The Golden Nica Interactive Art went to ‘Vectorial Elevation‘ developed in Zocalo Square in Mexico City, as a millennium commemoration event of the Mexican Government.

The place was originally a holy space where the ancient pyramids were build. But the empire was destroyed by Spanish settlers and now the Zocalo Square is a place to symbolize Mexico City encircled by the huge Catholic Church, city hall and hotels. This project originated from an idea to bring those ancient pyramids back to life in the sky of the Zocalo Square via a light installation. It was not just a light installation we’ve never seen before, because it enabled Internet users to create their own light architectures via the Internet.

Internet users could design a light sculpture by using the clickable 3D Java application to move 18 spotlights. It was a spectacle of lights. The web site enabled users to design their own installations every 6 minutes and it got more than 700,000 accesses from all over Mexico (it amounted to 70 percent of all accesses) and 89 other countries. Those who succeeded at designing their own patterns were given their own web site with the 3D design image and a picture of the real light installation. This allowed them to see their own installations even if they were far away. Everyone could participate in this installation. It’s a new form of interactive art that includes everything.

One of the winners of the Award of Distinction Interactive Art was ‘GraffitiWriter’ by The Institute for Applied Autonomy. At the award ceremony, they played the fool like ‘do not take our photos ‘cause we encourage minor offenses!’ This ‘GraffitiWriter is the second version of their robotic project for activism. They support activists with their robotic technology.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy aims to ‘open their robots to the public not only as military, capital and marketing tools.’ The machines generated from their idea ironically symbolize the relationship between robot and society.

“It’s really tough to be an activist. People become less friendly when we’re holding demonstrations…”, “Well, how about making a robot to communicate with people? Children like robots, right?” Then the first robot called ‘Little Brother’ was created. After they thought what they should do to hand the flyers over to people in the streets, they reached the conclusion that people like something cute and started creating a cute robot. They analyzed what a cute robot is through past science fiction images and Japanese animations, and finally they succeeded and created ‘Little Brother’ with big eyes. He asks people in the streets to take the flyers with a cute robotic voice and electronic sound. It had a greater effect than an unfashionable activist. The members prides themselves with the comment “we could get more interests from children and old people which we’d never got before.”