Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer

Trained respectively in botany, anthropology and sculpture in Vienna, and in video art at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Angoulême, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau met in 1991 at the Institute for Media directed by Peter Weibel. Since then, their collaboration has redefined the contours of interactive art worldwide, from Japanese research laboratories to major European museums.

Their practice draws on biological and computational models to generate evolving forms that the public can influence through gesture, presence, even breath. The systems they develop simulate life processes — growth, mutation, adaptation — making each work an autonomous ecosystem, responsive to human intervention. After a formative residency at the NCSA in Chicago, they joined the ATR Media Integration and Communications Laboratory in Japan. Their work is held in the collections of the foremost digital art museums, from the ZKM in Karlsruhe to the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon. At Galerie Charlot, they embody this vision of a living art, grounded in duration and perpetual transformation.

Internationally recognised artists and researchers, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are pioneers of interactive art.

Christa Sommerer studied botany and anthropology at the University of Vienna, then sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Laurent Mignonneau graduated in video art from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Angoulême.

They met in 1991 at the Institute for Media, directed by Peter Weibel, a pioneer of digital art and now chairman of the ZKM in Karlsruhe. After an artist residency at the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications), Beckman Institute, Urbana, IL, USA and at NTT-ICC (InterCommunication Center), Tokyo, Japan, they worked as researchers at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Laboratories) in Kyoto and at IAMAS (Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences) in Ogaki, Japan. They hold degrees from CAiiA-STAR at the University of Wales College of Art, UK (with Roy Ascott) and from Kobe University in Japan.

Sommerer & Mignonneau currently teach at and head the “Interface Cultures” department at the University of Art and Design Linz, Austria.

Their collaboration has led to the creation of 20 interactive works, for which they have received numerous awards, including: - the “Wu Guanzhong Art and Science Innovation Prize” (for “Escape”) from the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China in 2012 - the “Golden Nica Prix Ars Electronica” - the “Ovation Award” of the Interactive Media Festival Los Angeles - the “Multi Media Award’95” of the Multimedia Association, Japan - “World Technology Award – Finalist” at The Arts of the World Technology Network, UK - “PRIZE 2008 – uni:invent Award” from the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research.

Their interactive installations are seen as “epoch making” (Toshiharu Itoh, NTT-ICC museum Tokyo) for having developed natural and intuitive interfaces and applied scientific principles such as artificial intelligence, complexity and generative systems to their innovative interfaces. Their work has been shown in more than 200 international exhibitions. Their works are held in public and private collections around the world.

Sommerer and Mignonneau have published four books: - Gerfried Stocker, Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau (Eds.), Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau - Interactive Art Research, 2009. Springer Verlag Vienna/New York; - Christa Sommerer, Lakhmi C. Jain, Laurent Mignonneau (Eds.), The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design, 2008. Springer Verlag, XIV, 190 p. 69 illus. Hardcover Studies in Computational Intelligence; - Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau, Dorothée King (eds.), Interface Cultures: Artistic Aspects of Interaction, August 2008, Transcript Verlag; - C. Sommerer and L. Mignonneau, Art @ Science, Vienna/New York: Springer Verlag, 1998