Semiconductor win Samsung Art+ Prize

Semiconductor – artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt – have won the £10,000 Samsung Art+ Prize, a newly inaugurated award for artists who use 'new media' in their practice. Collective Lucky PDF won the £5,000 second prize and Doug Fishbone was chosen by the public as the winner of the audience award. Ten artists were shortlisted, and included Neil Cummings, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Torsten Lauschmann, Aura Satz, Hiraki Sawa, Erika Tan and Thomson and Craighead. David Hall was given the £5,000 lifetime achievement award. The prizes were judged by Stuart Comer, curator of Film, Tate Modern, Jan Dalley, arts editor at The Financial Times, artist Sooja Kim, Jiyoon Lee, director of SUUM and Dr. Peter Weibel, the chairman and CEO of ZKM.

Comer commented: 'With the first and second prize for the Samsung Art+ Award, the jury is pleased to honor two collectives who highlight the decisive and quickly shifting impact of technological media on recent cultural practice.

Semiconductor are recognised as an important voice in questioning the relationship between the material and virtual world. They have developed a long term and rigorous practice that draws on innovations in science and media to form a visually and sonically rich body of work. They have crafted their own unique ‘technological sublime’ by reconsidering how images can be constructed and distributed through careful research and collaboration.

Lucky PDF reflect a renewed interest in collaboration and have brought tremendous energy and insight to exploring the possibilities of media, broadcast and networked production on the role of the artist. Their projects fundamentally question technology and its role in forming artistic practice and the production and performance of images.

David Hall is without question one of the crucial pioneers to understand and articulate a new world of broadcast and monitor‐based media. With a legacy extending from some of the earliest video installations and interventions to the development of London Video Arts and the first chapter of video art in the UK, Hall richly deserves the Samsung Art+ Lifetime Achievement Award, which is awarded to him with a unanimous decision by the jury.'