Christa Sommerer / Laurent Mignonneau

Christa Sommerer / Laurent Mignonneau, Scavengers, 2020

Animation

Scavengers

©2020, Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer
developed for the TransArt Festival at Centro Trevi in Bolzano and supported by MEET Milano

Beetles form a group with more than 350.000 known species. They come in many variations and forms and they have fascinated humans since the beginning of man kind. As an important part of our ecosystem insects also digest and process organic material and bring it back into the life cycle of the eco system.
Humans however have recently caused an immense environmental crisis, leading to global climate change, environmental pollution and the extinction of many animal species, including insects.

Scavengers is an animation which wants to alert us about the importance of beetles for our environment. Artificial insects struggle to clean up human produced debris. These scavengers try to digest inorganic trash and pollution, and turn it back into nature. This is of course an utopian vision; it would be up to us humans to accomplish this task.

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists, researchers and pioneers of interactive art. In 2004 they set up the department for Interface Cultures at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria where they are both professors. They have created around 60 interactive artworks that have been exhibited in around 400 international exhibitions and received numerous awards, such as the Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica in 1994.

Website of Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau:
www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent