Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach Wins 2021 International CODAworx Merit Award

DIGITAL GRAFFITI at ALYS BEACH WINS 2021 INTERNATIONAL CODAworx MERIT AWARD

Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach is a one-of-a-kind projection art festival where artists around the world use the latest in digital art technologies to project original works onto the white walls of Alys Beach. The distinctive architecture of Alys Beach provides artists with both large-scale and intimate blank canvases, setting the town aglow with projections and interactive works. The festival is a juried, four-day exhibit featuring a limited selection of resident artists alongside approximately 25 finalists culled from an open call for entries. During the festival, a panel of judges determines the winning artists and recipients of the cash prizes, announced on the final evening. For audiences, engaging with the projection art during the nighttime shows is an inspiring celebration of international art as it intersects with the architecture of Alys Beach. 

Digital Graffiti was submitted for the CODAawards by Brett Phares, who curated the annual festival for its first 14 years, taking the event from conception to one of the top digital art festivals in the world. With an average of 30 installations of artists of global renown as well as installations by SCAD students, this year’s event nearly doubled its previous 18-acre footprint as the format adjusted to a pandemic-sensitive drive-thru, a virtue of the flexible nature of the digital art medium. Phares’ expertise has cultivated an extraordinarily immersive projection art experience, carefully and elaborately mapped to the white masonry architecture and the natural landscape of Alys Beach. In response to his final year with Digital Graffiti, we are delighted to highlight Phares’ incredible skill, dedication, and creative insight in nurturing the festival to become a recipient of the CODAawards Merit Award.

Alys Beach, an entity of EBSCO Industries, is pleased to share the recent acknowledgment of the signature event, Digital Graffiti, underwritten by The Alys Foundation, by CODAworx (collaboration of design + art), the industry lead in art commission. The CODAawards “celebrate the projects that most successfully integrate commissioned art into interior, architectural, or public spaces,” honoring “the individuals and the teams whose collective imaginations create the public and private spaces that inspire us…” Digital Graffiti is a 2021 CODAawards Merit Award Winner in the institutional design category, selected from among 435 entries submitted from more than 26 countries. The jurors for this year’s awards are 18 distinguished thought leaders in design and art including the editor in chief of Interior Design magazine, the president of the Pratt Institute, the CEO of ASID, and other award-winning, internationally renowned artists, architects, designers, curators, and leaders from the art and design community.

With hundreds of entries from around the world, the CODAawards celebrate the exciting ways creative professionals incorporate technology to create installations that change the way we experience our environments. Brett Phares says, “What a thrill for the works by artists of Digital Graffiti to be among the finest commissioned art in the world.” Cofounded and curated by Phares, Digital Graffiti celebrates its 15th year May 13-14, 2022.