A series of short video clips shot on an iPhone have been awarded the 2018 Turner prize, a prestigious (if sometimes controversial) annual award handed out to a British visual artist.
The videos which scored the 25,000 pound ($31,700) prize include scenes such as a view of the Scottish countryside filmed from a train window, a T-shirt drying on the radiator, and a cat pawing at a lamp.
Charlotte Prodger is the Glasgow-based artist behind the work. She was named the winner at a ceremony which took place in London on Tuesday evening. The prize was for two of her shot-on-iPhone films, titled Bridgit and Stoneymollan Trail.
Congratulations to Charlotte Prodger, winner of Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize. A first for a film shot on iPhone, and another milestone in the democratization of photography and filmmaking. https://t.co/zlQbelQIPb
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 5, 2018
“I feel very honoured, blown away really,” the 44-year-old artist said after her win. “It’s quite surreal. It feels lovely.”
The iPhone feels like an extension of the artist’s body
She said that she used an iPhone for the filming because it is something she uses regularly, and which therefore feels like an extension of her. “Because of that ease of use and the way you can use it while you are going about the world,” she said. “For me, everything is in there.”
Tim Cook tweeted his congratulations at the news. “Congratulations to Charlotte Prodger, winner of Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize,” he wrote. “A first for a film shot on iPhone, and another milestone in the democratization of photography and filmmaking.”
As ever, the Turner Prize courts controversy from its boundary-pushing interpretation of “art.” This year’s show was referred to by The Observer newspaper as, “shattering, absorbing, beguiling, highly political, [and] frequently momentous”. However, the Sunday Times wrote that, “From beginning to end, this soul-crusher of a show is unusually awful.”
The exhibition — including Charlotte Prodger’s work — will run through January 6.
Source: Guardian
