Dina Gligo wins Radoslav Putar Award for darknet-inspired art

Multimedia artist Dina Gligo from Zagreb has been awarded the prestigious Radoslav Putar Award, marking the 25th year this significant recognition for young Croatian visual artists under 40 has been presented. The jury announced Gligo as the winner on Friday evening during an exhibition showcasing the work of the four finalists at the "Galić" Gallery in Split.

Gligo received the award for her innovative work involving server sculptures and interactive servers, a project she has dedicated ten years to developing. "It's a constellation of server sculptures and interactive servers that can be viewed and edited from a local network," Gligo explained during her acceptance speech. She highlighted her collaboration with numerous international partners who aim to popularize the use of servers in art, stating, "We want to inspire technological work with artistic needs."

The exhibition in Split featured two of her "server sculptures" and several interactive servers. Visitors were invited to leave their impressions and contributions on these servers, thereby participating in the ongoing creation of the artwork. The award jury's statement noted that Gligo's artistic practice centers on digital systems and infrastructures as spaces for creation, communication, and collaborative action.

Since 2015, through her long-term project Pivilion, Gligo has been exploring how the latest technologies can support the formation and gathering of temporary communities around open, distributed, and variable media. Her focus is not on the objects themselves, but on the protocols and the flow of information, creativity, and authorship within the artistic production system.

The Radoslav Putar Award comes with several benefits, including a two-month residency at Residency Unlimited in New York, a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, the production of a multi-original work in collaboration with Galerija S in Koprivnica, and a seat on the jury for the Radoslav Putar Award next year.