Branch Magazine wins Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity

Branch Magazine, a collaboration between Climate KIC, Mozilla Foundation and online community Climate Action.tech, which explores the sustainability of the internet, has won the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity.

The award, which includes €10,000 in prize money, is issued by Ars Electronica together with the Austrian Foreign Ministry to projects that demonstrate the power of cultural exchange and collaboration for the development of a human-centered digital world. 

According to Ars Electronica: “The internet is the world’s largest fossil fuel-powered machine. If we continue business-as-usual, the IT sector will be responsible for 14 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions by 2040. The creators of “Branch Magazine,” on the other hand, have a different vision for the future of the WWW: The Internet should serve our collective liberation and be committed to ecological sustainability. The online magazine “Branch” is intended to make a contribution to this.”

Launched in October 2020, the magazine has published one issue, with its second issue forecasted to go live in June 2021. Branch is a mix of long-form writing, short profile pieces and artwork, and is a self-proclaimed space for personal reflection, critical engagement with technology and internet economics, as well as experimentation and storytelling. 

The 2021 Prix Ars Electronica received 3,158 projects submissions from 86 countries. The prizewinners won €10,000 euros each for the “Golden Nicas” that have been awarded annually since 1987 by an international jury. Parallel to the Prix Ars Electronica, two other competitions were launched for the first time: The “Isao Tomita Special Prize” and the “Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity.”

Title photo via Ars Electronica / Martin Hieslmair.