"Eau de Jardin" is an interactive installation which transports visitors into the imaginary world of virtual water gardens. The image of "Eau de Jardin" consists of a triptych, a three-sided projection screen onto a 12 x 3 meters vaulted screen that creates an immersive and reflective virtual water garden. 8-10 glass amphorae hang from the ceiling of the room. Their form reminds to old Greek or Egyptian transport vessels. They are completely transparent and contain water plants such as lilies, lotus, bamboo, cypress and other aquatic plants. Through the glass we can also see the roots of these plants.
When visitors approach themselves towards the amphorae, the plants capture the visitors presence and use the occurring tensions to draw virtual water plants on the large projection screens. The virtual plants on the screen resemble the real aquatic plants in the amphorae.
The images of the virtual plants are reflected through a virtual water surface and a merging between virtual plant imagery and reflected plant images occurs.
The more visitors interact with the real plants the more the virtual scene of aquatic plants builds up on the screen and all changes in the users' interactions are translated and interpreted. This leads to constantly new water garden images as their composition reflects the visitors' amount of interaction with the real plants.
Christa Sommerer is an internationally renowned media artist working in the field of interactive computer installation. She currently holds positions as Professor for Interface Culture at the University of Art and Design in Linz Austria and at the IAMAS International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan. Since 1992 Sommerer collaborates with French media artist Laurent Mignonneau. Their interactive artworks have been called "epoch making" (Toshiharu Itoh, NTT-ICC museum) for pioneering the use of natural interfaces to create a new language of interactivity based on artificial life and evolutionary image processes. Their collaboration has been influenced by the combination of their different fields of interest, including art, biology, modern installation, performance, music, computer graphics and communication. Sommerer and Mignonneau have won major international media awards...
More info: http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent/