Der Prix Ars Electronica ist der traditionsreichste Medienkunstwettbewerb der Welt. Seit 1987 alljährlich ausgeschrieben, gilt er wegen seiner Kontinuität, der hohen Anzahl sowie Qualität der Einreichungen als Trendbarometer der weltweiten Medienkunst. Mit vielen Bildern, Texten und Statements der Jury bündelt das Buch jene Arbeiten, die 2020 in den Kategorien Computer Animation, Digital Musics & Sound Art, Artificial Intelligence & Life Art und u19 – Create Your World ausgezeichnet wurden. Ebenfalls im Buch enthalten ist wieder ein Best-of des im Auftrag der Europäischen Kommission ausgeschriebenen STARTS-Prize. Im Fokus dieses hoch dotierten Wettbewerbs standen innovative Projekte an der Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft, Technologie und Kunst (= Science, Technology and ARTS).

The Prix Ars Electronica has become a focal point for cyber artists in the realm of contemporary art - they are the creative ones leaving the bonds of traditions behind the crossing over the boundaries between disciplines. Cyber artists are opening up the mass medium of the Internet to new forms of artistic creativity in research and development dominated by industry. They are taking new directions with regards to programs and interfaces, they are shaping interactivity as the key cultural technology. They are creating new worlds of images and sound in art, science and research, dissolving the traditional boundaries to make imagination and knowledge comprehensible. In the Prix Ars Electronica competition, organized in 1997 for the eleventh time by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, four juries of international experts have selected the 58 prize winning works presented in this book from a total of 877 entries. The results of the Prix Ars Electronica 97 once again act as a seismography for the current state of digital media creativity on the way to cyber art.

For decades, artists and scientists in the field of digital media have been working on developing their own specialized language of content and form. Today we see that not only the sciences but also different varieties of pop culture and the culture of everyday life have long since assumed the culturally formative and socially relevant role that was once played by the fine arts. How art can once again make a significant impact upon a mediatized and digitized world, and how it occupies new locations such as the Internet through the use of revised strategies and with a new understanding of self is demonstrated every year by the submissions to the Prix Ars Electronica, the leading international competition for cyberarts. This book presents the selection of the best of 2,400 entered works. Book jacket.

In this book, artists, scientists and developers from around the world formulate new approaches to the artistic design of new media -- cyberarts. Based on current examples from the fields of artistic computer animation, visual effects in film and advertising, interactive art, network projects, and computer music, the anthology Cyberarts 98 illustrates trends in the creative work of today.

Over the past twenty years Ars Electronica has discussed, analyzed and commented upon the fundamental cultural changes that have been brought about by the digitalization of all spheres of life. The festival above serves to unite those creative spirits. The anthology Cyberarts 99 presents work from the domains of art, science and research, devoted to such fields as computer animation/visual effects, digital music, interactive art and the internet, and thus gives an up-to-date overview of the international digital media art scene.