The National Council for Arts and Culture , through the Centro Multimedia at the The National Center for the Arts, announces the call for the following awards: Transitio Award, Sizigia Award and Transnational Communities Award; and welcomes all individuals and groups that work in the various artistic disciplines and manifestations related with new media. The guidelines of can be checked at http://en.transitiomx.net/competition

The Transitio Award is an acknowledgement to artistic work that emphasizes conceptual and expressive order; the Sizigia Award is a production grant to promote innovative electronic arts projects; and the Transnational Communities Award, an acknowledgement to projects consisting of digital and virtual communities

Deadlines:

· La The deadline for reception of proposals for the Transitio and Transnational Communities awards will be July 27th 6:00 p.m.

· Projects for the Sizigia award will be taken in until July 20th, 2007 6:00 p.m.

The Transitio Award consists of $120,000 Mexican pesos or its equivalent in US dollars and the honorary mentions the jury considers pertinent. It is open to the following categories: videoart, net.art, installation art, sound art, performing arts and performative actions, and other artistic manifestations that include, at some point of its process, the use of electronic and digital media.

The works do not necessarily have to allude to the topic of the festival; however, special consideration will be given to such projects whose discourse enriches the reflection over nomadic borders, as the place where communities in process and processes in community can be analyzed.

The Sizigia Award makes referencie to an island in the Usumacinta River located at the border between Mexico and Guatemala. After being claimed as an independent territory by the members of Laboratorio Curatorial 060, the island was accurately mapped and transferred unto Second Life , the virtual 3-D world imaged and created by its residents (http://www.secondlife.com). Sizigia pretends to be a laboratory of socio-imaginary confluences.

Prizes: up to three two-month virtual residences and 265,000 Linden dollars (approximately $1,000 USD).

This award will acknowledge transnational communities that link together Mexico and the United States and that have been able to reflect their presence onto the Internet, recreating their social dynamics within the limits of the new technologies, thus shortening geographic distances. The emphasis of the award is set on digital projects that creatively use the technological and conceptual tools available in the net, to improve communitarian interaction and communication channels.

The award consists of $3,500 USD and the honorary mentions that the jury considers pertinent.

The objective is to create affective and knowledge networks among artists, scientists, collectors, technologists, curators, academics, foundations and the general public to symbolically dilute the disciplinary and territorial limits, reinforcing projects of a hybrid character and that can offer relational strategies. The concepts of border, community and inclusion thus take a whole new meaning in favor of the development of creative processes.

Toni Mestrovic
Born in Croatia in 1973, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts; during that period he ventured into graphic art. Part of his academic training was held in Germany. Mestrovic is an artist with a very broad range of artistic productions that go from sculptures to audiovisual installations. His work has been shown in Croatia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Taiwan, Bosnia, the Netherlands and Russia, among others.
http://www.macaknara.hr/




Graffiti Research Lab
This is a project that pretends to offer graffiti artists a source of tools for urban communication. GRL tries to technologically explore the potential of graffiti to let individuals creatively alter and take property on their surroundings. In the words of José Luis Vicente “they are researching the future of urban art, once we get bored of stencil and paint spray.”
http://graffitiresearchlab.com

Please go to the Festival's webpage http://transitiomx.net or the Multimedia Center webpage:
http://cmm.cenart.gob.mx

Centro Nacional de las Artes Centro Multimedia Avenida Río Churubusco 79, Colonia Country Club, C. P. 04220, Coyoacán, México, D. F.