Previous Page (News Index).Austria, November 2. From September 2nd. till September 6th., 1996, the Ars Electronica 1996 Festival was held in Linz, Austria, a festival devoted to the arts in the electronic medium. The events that were held included conferences, lectures, exhibitions, installations of interactive art, musical performances and other activities via Internet. Also the prizes of the different artistic competitions were likewise awarded in their various modalities. With respect to Computer Music, Robert Normandeau was awarded First Prize (Golden Nica, 14700 $) for Le renard et la rose; James Dashow and Regis Renouard Lariviere were awarded with distinctions (4900 $) for Media Survival Kit and Futaie respectively, and the following musicians received honorary mentions: Francesco Boschetto (Trasumanar for violin and tape), Chris Brown (Talking Drum), Kui Dong (Flying Apples), Jonty Harrison (Hot Air), Matt Heckert (Salt Train), Gordon Monahan (Music for Mechanical Metal), Gordon Monro (Dry Rivers), Stephen Montague (String Quartet No. 1), Michel Redolfi (Songes drolatiques), Jacob Ter Veldhuis (Les soupirs de Rameau) and Alejandro Vinao (Phrase and Fiction). The Golden Nica Awards of the other competitions were given to: John Lasseter/Pixar for Toy Story (Computer animation) and Masaki Fujihata for Global Interior Project (Interactive Art). Also some other awards and mentions were given to the work via Internet, in different modalities. The First Prize was for Etoy. One of the honorary mentions was for the recently deceased Timothy Leary, one of the main promoters of the New Age culture, who had had a relationship with the musicians that had initiated alternative styles in the late sixties, as for instance Ash Ra Tempel.