A Dutch/Latvian locative-media art project wins the Golden N

[Anna Balint]

Hi,

our friend Esther asked us to forward this message to anyone with the 
slightest interest in so-called new media arts ;-)

She's a great person, and so is the project!


Press Release MILKproject 



A Dutch/Latvian locative-media art project wins the Golden Nica award 
for interactive art of the Ars Electronica Festival. 



Photograph: these days, the MILKproject installation is showing at the 
Making Things Public exhibition in ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und 
Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany. www.zkm.de <#www.zkm.de> 

On Monday, 24 May 2005, it was announced that the new media 
project MILK has won the Golden Nica award in the category 
Œinteractive artš. The award will be granted during the Ars Electronica 
festival in Linz, Austria, from 1 to 6 September 2005, where the work 
will also be part of the Cyberarts exposition (1-18 September 2005). 
The Ars Electronica festival is internationally seen as a reference to the 
developments in the field of electronic arts. 

The project of the artist Esther Polak and researcher Ieva Auzina 
followed a European dairy transportation from the udder of the 
(Latvian) cow, to the mouth of the (Dutch) consumer. All people who 
played a role in this chain received, for a day, a GPS-device (Global 
Positioning System) that registered their movements. 

The artists developed a lucid visualization-software for these traces, 
and let the participants react upon them in their own kitchens or living 
rooms. In the final installation- a homey space with footstools, twilight 
lamps, an oversized radio and a projection screen, the onlooker can 
join the enjoyment of these visually attractive images and the at times 
hilarious comments of the participants. By this the personal life-stories 
of these very different Europeans are shown, from the Latvian farmer 
to the Dutch open-air market salesman with his clients, who are all 
connected by one thing: the milk from a truck of one Latvian milk 
collector. 

MILKproject demonstrates that contemporary technology can also 
realize a special intimacy: one can follow the steps of the farmer who 
produces our food on the other side of Europe. Nevertheless, 
MILKproject is also a completely new imagery of the globalized 
landscape: connected by and cut through usually invisible lines. The 
MILKproject shows these lines and opens therewith the possibility to 
realize that there hides a landscape behind every product we buy, and 
every bite we take, a landscape with its own spatial principals, that is 
populated, cultivated and set foot on by its own, special people. 

MILKproject, Esther Polak, Ieva Auzina and Rixc, Riga centre for new 
media culture. 

www.milkproject.net 

Contact: milkproject <at> milkproject.net 

more information about Ars Electronica: www.aec.at