Nam June Paik Art Center (under construction). Photo S. Dietz

As much as I complain about the non-intersection of the so-called contemporary art world and the art formerly known as new media world, recently a prestigious international jury consisting of Hank Bull, executive director of Center A in Vancouver; Doryun Chong, associate curator at The Museum of Modern Art in New York; Udo Kittelman, director of the National Galleries, Berlin; Tetsuo Kogawa, artist and professor at Keizai University, Tokyo; and Barbara Vanderlinden, Belgian curator and author,  selected media pioneer Robert Adrian X to split the $50,000 Nam June Paik Art Center  Award with Eun-me Ahn, Ceal Floyer and Seung-taek Lee.

Robert Adrian and Otto Mittmannsgruber coordinating fax and telephone exchange with Vienna. The World in 24 Hours.

Adrian participated in what was arguably the first telematic art conference, Artists’ Use of Telecom (1980) (as did Hank Bull), helped organize and support ARTEX (1980-90) the Artists’ Electronic Exchange Project, organized The World in 24 Hours at Ars Electronica (1982), helped organize and support Planetary Network, a telecommunications project for the Venice Biennale XLII (1986), among many, many other projects.

Congratulations to Robert! And the Nam June Pak Art Center.

Nam June Paik Art Center Prize