As Young explained, the work proposes that muting “involves the conscious suppression of dominant voices, as a way to uncover the unheard and the marginalised, or to make apparent certain assumptions about hearing and sounding,”
The jury pointed out that “Young does not send a message but raises questions on which we start to reflect while listening to this unusual, beautiful performance of classical music.”
Other artists recognised this year are Tomomi Adachi, Andreas Dzialocha and Marcello Lussana, while the most prestigious award, the Golden Nica, was awarded to the artist Peter Kutin for his kinetic sound sculpture TORSO#1 (2018).
