Exhibition brochure: The Artwork As a Living System

The

The retrospective exhibition The Artwork as a Living System shows the work of the artistic duo formed by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, pioneers in the “Art of the Interface”.

ARTWORK as a LIVING SYSTEM The exhibition tells the story of nearly thirty

years of research and development of Artificial Life systems, reproduced in interactive environments that are influenced by both codes and human intervention.

Following stops in Germany (ZKM- Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe), Austria (OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, Linz) and Belgium (iMAL – Art Center for digital cultures & technology, Brussels), Sommerer and Mignonneau present this special exhibition for the Azkuna Zentroa Exhibition Hall. It reveals the central theme of their work, i.e. works of art that act as living system of which life cannot be understood as a single entity but only as a plurality of perspectives.

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau posit art as an open system, in which “creation is no longer understood as an expression of the artist’s inner creativity or ‘ingenuity’, rather, it becomes itself an intrinsically dynamic process that is based on the parameters of interaction and the evolutionary processes of the image of the work of art”.

The exhibition consists of around 18 works. Most of them are interactive installations where people touch and experience the artworks, exploring and interacting with the natural environments and becoming part of their simultaneous transformation in the digital space.

An artistic experience that connects concepts related to the most diverse fields of science and technology: from the theory of complex systems to molecular genetics, Artificial Life and interface design.

This exhibition is based on a concept by Karin Ohlenschläger and is coproduced by ZKM | Karlsruhe Art and Media Center, Germany, OÖ LandesKultur GmbH, Linz, Austria and iMAL, Brussels, Belgium. It was initially curated by Karin Ohlenschläger, Peter Weibel and Alfred Weidinger.

The Artwork As a Living System has become a space of gratitude and remembrance for the extraordinary contributions that Karin Ohlenschläge (Hannover, Niedersachsen 1959 - Gijón, Spain, 2022) and Peter Weibel (Odesa, Ukraine, 1944-Karlsruhe, Germany, 2023) have made to the field of art, science and technology.

C H R I S S T O A M M E R E R L A U R E N T

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M I G N O N N E A U

Working at the intersection of natural sciences, technology and art, Laurent Mignonneau and Christa Sommerer are a trailblazing artistic and investigative duo in interactive art.

Laurent Mignonneau studied video art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Angoulême, France.

Sommerer studied botany and anthropology at the University of Vienna and sculpture at the University of Fine Arts in Vienna.

They have worked for a decade in Japan as lecturers and associate professors at IAMAS - Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan; and as researchers and art directors at ATR Advanced Telecommunications Research Lab in Kyoto, Japan. Previously they were artists-in-residence at MIT CAVS, USA; at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Illinois, USA; and at the NTTInterCommunication Center in Tokyo. In 2004 they founded the Interface Cultures Department at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria, where they teach.

During their careers they have created some 50 pieces of pioneering interactive art that have been shown at 370 international exhibitions and have received numerous awards, such as the 2016 ARCO BEEP Award in Madrid, the 2012 Wu Guanzhong Prize for Innovation in Art and Science awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Golden Nica Prix Ars Electronica in 1994 and the Austrian State Art Prize in the category of Media Art in 2021.

Their interactive art installations are considered historical milestones for developing natural and intuitive interfaces and for frequently applying scientific principles such as artificial life, complexity and generative systems to their innovative interface designs.

ACTIVITIES

EXHIBITION

INTRODUCTORY TOURS

FE BRUARY 7 TH ∙ MAY 26 TH 2024

From 15 February, every Thursday at 6:30 pm.

Free admission upon registration at AZ Info, at the Exhibition Hall, in the Telephone 944 014 014 or by email info@azkunazentroa.eus Language: Spanish and Basque on request. On the first Thursday of every month, the visit will be in Basque.

Minimum capacity: 4 people

Introductory tours of forty-five minutes to contextualize the exhibition.

SCHOOL PROGRAMME AUDIO GUIDE WORKSHOP FOR STUDENTS FROM 3RD YEAR OF ESO TO 2ND YEAR OF BACCALAUREATE AND FP Between February and May 2024, every Thursday.

Arranged with schools

In this activity we will approach the exhibition through radio language. We will learn what its basic elements are (how to write a script, what sound effects are and how to use music and voice) as well as practical examples and exercises.

A U D I O G I D E

The

ARTWORK as a LIVING SYSTEM C H R I S TA S O M M E R E R

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With the support of

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L AU R E N T M I G N O N N E AU

1990-2000 by a series of artificial organisms which are created by the visitors to the exhibition by making a simple drawing with their finger on a touch screen.

The retrospective starts in the 1990s, when hardware and software, so indispensable and ever-present nowadays in devices such as laptops and smartphones, were barely in use.

From that decade there are installations such as Interactive Plant Growing (1992), where the principles of life and virtual evolution are addressed through the interaction of the observer with natural plants, and Phototropy (1994), where they talk about virtual insects and an organic growth that follows the light of a lamp, sustained and moved by the visitors to the installation.

Going one step further in the search for natural interfaces and real-time interaction, A-Volve (1994) is a virtual and interactive environment inhabited

The habitat is a kind of glass pool filled with water. The movements of the creatures depend on the shapes given to them, and on the living parameters and artificial evolution principles with which they have been programmed.

The creatures interact with people by reacting to the movement of their hand in the water. No matter what they do, people influence not only the behaviour but also the evolution of these artificial organisms.

