Sommerer/Mignonneau
«The Interactive Plant Growing»

Designing interfaces between vegetal and device-related systems, between man and machine, is one of the greatest challenges of interactive technology. No differently than in the industrial context, here too, the use of intuitive and user-friendly control tendencies is supremely decisive. With «The Interactive Plant Growing,» Sommerer and Mignonneau demonstrate an artwork of this species. Activating the plant triggers an image-generating impulse. This calls for neither the preparing of a symbolically conveyed action, nor the designing of ergonomically-formed pieces of equipment to make its control possible. The juxtaposing of the real plant and a computer-generated version of nature latently recalls explosive themes that arose when discussing the use of research results in the fields of natural science and technology.