Lukas Stangl wins the Salzburg AG Art Prize 2025

In his project, Lukas Stangl examines the architecture and aesthetics of several facilities using artistic research methods, which are grounded and expanded upon by his own background as a trained mechatronics engineer. Through his current studies in art education and design, with a focus on drawing and graphics, as well as technology and textiles, Stangl has developed a technically and artistically mature translation of technical equipment into his own formal language of form, which permanently transforms the rotunda of Salzburg AG into a resonance chamber of invisible communication. This makes it possible to see and read essential critical infrastructures – which, as is well known, are normally characterised by only becoming visible when they stop functioning – becomes possible. Circuitry and beauty poetically overlap in the exhibition, energies are generated by flows and currents, with Stangl demonstrating that the infrastructures of Salzburg AG can also generate streams of thought.

The jury of the Salzburg AG Art Prize, consisting of Prof. Elisabeth Gutjahr (Rector), Michael Frostel, MSc. (Salzburg AG Group Spokesperson), Prof. Dr. Paul Feigelfeld (Chair), and Professors Thomas Ballhausen, Bernhard Gwiggner, Claudia Lehmann, Christopher Lindinger and Agnes Scherer, met on 16 May 2025 in the Faistauersaal of the Mozarteum University. After the jury members had individually previewed all the submissions, the shortlisted candidates were discussed again together on site. The jury ultimately found the theme ‘Data Whispers: Making the Invisible Visible’ to be most precisely and artistically expressed in the project conceived by Lukas Stangl, which deals with the infrastructure of Salzburg AG's hydroelectric power plants.
Stangl will realise his exhibition concept in the 2025/26 academic year and present it as part of an exhibition in the rotunda at the Salzburg AG headquarters, including a vernissage (date to be announced).

The award ceremony will take place on Wednesday, 22 October 2025 at 11:00 a.m. at UMAK – Mozarteum University at Kurgarten, Schwarzstraße 36. Registration for the award ceremony: elisabeth.gerwin@moz.ac.at.  

 
‘With the art prize, which we are awarding for the first time in our anniversary year, we want to provide creative impetus for exploring energy and digital networks. Art has the power to make the invisible visible and to reinterpret complex relationships. We look forward to the implementation of the winning project and congratulate Lukas Stangl."

- Michael Baminger, Spokesman of the Executive Board of Salzburg AG

‘Art and technology are not opposites, but can enrich each other. The Salzburg AG Art Prize gives our students a unique platform to realise their artistic visions and open up new perspectives on networks and energy."

- Elisabeth Gutjahr, Rector of the Mozarteum University Salzburg