The Dutch Film Museum EYE and the Paddy & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund have announced that German artist Hito Steyerl has been awarded the inaugural EYE Prize.

The EYE Prize worth £25,000 ($36,900) aims to support and promote artists that contribute to the development of the field between art and film. Steyerl was presented with the award at the EYE Prize Gala on April 2, coinciding with the EYE museum’s third anniversary.

A statement from the Jury explains, “Steyerl is amongst the keenest observers of our thoroughly globalized, digitized world. Her works are at the forefront of the new digital-age language, which she researches, questions, and opens up to discussion. She speculates on the impact of the internet digitalization on the fabric of everyday life. By using all different and possible audiovisual techniques, Steyerl is an essay filmmaker and artist par excellence.”

The winner was selected by the EYE Prize Jury from a shortlist compiled by an international advisory board consisting of a group of experts in the fields of visual arts and film including Chantal Akerman, Stuart Comer, Isaac Julien, and Béla Tarr, among others.

The Berlin-based artist, writer, and filmmaker’s work explores the spread of mass information and images, and the role of the media and digital technology in the globalization of contemporary society.

Last year she has had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London; and the van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Her work has been featured in the Venice and Istanbul Biennials, 2013; the Gwangju and Taipei Biennials, 2010; and Documenta 12, Kassel, 2007. She is also one of the artists representing Germany at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Steyerl is professor of Art and Multimedia at the Berlin University of the Arts.