The Lumen Prize NFT Award

As part of our mission to bring NFTs to the heart of the art world, Right Click Save has partnered with Lumen Art Projects to launch The Lumen Prize NFT Award.

Founded by Carla Rapoport, The Lumen Prize is presented every year to pre-eminent digital artists from around the globe. We hope that by bringing the Lumen Prize to the NFT community, we can ensure recognition of the most important NFT artists across the wider world of art and technology.‍

The NFT Award is for excellence in work by an artist, artist collective, or DAO that represents the cutting edge of the NFT ecosystem, including but not limited to works that demonstrate a sophisticated use of blockchain technology, creative implementation of the non-fungible token format, and cross-disciplinary projects.‍

Artwork submissions are open to all and can be made at The Lumen Prize.

Lumen is pleased and proud to be partnering with Right Click Save on this exciting new award for 2022. Since founding the prize in 2012, I’ve learned that creativity and technology are natural partners and that artists who engage with technology bring an energy to their practice that simply can’t be found anywhere else. I’m so excited to add artists working in the NFT ecosystem to our community — which includes artists who have been longlisted, shortlisted and won awards — and can’t wait to see works that will qualify for the 2022 longlist, which will be announced in July.

Carla Rapoport, Founder and Executive Director at Lumen Art Projects

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‍For decades people questioned whether art made with computers should even be considered art. Now we hear this same rhetoric being applied to NFTs. We are thrilled and honored to be sponsoring the inaugural Lumen NFT Award to make this public statement of support for the many talented artists in the NFT space. I’ve long been a fan of Carla and her team and see them as allies in celebrating great art made with technology by incredible artists from around the world. 

Jason Bailey, Founder of ClubNFT and Right Click Save

‍The Lumen NFT Award can play an important role in supporting and acknowledging artists who creatively use the blockchain as a medium rather than as a sales mechanism.

Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of Digital Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and member of the Lumen Jury Panel

‍Now in its eleventh year, The Lumen Prize has been a critical benchmark in attracting the best artists from the digital realm. The selection committees each year comprise top players from the industry, allowing prize winners to follow through with their projects and present to large audiences. The community that these prizes foster is very important to the future of all mediums under the umbrella of digital art. And now with the newly established NFT Award this year, it will provide a central reference point for artists working in this space.‍

Mila Askarova, Founder of GAZELL.iO, partner of The Lumen Prize

The Lumen Prize has always been at the forefront of championing great digital art. Over the years, the awards and other activities have reflected the absolute zeitgeist in the field. Now, with the NFT Award, The Lumen Prize continues to move forward and reflect this exciting development in the ever-changing landscape that is digital art.‍‍

Brendan Dawes, Lumen Prize finalist 2021 for Three One Three

It’s really great to see the introduction of an NFT Award into The Lumen Prize. I’ve been working extensively with NFTs recently, creating next-gen evolutionary offspring from UNINVITED, and I’m excited by the opportunities offered by blockchain technologies to radically reimagine relationships between artwork and audience, and between artist and collector. This new NFT Award demonstrates how, once again, Lumen are at the leading edge, supporting artists who actively expand the creative possibilities of new technologies.‍

Nye Thompson, winner (with UBERMORGEN) of The Lumen Prize Gold Award 2021 for UNINVITED

Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti, winners of The Lumen Prize BCS Immersive Environment Award 2021 for I’d rather be in a dark silence than, on how an NFT Award can benefit artists...‍

Our experience of The Lumen Prize‍

Lumen have done so much as an independent organization over the years with no intention other than a pure desire to support and elevate artists who work with technology, us included. Their jury members come from the world’s top institutions, and take their time to evaluate each work, considering creativity and technical execution, and evaluating work with a rich understanding of the history of new media art. We were shortlisted in 2020 and won in 2021, which was a milestone moment for us. ‍

How awards can help artists‍

While we don’t think winning awards is any indication of a work’s quality, we can say with confidence that winning the Lumen Prize has opened doors for us. Given the growing public interest in digital art, it is increasingly important to have trusted organizations evaluating art — who can separate what is original from what is derivative, what is simply large in scale from an unprecedented technical undertaking, and what merely looks techy from work that brings out the poetry in technology. Beyond that, as two women creating large-scale and highly technical projects (which require a lot of trust and resources from partners and institutions), validation of our work from respected entities like Lumen is definitely helpful.‍

Why it’s important that NFT artists now have an award‍

It feels like a very natural progression for Lumen to have a specific award that recognizes the brilliance of artists working in the NFT space, and there is no shortage. NFTs over the years have undoubtedly inspired completely new ways for artists to create with technology. It is important that the works that use NFTs in novel, creative, activist, and conceptual ways get the recognition they deserve, especially in a space in which nuance and quiet brilliance can easily be overlooked amidst the noise and empty hype. 

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