French Artist Duo Scenocosme Wins $5,000 People’s Choice Award at No Vacancy, Miami Beach

(Miami Beach, FL) Dec 18, 2020 -

The City of Miami Beach, in collaboration with the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (MBVCA) is pleased to announce that the No Vacancy People’s Choice Award has been presented to Scenocosme for their work titled Akousmaflore. The French duo received the majority of the over 3,300 public votes cast during the duration of No Vacancy, which debuted for Miami Art Week on Dec. 2 and concluded Dec. 12.

“No Vacancy was a great opportunity for us to be able to bring our interactive artwork to the United States, and we are honored to win the public vote,” says Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt, who together comprise Scenocosme. “This was a difficult project to manage from France while travel was restricted due to the COVID-19 crisis. We were forced to install the exhibition remotely but were able to work with a wonderful team on the ground in Miami Beach. The Lennox Miami Beach hotel was a gracious host for our installation, and we look forward to showing more of our projects in South Florida in the coming years.”

Installed at the Lennox Miami Beach, Akousmaflore is a small garden composed of living musical plants which react to gentle contact. Each plant reacts in a different way to contact by producing a specific sound. The plant or song occurs through touch and the close proximity of the spectator. With multiple sounds, a plant concert can be created. Through ​Akousmaflore​, plants let visitors know about their existence by a scream, a melody or an acoustical vibration.

No Vacancy is a juried art competition that celebrates artists, provokes critical discourse and invites the public to experience Miami Beach’s famed hotels as destination art spaces. Artists were drawn from a call for submissions issued by the city in February 2020 and selected by representatives from the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Committee (AiPP), Cultural Arts Council and MBVCA.

For the inaugural edition of No Vacancy, $25,000 in prizes were awarded. On Dec. 4 the No Vacancy Juried Prize was awarded to Die-Cast for the artist collaborative’s work titled Temporary Occupancy. The work was selected from the 10 participating artists and collectives by a jury of Miami Beach art experts including Silvia Karman Cubiña, Director and Chief Curator of The Bass Museum of Art; Dennis Scholl, Executive Director of Oolite Arts and Maria Elena Ortiz, Associate Curator at the Perez Art Museum Miami.

For additional information please visit: www.mbartsandculture.org/no-vacancy

Funding for this project is provided by the City of Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Artists Gregory Lasserre and Anais met den Ancxt make up the artist duo Scenocosme, based in the Rhone-Alpes region in France. Their singular artworks use diverse expressions: interactive installations, visual art, digital art, sound art and collective performances. Scenocosme mixes art and digital technology to find substances of dreams, poetry, sensitivity and delicacy. The artists use various technologies in order to create contemporary artworks.

###

About the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council
The Cultural Arts Council (CAC) is an eleven-member council created in 1997 for the purpose of developing, coordinating and promoting the performing and visual arts in the City of Miami Beach. The CAC serves as arts advocates before governmental bodies, coordinates collective marketing initiatives for the local arts community and funds not-for-profit arts organizations. Since the program’s inception, the CAC has awarded approximately $18 million in cultural arts grants, supporting thousands of performances, exhibits, and other cultural activities in Miami Beach.

About the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority

The MBVCA is a seven-member authority, appointed by the City of Miami Beach Commission, with the goal of encouraging, developing and promoting the image of Miami Beach locally, nationally and internationally as an outstanding tourist destination.  To this end, the MBVCA strategically focuses its funding investments in a balanced manner, fostering outstanding existing programs, stimulating new activities, and encouraging partnerships.  The MBVCA is committed to a careful, long-term plan for allocation of resources to help Miami Beach thrive as a destination with something for everyone.

Media Contact

For additional information, images and interview requests please contact:
David Simantov
Blue Medium, Inc.
E: david@bluemedium.com
T: 212.675.1800