The runners up

We received so many incredible entries that we thought we would take the opportunity to talk to a few of the artist's that narrowly missed out on the main prize. After all, it's not all about winning, right?

Arne Hubner

Arne refers to himself as an "old school" artist who enjoys producing work that you can get lost in. At the moment he's working on a series of collages made out of sausages and meat cut out of supermarket brochures.

Vice: How did you interpret the phrase "living unbuttoned" and how did that make you approach the brief?

Arne: Living Unbuttoned for me means living life without always thinking twice and without worrying too much. It's not too bad to have at least a bit of control, though. So my pants are unbuttoned but I still got them on.

What do you think of most street art you see today?

I think art in public space is a really important antagonism to the omnipresent commercials. 98% of the commercials are shit. Somehow it appears to be always like that. The bulk of everything is shit. Be it water, music or comedians. In that theory street art is pretty good because only 56% is shit in my eyes.

Ash Howell

Graphic and industrial design is Ash's forte, but he also dabbles in sculpture, street art, fashion, and just about everything really. He also almost crippled himself while cycling across the Netherlands and Belgium, putting up artwork along the way.

Vice: Explain your entry for us.

Ash: We wanted to create a large public art wall at the London Underground site by using a painting process that would let people put their own stencils and cutouts up onto the wall, with simple fridge magnets, during the day, and have them glow during the night after the stencils had been taken down. This is an attempt to allow people to express themselves, and hopefully creating a large public canvas where a constant flow of art and imagination could come through each night, and the transience of street art be celebrated with the coming of day - when the glow subsides and the canvas becomes ready for new artists and their creations.

What artist would you most like to go on a date with an why?

We weren't really in a position to be going on dates so maybe we would double date with Lucy McRae and Bart Hess, and have Theo Jansen as an interesting spare nipple.

Richard Knowles

Richard thinks that Londoner's are just like ants, hardworking and constantly toiling away at something or other. This is what led him to pitch his inspired entry.

Vice: Explain the piece of work you submitted to the competition.

Richard: I wanted to make a giant ant farm at the locations probably 2 x 2m. I wanted to fill the glass frame with different coloured sand in stripy and checkered patterns so when the ants begin to borrow around they would mix the different colours and ultimately create their own artwork.

What's the most "unbuttoned" thing you have ever done?

We weren't really in a position to be going on dates so maybe we would double date with Lucy McRae and Bart Hess, and have Theo Jansen as an interesting spare nipple.