The Golden Nica for the Chaos Computer Club
Sep 20, 2026
A look back that belongs here: in 2010 the Chaos Computer Club received the Golden Nica of the Prix Ars Electronica, the most important award in media art. It was given in the Digital Communities category, and the jury based it not on a single work but on almost three decades of it: the club has always put the social consequences of new technologies at the centre.
Tim Pritlove accepted the Nica on behalf of the club at the Ars Electronica festival gala on September 3rd, 2010 in the Tabakfabrik in Linz.
We mention it here because a piece of Blinkenlights is in it. Blinkenlights was the club's 2001 birthday present to itself and to Berlin; with Arcade in Paris and Stereoscope in Toronto it grew into a series that made the CCC visible far beyond the hacker scene. The glowing facades helped earn the club its standing as a cultural force, not just a technical one.
The announcement from back then is at heise online.