Living, interactive art by digital pioneers

The Austrian-French artist duo Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau have been working together between science, technology and art since the 1990s. From 7 May, the Centre for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe will make room for their spectacular works. The exhibition title The Artwork As a Living System reveals: the show presents artworks as living systems. The extraordinary thing: The fourteen installations only come into being through the actions of the audience. The exhibits hold artificial systems that behave like living organisms. As pioneers of the Art of Interface, Sommerer and Mignonneau relied early on algorithms that even take complex processes such as evolution and growth into account when recreating life. This makes them almost classics of digital art today.

»Sommerer's and Mignonneau's exhibition is more than a cabinet of curiosities, more than a terrarium, more than an aquarium, it shows mythical creatures, artificial creatures, a hitherto unseen panorama of fantasy and technical ingenuity,« promises curator Peter Weibel. Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau. The Artwork As a Living System can be visited until 31 July.