International Siemens Media Arts Prize
The international Siemens Media Arts Prize was started in 1992 by the ZKM | Center for Art and Media and the Siemens Cultural Program and awarded for the first time on May, 22 of that same year.
Between 1993 and 1997, the prize was awarded regularly every two years.
The Media Arts Prize was founded by the Siemens Cultural Program and awarded together with the ZKM. Since 1993, the Multimediale, the media festival of the ZKM, has been the setting for the award ceremony. The prize fund was DM 100,000 (for the first year in 1992, the prize fund was DM 110,000) and was not based on a tender. Instead, people or teams were awarded by a jury for an overall body of work. The award acknowledged the artistic or scientific analysis of electronic media and the new cultural technology arising with this.
Media Arts Prize 1997
In some respects, the Media Arts Prize 1997 differed from the previous years. The jury had agreed to allocate three large and equal prizes instead of several smaller prizes. In addition, there was no separation of prizes into theory and practice. Instead there was a more open operation. The prizewinners were: Vilém Flusser, Peter Weibel and Ingo Günther.
Jury: Horst Bredekamp, Stefan Iglhaut, Heinrich Klotz, Jeffrey Shaw, Siegfried Zielinski.
Media Arts Prize 1995
The French philosopher, sociologist and media theoretician Jean Baudrillard won the prize in 1995 with Peter Greenaway receiving the prize for his creation which transcended all boundaries as a painter, author, exhibitionist and filmmaker. Other prizes went to the American Lynn Hershman, who presented a spectrum in the fields of performance, conceptual and media art, to artist couple Steina and Woody Vasulka and to the German-Austrian group Knowbotic Research. The ZDF editor Eckart Stein received a prize for the establishment of art and experimental films.
Jury: Klaus Peter Dencker, Wulf Herzogenrath, Florian Rötzer, Heinrich Klotz and Peter Weibel.
Media Arts Prize 1993
Prizewinners of 1993 were: Bill Viola, internationally famous media artist (main prize of DM 30,000), William S. Burroughs for his life’s work (DM 20,000) and the media theoretician and historian Friedrich Kittler (DM 20,000). Klaus Schöning, founder and head of the »Studio Akustische Kunst« [Studio of Acoustic Art] at WDR, the musician and composer Sabine Schäfer and the German-Austrian group Ponton European Media Art Lab each received a prize of DM 10,000.
Jury: Klaus Peter Dencker, Wulf Herzogenrath, Florian Rötzer and Peter Weibel.
Media Arts Prize 1992
The prize winners in 1992 were the media artists Paul Garrin, Rebecca Horn and Stephan von Huene (DM 30,000 each), the philosopher Paul Virilio (DM 10,000) and Regina Cornwell and Victoria von Flemming (DM 5,000 each), for their work in the field of imparting media art.
Jury: Klaus Peter Dencker, Wulf Herzogenrath, Florian Rötzer and Peter Weibel.