The selection committee is delighted to announce the winner of the Surveillance Studies Network Arts Prize 2026: Mallika Dharmaraj, ETERNITY IN A MILLISECOND (2023).
A product of the HeyHuman! Residency at Domestic Data Streamers in Barcelona, ETERNITY IN A MILLISECOND was conceptualized as a mixed-media video installation around the hyper-visibility of trans bodies of color within surveillance states, and what the camera cannot capture – the infinite moments in which trans bodies dance, sparkle, and “go dark.”
Additionally, the committee awarded honourable mention awards to Hans Kuzmich for the four-channel sound installation Radiant Center (2025) and to Arantxa Ortiz for the film and performance-based work Compulsion to Repeat (2025).
We received many excellent applications to the competition this year, and the committee is thankful to all those who took the time to apply. The Surveillance Studies Network Arts Prize is a bi-annual award that recognizes and publicly supports artwork centred on critical readings of surveillance. The award includes a monetary prize, invited participation in a future Surveillance & Society forum discussing the work, and a virtual exhibition during the Surveillance Studies Network’s conference on 9-12 June 2026 at Université Catholique de Lille in Lille, France.
Congratulations to the SSN Arts Prize 2026 winner and two honourable mentions!
Artist bios
Mallika Dharmaraj is based out of New Delhi, India. As a creative, writer, researcher and trans woman technology organizer, she is interested in situating “AI” surveillance technologies within historical structures of power, violence, and personal/collective complicity. She holds an MPhil in the Ethics of AI, Data & Algorithms at the University of Cambridge and an A.B. from Harvard College in Computer Science and South Asian Studies.
Hans Kuzmich is a Belarus-born, Los Angeles-based artist whose practice investigates the construction of otherness at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and citizenship, with particular attention to carceral infrastructures. Currently completing a PhD in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Kuzmich holds an MFA from UCLA and a BFA from Cooper Union. Working across transmission arts, media installation, and performance, he employs site-specific listening and sonic fiction to investigate power’s operation through sound and the electromagnetic spectrum from a trans, diasporic position.
Arantxa Ortiz is a researcher and multimedia artist working across film, photography, poetry, performance, and voice. Her research engages visual and material cultures of surveillance, citizenship, and mobility through a focus on the senses and embodiment. She holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Brandeis University.