Ztohoven
Encyclopedia
Ztohoven is an award-winning Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 guerrilla artist collective
Artist collective
An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims...

 known for its pranks. The best known of these pranks – and the one which led to six of its members being prosecuted – was the June 17, 2007 "Media Reality" incident, in which they hacked
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 into a weather forecast being broadcast on Česká televize
Ceská televize
Česká televize is the public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, broadcasting four channels.- Czechoslovak Television :Television in Czechoslovakia started to take its first steps before World War II. However, before visible results could be achieved, all activities were interrupted by...

 and inserted a digital image of a nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...

 and a mushroom cloud
Mushroom cloud
A mushroom cloud is a distinctive pyrocumulus mushroom-shaped cloud of condensed water vapor or debris resulting from a very large explosion. They are most commonly associated with nuclear explosions, but any sufficiently large blast will produce the same sort of effect. They can be caused by...

 on a live panoramic shot of the Krkonoše Mountains. This led to the January 2008 announcement that six Ztohoven members would be prosecuted for scaremongering and spreading false information; they faced prison sentences of up to three years. On March 25, 2008, A Czech judge dismissed the scaremongering charges against the artists, citing public amusement rather than public unrest, but the prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...

 said the state would consider an appeal.

In December 2007, the Czech National Gallery awarded Ztohoven the NG 333 prize for works unrelated to the "Media Reality" incident; this included CZK
Czech koruna
The Czech koruna or Czech crown has been the currency of the Czech Republic since 8 February 1993 when, together with its Slovak counterpart, it replaced the Czechoslovak koruna at par....

333 000.
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