Sommerer/Mignonneau
«Trans Plant»

«Trans Plant» is a interactive computer installation, developed by Sommerer & Mignonneau for the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and displayed there for a period of 3 years.
In «Trans Plant» visitors enter a semi-circled room and become part of a virtual jungle which starts to surround them. As the visitor steps forward into the installation space, he will see himself inside a projection screen in front of him. By walking freely and without any devices, he soon will discover that grass is growing, wherever he walks, following each step and movement he does. When stopping and staying still, trees and bushes will grow on the place where the visitor currently stands. Changing the speed and frequency of his movements, the visitor thus will create a biotope, that is full of different plant species.
The size, color and shape of these plants depends only on the size of the person. Small children usually will create different plants than their parents, but by folding out the arms, the size of the plants can be increased. If moving the body slightly backwards or forwards the color density can be changed as well. As each visitor will create different plants, he will bring up his/her own personal forest, that is an expression of his personal attention and feeling for the virtual space. As the growth gets more and more dense and the space more and more full of different plant species ( bamboo, Susuki grass...), the visitor will more and more engulf into this virtual jungle: he will enter deeper and deeper into the growth, and appear as a 3D person in the virtual space.

Sommerer/Mignonneau