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Christa Sommerer

Christa Sommerer is an internationally renowned artist working in the field of interactive computer installations. She currently works as a Professor at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria. Working alongside Laurent Mignonne, she is the head of the Department for Interface Culture at the Institute of Media.

Early Life and Education Christa Sommerer received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with a concentration in botany and anthropology from the University of Vienna. She later received her Master’s degree in Sculpture and Art Education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Christa Sommerer completed her PhD from the University of Wales College of Art in Newport, UK. In 1992 Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau met at the institute for New Media at the Staedelschule in Frankfort, Germany. Almost immediately afterward they started their collaboration in the area of interactive computer installations. From 1992 until present, Sommerer and Mignonneau have been collaborating on projects in interactive computer installations that have been referred to as “epoch making” (SOURCE) for developing natural and intuitive interfaces and for often applying scientific principles such as artificial life, complexity and generative systems to their innovative interfaces. (SOURCE)

Interactive Art: Interactive art is defined as “a type of installation that allows the audience or spectator to interact with the piece in a way that achieves its desired purpose.” (interactiveart.org)

Early Works: Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are pioneers of interactive computer installations and have been collaborating together since 1992. Sommerer and Mignonneau have spent their career focusing their installations on combining artificial life with human life through the computer as a medium. Such installations are as follows; “Interactive Plant Growing” (1992), “Anthroposcope (1993), “A-Vovle (1994), Trans Plant (1995), “Intro Act” (1995), MIC Exploration Space (1995), GENMA (1996), Life Spacies (1997), Life Spacies 2 (1999), Haze Express (1999), VERBARIUM (1999), Industrial Evolution (2000), PICO_SCAN (1999/2000), Riding the Net (2000), The Living Room (2001), The Living Web (2002), Nano-Scape (2002), Mobile Feelings (2003) and Eau de Jardin (2004).

“Interactive Plant Growing” (1992): “Interactive Plant Growing connects the real time growing of virtual plants in the 3 - dimensional space of the computer to real living plants, which can be touched or approached by human viewers.” (Sommerer & Mignonneau) In this interactive installation viewers touch real plants which influence the virtual outcome of 25+ virtual plants in real time. The virtual plants are simultaneously displayed on a screen in front of the viewers so that the viewer can see the influence the human touch has on the virtual plant. By combining artificial life with real life, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Magnonneau create a relationship between viewer and virtual reality in this installation. Since the viewer sees the real time feedback of their touch to the virtual plant, they have full control of the growth of the plant. It is the choice of the viewer on how they can react to the virtual plant through the touch of the living plant. The installation was set up so allow five or more people to interact simultaneously with five real plants within the space. The space was a dark 12x6 meter installation. Each plant was placed on a wooden column in front of a high resolution video projection screen which displayed the growth of the virtual plants in real time. All the plants were connected by interface to a “4D Silicon Graphics computer” (Sommerer and Mignonneau). This connection sends video from screen to “high resolution RGB video date beamer 80 kHz, 650 Lux” which sends real time growth pictures to the projection screen. (Sommerer & Mignonneau)

“Haze Express” (1999): Haze Express is a late 90’s interactive piece done by Sommerer and Mignonneau. The piece focuses on the landscapes that pass by a traveler while riding a train, plane or car. Haze Express emphasizes on the blur of imagery that happens while riding in a vehicle. The images end up blending together as the speed increases. By combining images, forms, shapes and colors, Sommerer and Mignonneau create an interactive installation that is reminiscent of how one views images through a window of a moving vehicle. The installation becomes interactive when the viewer is able to stop the images that are passing to inspect their composition. The viewer is inherently aware of their presence as their movement in the installation affects the outcome. For example, as the viewer touches the window, the glass will react as it would if it were actually a moving vehicle. Respectively, as the viewer slides their hand on the surface of the window from left the right, the scene order will continue in that direction. The scenes behind the glass are composed of images, blurs, colors, organic and abstract shapes. There are endless continuous combinations of landscapes that can be displayed. Each image is created based upon the interaction that the viewer has with the window. In this installation Sommerer and Mignonneau create an interactive installation that is dependent upon the interaction of the viewer with an artificial life form, computer.

