Best Artist

Billed as "networked electro-mechanical kinetic sculpture with integrated music," Jeff Shore's work is far more haunting and poetic than its literal description. The artist builds tiny models of everything from low-rent living rooms to airplane interiors. Then his elaborate mechanical contraptions move tiny surveillance cameras through the miniature worlds. The results are screened on nearby video monitors. Add to all that the evocative sound compositions of Shore's Chicago collaborator Jon Fisher, and you've got quirky work that's as hard to categorize as it is fascinating. Shore and Fisher work long hours and self-fund their elaborate, labor-intensive projects, but their efforts pay off in magical, otherworldly environments -- each one more amazing than the last.