Animal

16. Oktober bis 30. Dezember 2018 City University Hong Kong

Christa Sommerer und Laurent Mignonneau, Leitungsteam von Interface Cultures, nehmen mit ihren Arbeiten "A-Volve" und "Portrait on the Fly" an der Ausstellung teil.

The Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award winning artwork "A-Volve" from 1994 has been restored and is now on show in Hong Kong at an exhibition curated by Jeffrey Shaw.
The "Animal" exhibition at City University Hong Kong brings together historical artworks from the National Palace Museum in Taiwan with recent media art.
www.cityu.edu.hk/2018-animal

A-Volve
is the classic work of computational genetic art: a metaphor for artificial life, evolution, and gene manipulation. On a touchscreen, visitors sketch the outlines and cross-sections of creatures. Afterwards, these visual beings appear in a large water-filled basin where they assume a physiognomy and plasticity that makes them appear to be alive. Gathered around this pool, the creatures’ makers can observe the social microcosm of their amorphous creations, flourishing in the water and following the laws of evolutionary programs. These creatures are also sensitive to hand movements in the water that influence their interactions and generative processes in real time. The visitor becomes part of the evolutionary system, a partner of the virtual organisms, and gives and promotes their “artificial life”. Water as the metaphor for birth and basic evolution are the media for this artificial life “pool” that lives within the real environment.
www.cityu.edu.hk/2018-animal/aVolve

Portrait on the Fly (interactive installation, 2015)
is a commentary on our love for making pictures of ourselves (selfie-culture), and evokes notions of change, transience and impermanence. The interactive installation consists of a monitor that shows a swarm of a few thousand flies. When a person positions himself in front of the monitor these flies begin to arrange and rearrange themselves in a manner that creates a recognizable likeness of that individual. While posing attracts the flies to a person’s contours, the slightest movement sends them away again, so that these ‘selfies’ are in constant flux; they construct and deconstruct.
www.cityu.edu.hk/2018-animal/Portrait_on_the_Fly