Mag.phil.
Sonja Prlić
MA PhD
Sonja Prlić is a media artist, director, dramaturge and artistic researcher whose interdisciplinary practice brings together theatre, new media and digital games. Through artistic research, she explores how emerging technology can foster social participation, political dialogue and new forms of artistic expression. Prlić is co-head of the programme area Contemporary Art and Cultural Production at Wissenschaft & Kunst, where she leads AR Communities. She also teaches graphics at the Department of Fine Arts & Design.
Prlić studied literature at the University of Vienna and dramaturgy at the Hessian Theatre Academy in Frankfurt am Main before completing a doctorate on digital games as an artistic medium through the doctoral programme Art and the Public Sphere at the Mozarteum University and the University of Salzburg's inter-university institute Wissenschaft & Kunst. Her thesis was awarded the Austrian Award of Excellence.
As co-founder of the artist group gold extra, Prlić develops projects that combine theatre, new media and digital games. Her work investigates new artistic forms for documentary games and the potential of artistic games to encourage social and political dialogue. Her artistic practice has been recognised with numerous honours, including the Dramatist Scholarship of the Republic of Austria, the Outstanding Artist Award, the Salzburg Media Art Prize and the Salzburg Cultural Fund's main international art prize.
Together with Karl Zechenter and Sophia Reiterer, Prlić currently leads the transdisciplinary project AR Communities, a collaboration between Wissenschaft & Kunst and gold extra that explores the potential of augmented reality to strengthen social participation in public space. Previously, together with Iwan Pasuchin and Karl Zechenter, she co-led the research project schnitt # stellen, which examined the intersections between young people's everyday media practices, digital games and contemporary media art. The project received several awards, including the Ars Electronica U14 Main Prize, the European Youth Culture Award in the Science and Research category and the Austrian Media Literacy Award.
Her work centres on artistic research, new media, participatory research with young people, documentary games and interdisciplinary artistic practices.