fl SpringerWienNewYork G . S T O C K E R / C . S O Christa Sommerer M M E R E Laurent Mignonneau R / L . M I G N Interactive Art Research O N N E A U ( E d s.) fl SpringerWienNewYork Content 7 Gerfried Stocker Foreword CHAPTER 1 Art as Research – Research as Art 10 Data Tree, 2009 14 Peter Weibel The Art of the Artificial – Sommerer & Mignonneau’s Contribution to the Algorithmic Revolution 20 Christiane Paul Art as Life as Art – Aesthetics and Autonomy 24 Mathias Michalka Aesthetics and Science CHAPTER 2 Interface Design Aspects in the Interactive Artworks of Sommerer & Mignonneau 28 Itsuo Sakane On the Nostalgic History of Interactive Art – A Personal Retrospective 32 Erkki Huhtamo Touchscapes – Tactile and Haptic Interaction in the Works of Sommerer & Mignonneau 36 Christine Schöpf & Hannes Leopoldseder The Open World of Christa & Laurent 40 Interactive Plant Growing, 1992 46 Eau de Jardin, 2004 50 Wissensgewächs, 2007 CHAPTER 3 From Artificial Life and Complexity Research to Bio and Nano Art 56 Ingeborg Reichle Art and Digital Evolution – the Genetic Art of Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau 60 John L. Casti Complex Systems and Artistic Structures 64 Machiko Kusahara How Much Do You Love The Creatures You Have Made? 68 Anthroposcope, 1993 72 A-Volve, 1994 88 Phototropy, 1994 92 GENMA, 1996 96 Life Spacies, 1997 and Life Spacies II, 1997 – 1999 110 VERBARIUM, 1999 114 PICO_SCAN, 2000 120 Life Writer, 2006 CHAPTER 4 Immersion, Illusion and Intelligent Environments 128 Tomoe Moriyama Immersion into Historic Images 132 Trans Plant, 1995 136 Intro Act, 1995 138 MIC Exploration Space, 1996 142 Gulliver’s Travels, 1997 150 Time_lapse, 1998 162 Industrial Evolution, 1999 CHAPTER 5 Multimodal Interaction with Internet Data 168 Florence de Merèdieu Please Touch – Prière de toucher 170 Oliver Grau Living Habitats – Immersive Strategies 176 HAZE Express, 1999 180 Riding the Net, 1999 / The Living Room, 2001 / The Living Web, 2002 CHAPTER 6 Communication Interfaces 192 Roy Ascott Techno-Shinto Beauty 196 Nano-Scape, 2002 202 Mobile Feelings, 2003 210 Solar Display, 2008 216 BIOGRAPHIES, EXHIBITIONS, PUBLICATIONS 232 IMPRINT GERFRIED STOCKER Foreword A dark room. It contains plants, and there’s a large- A year later, the pair’s next major project, A-Volve, format projection in the background. A group of was honored with the Golden Nica grand prize in the astonished individuals are touching the plants – some Prix Ars Electronica’s Interactive Art category. A-Volve cautiously, some shaking them quite vigorously. All are would go on to also make quite a name for itself world- absolutely thrilled by the apparent magic that lets them wide. conjure up a multi-hued digital world of plants right on And here again, what elicited such enthusiastic the room’s wall. responses from those partaking of it was the blending This extraordinary 1993 exhibition abruptly cata- of biological and digital metaphors and the consistent pulted Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau to linkup of art and science. This was indeed a work that fame in the international media art scene. And their displayed artistic, technical and scientific excellence in breakthrough installation Interactive Plant Growing equal measure and that impressively demonstrated the remains a major milestone in the history of the then- aesthetic and technological competence of its creators. nascent artform; it continues to be one of digital media Thus, it’s certainly no surprise that the two have art’s most frequently exhibited works. been frequent guests at Ars Electronica ever since. It goes without saying that this installation has After all, Ars Electronica’s mission as a festival for become one of the standard works of media art. The art, technology and society is to seek out precisely these interaction between the work and those partaking of commonalities and connections between disciplines it wasn’t controlled by switches, touchscreens or other and genres, and, accordingly, to nurture collaborative such paraphernalia; instead, this proceeded via the research and joint ventures in which artists and scien- central elements of the work itself: the plants. Their tists work together as equal partners with the aim of bio-electrical reaction to being fondled by installation not only generating explanations but even more creat- visitors was fed directly into a computer, where the data ing the images, narratives and symbols that we human became parameters for algorithmically generated graph- beings need in order to