Alyssa Bornn wins the 2019 Emerging Digital Artists Award

Alyssa Bornn, still from MORE, LESS, ABOUT THE SAME (2019), video, 7:30

Alyssa Bornn wins the 2019 Emerging Digital Artists Award

Alyssa Bornn is the winner of this year’s Emerging Digital Artists Award (EDAA), Canada’s award for critical experimentation in digital media.

Bornn was announced as the grand prize winner at a private ceremony at Trinity Square Video in Toronto on Thursday evening. Her work was selected by national jury of digital media artists, programmers and practitioners, alongside four other finalists whose works push the boundaries of artistic practice in the digital realm.

The winning work, MORE, LESS, ABOUT THE SAME (2019), is a compilation of texts written and sequenced on a Videonics Titlemaker 2000, a piece of equipment designed to subtitle videos. Bornn uses this as both a machine for writing as well as a mechanism to animate text and ‘images’—a highly inefficient process by present-day standards. Rather than a textual accompaniment to visual input, the artist’s transcriptions are the visual input. In this, the she uses an outmoded technology to investigate transference, prompting us to consider what is gained and lost as we navigate our relationships with digital media.

Alyssa Bornn is the fifth artist to win the annual award, which is valued at $5,000. The four remaining finalists, Colton Hash, Ahreum Lee, Claire Scherzinger, and Jordyn Stewart, each take home $1,000. All five artists receive a production membership to Trinity Square Video, and Bornn receives a reserved space in the artist-run centre’s 2020 Themed Commission program, which brings together a select group of creative practitioners to produce or workshop new projects in a collaborative environment of like-minded artists.

An exhibition of works by the five finalists continues at Trinity Square Video through September 28.

About the 2019 EDAA Winner:

Alyssa Bornn is an interdisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and organizer based in Winnipeg. Her practice regularly employs traditional photographic methods alongside alternative and outdated digital modes of image capturing, writing, and constructed spaces to explore the act of image building as well as our relationship to images. She holds a BFA (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba and is a member of Open City Cinema, a co-programmer for the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, and an active member in Light Terrors – a loose collective showcasing moving image and audio works as live performance.

About the EDAA

Now in its fifth year, the Emerging Digital Artists Award is an initiative committed to the recognition, support, and growth of up-and-coming Canadian digital artists. The annual award celebrates innovation, criticality, and experimentation in the field of digital media, bringing attention to a community of artists working within virtual space. The EDAA is proudly presented by EQ Bank in partnership with Trinity Square Video.

To learn more, visit edaa.eqbank.ca
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For all inquiries, please contact edaa@eqbank.ca

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