Christa Sommerer
and Laurent Mignonneau
(Austria/France)
"INTERACTIVE PLANT GROWING"
versión en español
Interactive Plant Growing is an installation that deals with the principle of the growth of virtual plant organisms and their change and modification in real time in a 3-D virtual space. These modifications of pre-defined "artificially living plant organisms" are mainly based on the principle of development and evolution in time. The artificial growing of program-based plants expresses the desire to discover the principle of life as defined by the transformations and morphogenesis of certain organisms. Interactive Plant Growing connects the real-time growing of virtual plants in the 3-D space of the computer to real living plants, which can be touched or approached by human viewers. By touching the plants or moving their hands toward them, human viewers can influence and control in real time the virtual growth of 25 and more program-based plants, which are simultaneously displayed on a video screen in front of the viewers. By producing a sensitive interaction with the real plants, the viewers also become part of the installation.
Equipment used: Silicon Graphics computer, digital projector, the artists' own hardware and software.
Christa Sommerer (1964, Ohlsdorf/Gmunden, Austria) studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Vienna and received a degree from the New Media Institute of Frankfurt in 1993. Since 1990, she has shown work in various multimedia and interactive art exhibitions in Austria, Germany, France, the USA and Finland. Interactive Plant Growing won the pretigious "Golden Nica 1994" award at Ars Electronica.
Laurent Mignonneau (1967, Angoulême, France) studied video at the Fine Arts School of d'Angoulême and computer graphics at the CNBDI, France. In 1992 he received an Eurocreation grant to study in the New Media Institute of Frankfurt. There he worked as an assistant to the physicist Michael Klein doing research on the visualization and simulation of complex systems. Since 1985, he has worked in the field of electroacoustic music and since 1987, also in video art and interactive art.