comprehend the techno-cultur- ics. Interaction as pure and consistent as one could pos- al transforma tion processes of our modern society and sibly imagine and simultaneously as intuitive as can be. culture. No instructions, interpretation or translation were nec- While this book documents the work these two essary to get exhibition visitors actively involved in this artists have done to date as well as their tremendous project, and to not only turn them into users but also international success, it also constitutes a powerful to make them integral components within the cycle testimony to the relevance and the impact of artistic of interaction and insight. work at the interface of science and society. 1 8 Art as Research Research as Art LAURENT MIGNONNEAU CHRISTA SOMMERER Data Tree 2009 A PUBLIC INTERACTIVE ARTWORK FOR THE 3RD LICHTPARCOURS, BRAUNSCHWEIG 2010 “Without green plants we would neither breathe nor eat. On the under surface of every leaf a million movable lips eat en- gaged in devouring carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen. All together, 25 million square miles of leaf surface are daily engaged in this miracle of photosynthesis, producing oxygen and food for man and beast. Of the 375 billion tons of feed 10 we consume each year the bulk comes from plants, which syn- thesize it out of air and soil with the help of sunlight. … Evi- dence now supports the vision of the poet and the philosopher that plants are living, breathing, communicating creatures, endowed with personality and the attributes of soul.” P. Tompkins and C. Bird, The Secret Life of Plants Data Tree Setup Drawing © 2009, Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer Commissioned by the Third Lichtparcours Braunschweig 1 W. Larcher, Ökologie der 1 CONCEPTUAL The installation consists of a living tree in Pflanzen (Stuttgart: Verlag CONSIDERATIONS Braunschweig equipped with various sen- Eugen Ulmer, 1980), 320. sors. These sensors capture live data from 2 Ibid., 326. Adult trees, with their extended transpira- the tree and an in-house software converts 3 Ibid., 334. tion surfaces and their elaborate water car- the data into graphical elements, which are rying system that ranges from the roots to projected back onto the tree. The sensors 4 W. Nachtigall, Bionik. Lernen von der Natur (Munich: their leaves, provide some of the best exam- attached to the tree include: C. H. Beck Wissen, 2008). ples of organizational systems. A tree does 5 R.H. Francé, Das Sinnesleben not allow itself to lose water and swiftly re- • humidity sensors der Pflanzen (Stuttgart: Kosmos acts to any danger of drought by targeting a • temperature sensors Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde, balanced water household. Excessive tran- • wind speed sensors 1905), quoted in P. Tompkins spiration only takes place at the crown of • movement sensors (for the branches) and C. Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (New York: Harper & the tree when the water supply is plentiful. 1 • humidity sensors of the soil Row, 1973), 13. In the case of severe drought and • pH sensors of the soil constant lack of rain, plants of the humid • carbon dioxide sensors regions reduce their water consumption • ozone level sensors through care fully adjusting the opening • light sensors of the stomata. 2 • electrical tension sensors A reduction of the transpiring surface • acoustic sensors is achieved quickly through, for example, • electromagnetic sensors rolling up the leaves, or even more radically, • contact sensors through partly or completely shedding off the leaves altogether. 3 All of these sensors are fixed to the tree at various heights, they measure the different humidity, temperature, movement, light, 2 DATA TREE – AN INTERACTIVE tension, ozone, carbon dioxide, electro mag- INSTALLATION IN PUBLIC SPACE netic and acoustic levels generated and re- ceived by the tree. All these data are then For the 3rd “Lichtparcours” in Braunschweig converted by a software into an artistic vi- 2010 we have proposed an interactive instal- sualization of numbers, graphical elements Data Tree lation in public space that uses an existing and data streams, which symbolically illus- © 2009, Laurent Mignonneau tree as the interface – Data Tree. The inten- trate the life data of this tree. & Christa Sommerer tion is to draw the public’s attention to the The method of visualization is not a Commissioned by the Third sophisticated energy balance of a tree. scienti fic one rather an aesthetic illustration Lichtparcours Braunschweig