In 1999 they turned to the Internet, the new “interconnected global network”, to explore the relationship between

the first decade of the new 2000-10 Inmillennium when mobile phones were becoming part of our everyday lives, Sommerer and Mignonneau created Mobile Feelings (2002-2003), an artistic project that explores the ambivalence of sharing personal information with an anonymous public. Instead of visitors communicating with people they know by voice or through images, this installation connects people who don’t know each other through virtual touch and bodily sensations, using mobile phones that are specially designed to send and receive tactile signals. In this way, Mobile Feelings provokes strange and unsettling sensations of proximity by sharing intimate bodily perceptions with strangers.

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In HAZE Express, the visitor can stop the images, halt the frames and observe their composition in detail, depending on the way his or her hands move over the surface of the window, speeding up or slowing down the visual flow.

Another installation from the same year (1999) is HAZE Express, which invites

Inspired by Monet’s “Water Lilies”, Eau de Jardin (2004) is an interactive installation that transports visitors to an imaginary world of virtual water gardens. A triptych of three projections on a curved screen creates an immersive and reflective virtual water garden. Several hanging pots with aquatic plants such as peacelilies, ivys, ferns and spiderplants hang in front of the projections. When visitors approach the pots, the plants sense their presence and transform the electromagnetic signals into a virtual landscape with shapes similar to those of the surrounding vegetation.

of producing digital text and letters, converted into artificial organisms with a life of their own. A sheet of paper serves as a projection screen and the position of the projection coincides with that of the typewriter’s roller. As the person types, the letters appear as characters projected onto the paper.

However, when the carriage return lever is pressed, the letters on the screen are transformed into small, black-andwhite, artificially living creatures that move randomly across the surface and snap up any text the visitors type. When they eat, these creatures also can grow bigger.

In Life Writer (2006) they turn an old manual typewriter into a device capable

identity, impermanence and transience.

The second, projected on a large (Unruhige See) as a critical reflection format screen (Pantalla del Sol), is a on the economy of attention, the participative work of art that celebrates relationship between artist, artwork the ephemeral moment and the hustle and audience, and the question of the and bustle of everyday life. In both, monetary and ideological value of thousands of flies reflect the movements time. In this installation, the value of a and reproduce the figures of people painting can be increased just by looking in real time. There are also printed at it. Sensors installed on each piece portraits from this work. measure the number and duration of the The latest computer animations by this gazes received. The computer system artistic duo put the focus on the Covid-19 processes the data and immediately crisis and the climate emergency. The records them in a counter located in the installations of the last three years middle of the painting. Each 10 seconds remind us of the interconnection of attention adds 1 Euro of value. between people and nature, the fragility Flies are the protagonists of Portrait of an ecosystem in which natural on the Fly (2015) and People on the Fly resources can no longer be exploited (2016). The first is a reflection on the indiscriminately, and the essential work “selfie” culture, examining concepts of of insects for human survival.

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The generation of these artificial organisms is based on a text system in which each letter corresponds to a genetic code. Words sent over the Internet or entered directly into the virtual system from a laptop allow each person to create their own artificial creatures from the letters that make up the text. In the version shown here visitors create the creatures directly onsite.

the visitor to create a virtual landscape through an imaginary virtual window, simulating the seat of a train, a car or an airplane. When the landscape is observed at high speed, this landscape in transit is transformed into a flow of images, an accumulation of shapes, silhouettes and colours that blur, like a fog of impressions.

2010, Sommerer and Mignonneau 2010-20 Inreleased a series called The Value of Art

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genetics, art and text. LifeSpacies II (1999) was conceived as an artificial habitat created by people from all over the world who could generate their own artificial creatures simply by sending an email.

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ANTopolis project (2020) virtual 2020-23 Inantstheinvade the city. In their search

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for human activity they follow people, vehicles and any moving or stationary object in the city, taking over all these artifacts. In this virtual world, as in the real one, a tiny insect or virus has the power to profoundly impact human activity. Here an animation is shown.

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∙1A∙ ∙1B∙ ∙18∙ Atrio de las Culturas

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1.A Portrait on the Fly 1.B Portrait on the Fly (Fly Portraits) 2 AR[t]chive 3 Mobile Feelings 4 Life Writer 5 A-Volve 6 LifeSpacies II 7 Eau de Jardin 8 Eau de Jardin I, II, III

9 Scavengers 10 HAZE Express 11 The Value of Art 12 Fly Objects and Fly Prints 13 Phototropy 14 Interactive Plant Growing 15 To Bee 16 ANTopolis 17 Acqua ma non troppo 18 People on the Fly

Scavengers (2020) features artificial beetles working to clean up the inorganic waste and pollution caused by humans in order to return it to nature. Meanwhile, To Bee (2021) raises the alarm on the disappearance of bees and other insects whose pollination work is essential for the production of fruits, vegetables, textiles and even construction materials.

In this case, a series of virtual bees execute complex flight patterns and create brief slogans reminding us to act responsibly, protect the environment

and take decisions considering what is at stake: “To bee or not to bee”.

Acqua ma non troppo (2023) highlights the dangers posed by the climate crisis and extreme weather events to cultural heritage. Taking the form of a computer animation created specifically for Venice, it features excerpts from historical paintings and motifs that float and disappear in a generative aquatic landscape.

This journey through the artistic and technological innovations of the last three decades culminates with AR[t] chive (2022), an installation where augmented reality, a paradigm of the most seamless interaction between the digital world and the real environment, allows visitors to play, explore, create through Sommerer and Mignnonneau’s artistic archive.