MEDIATIONS Biennale - "Beyond Erased Walls"

5. September bis 10. Oktober 2010 Poznan, Poland

Gezeigt wird u.a. die neue Arbeit "The Value of Art (Unruhige See)" von C. Sommerer (Leitung Interface Cultures) & Laurent Mignonneau

The Value of Art (Unruhige See)
The Value of Art (Unruhige See) is an interactive painting dealing with the economy of attention and value creation in the art world. It is the first work in a series of anthropophagic works where we buy art work at auction houses and equip them with our sensors technology, to transparently re-calculate their monetary values based on the artists and audiences time and attention.
The particular painting is called Unruhige See (Unquiet Sea), it displays a sea landscape, is painted in oil on canvas, the dimensions are 53x79 cm. It was produced by R. Hansen during the 20th century. On May 18th 2010 we bought it for a total of 425.- Euro. All receipts, our own train tickets and meal receipts were kept and are part of the artwork.
We then equipped the painting with sensors that measure the exact time viewers spend in front of it. A small thermal printer is also integrated into the frame of the painting. The initial value of the artwork is set to the exact value of the price we paid for the painting, plus our expenses and working time value. It will appear printed out on the paper at the beginning of the show. At the first exhibition the painting will start counting the number of visitors and the amount of time they spend looking at the painting. The painting will then constantly update and print its value, making the whole process of value creation totally transparent. At the end of the exhibition the artwork will have reached a certain monetary value and can be sold for exactly that price. /Christa Sommerer + Laurent Mignonneau/

The Value of Art (Unruhige See), 2010, oil on canvas & electronicparts, 53 x 79 cm
Curated by Ryszard W. Kluszczyński

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers, they have jointly created around 20 interactive artworks. These artworks have been shown in around 200 exhibitions world-wide and are installed in media museums and media collections around the world.
Mignonneau and Sommerer’s interactive artworks have been called "epoch making" (Toshiharu Itoh, NTT-ICC museum Tokyo) for developing natural and intuitive interfaces and for often applying scientific principles such as artificial life, complexity and generative systems to their innovative interface designs. They have won mayor international media awards.
Mignonneau and Sommerer are currently heading the department for Interface Cultures at the University of Art and Design in Linz Austria which specializes on interactive art, interactive media and interface design. 

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