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Sommerer/Mignonneau «A-Volve»
Sommerer/Mignonneau, «A-Volve», 1993 – 1994
© Sommerer/Mignonneau


 Sommerer/Mignonneau
«A-Volve»

«A-Volve» is the classic work of Genetic Art: a metaphor for artificial life, evolution, and gene manipulation. On a touchscreen, visitors sketch the outlines and cross-sections of creatures. Afterwards, with a high-resolution projector, these visual beings are projected onto a mirror positioned at the bottom of a water-filled basin. Through the real time calculations of a SGI computer, the automatically-animated beings in luminous water assume a physiognomy, and their enhanced plasticity makes them appear to be alive. Assembled about the pool, the creatures’ makers can observe the survival of their amorphous creation, flourishing in the water and following, from now on, the laws of evolutionary programs. There, in virtual space, artists enforce the «survival of the fittest» principle, and acquiring ‹the energy of life› means to eat or perish.