“Eau De Jardin” (2004): Inspired by Monet’s water lilies, through this installation, the viewers are transported to a virtual landscape of water lilies. Again using projection, the installation projects a water garden of immersive and transparent virtual lilies. Eight to ten transparent glass amphorae, -a tall ancient Greek or Roman jar with two handles and a narrow neck- containing water hang from the ceiling of the installation. Each jar contains an aquatic plant whose roots are exposed to the viewer. As a viewer approaches the installation, the plants in the amphorae react to the tension of the viewer. As the viewer interacts with the real plants in the room, the virtual plants react unison.

“Fly High Times Flies” (2016): Fly High Time Flies is an installation that challenges time and the impermanence of human life. By displaying artificial flies on physical landscapes, Christa Sommer’s and Laurent Mignonneau’s Fly High Time Flies once again intertwines actual reality with virtual reality. In this piece, virtual flies swarm The ICC Tower in Hong Kong, Japan and over short bursts in time the flies spell out words on the tower. These swarms use plays on words like fly, flies, sly, life, time. They then swarm away revealing a new scene. The changing of words in a time-lapse style of viewing brings the audience back to the concept that time is impermanent.

Exhibitions: The works of Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau have been shown in more than 250 exhibitions world-wide. Sommer and Mignonneau aslo have permanent installations in the Media Museum of ZKM in Germany, the NTT-ICC InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Millennium Dome in London, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Japan, the AEC Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, Japan, Shiroishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiroishi, Japan and the HOUSE-OF-SHISEIDO in Tokyo.

Awards: Christa Sommerer has been the recipient of over twenty awards throughout her career thus far. Early in her career, 1992, Sommerer was awarded the “Prisma Award” for Computer Art at Mediale and Interface 2 in Hamburg, Germany. Within two years Sommerer was awarded the “Golden Nica Award” for Interactive Art, 1994. Christa Sommerer received three distinguished awards for her installation “Solar Display” from 2010-2011. These awards included IRIS Environment Award, which was awarded by the City of Linz and Ministry of Science and Research. As well as, WIPO Award for Best Woman Inventor, World Intellectual Property Organization. “Solar Display” also delivered Sommerer the Innovation Award Gold Medal by the Korean International Woman’s Invention Exposition. (Mignonneau & Sommerer).

Publications: Through Sommerer’s research she has focused her art on the connection of human and artificial life through interactive computer installations. Here she is quoted from the journal titled “The application of artificial life to interactive computer installations” published in Artificial Life and Robotics; December 1998. “This paper reports on the creation of interactive computer installations that combine artificial life and real life by means of human-computer interactions. These installations have focused on real-time interactions and evolutionary image processes. Accordingly, visitors to the installations become essential parts of the systems by transmitting their individual behaviors, emotions, and personalities to the image processes of the work. Images in these installations are no longer static, pre-fixed, and predictable, but become “living systems” themselves, representing minute changes in the viewers' interactions with the evolutionary image processes. Natural evolution has brought about a vast variety of forms and structures in nature. This research considers how artificial evoluation can function as a tool of the visual creation process; design should no longer be done by a designer or artist, but should emerge through the evolutionary image process itself.” (Sommerer & Mignonneau) According to Sommerer and Mignonneau, art is the process of collaboration between an artist and their chosen medium. Therefore, art is changing over time in an evolutionary process which in and of itself is the art.

Sources: 1. "Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau Artworks." Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau Artworks. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 2. "Interactive Art." ArtInteractive.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 3. Mignonneau, Christa Sommerer & Laurent. "Awards Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau." Awards Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 4. Net, Media Art. "Media Art Net | Sommerer/Mignonneau: HAZE Express." Medien Kunst Netz. a. Media Art Net, 31 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 5. Sommerer, Christa, and Laurent Mignonneau. Interface. N.p., 2004. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 6. Sommerer, C. & Mignonneau, L. Artificial Life and Robotics (1998) 2: 151. a. doi:10.1007/BF02471174 7. Sommerer, Christa, and Laurent Mignonneau. "Bio Laurent MIGNONNEAU & Christa SOMMERER:." Bio Laurent MIGNONNEAU & Christa SOMMERER:. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. 8. Sommerer, Christa, and Laurent Mignonneau. "Interactive Plant Growing an Interactive Computer Installation." Interface. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.