it is only a natural next step to build on the success of what has been achieved.
Miguel intends, for example, to continue to push interactivity between the program and the interactor:
Many of my digital works are interactive. With interactivity, we are no longer passive before
the work. I exclusively employ sensors that physically involve one’s body and its mobility in space. My installations give the public new and
unusual experiences in art. In those works, there is an engagement wherein the public becomes “an actor.” Interactivity lets the viewer-actor feel free to play spontaneously and to explore all the potentialities of the artwork. This interactivity can be experienced on a personal level or shared with several people: the effects not being the same in the two cases, but the results are always surprising.
Indeed, interactivity creates a more intimate dialogue with beautiful objects. For example, Digital Plankton is composed of virtual water bubbles projected on the floor (see video, page 33). These microscopic animal plankton, with their various shapes and luminescent colours,
develop in real time. These living organisms react according to the movements of visitors, as
if to emphasize man’s effect on nature. The interactive artwork raises concerns about the fragility of these ecosystems and call out for the need to preserve biodiversity. It seeks to recreate the conditions for a symbiotic relationship between human and nature.
Chevalier also see great potential in seed
banks and the public’s engagement with such. Remember, Miguel started capturing seeds and flowers as early as 2008, when he first turned
them into small 3D prnted sculptures and later into much larger outdoor sculptures. But today, he has the desire to open the concept of seed banks and herbariums to others:
For each generation of virtual flowers, I create herbariums of 20 to 100 flowers. These herbariums are not accessible in totality to the general public; but, I have been planning for years to create a participatory herbarium, via a website, where everyone could compose their own virtual flower. This is one of the projects that I have often proposed, but which has not yet materialised.
The implication of doing such supports his desire to see beauty and creativity being born through his initiative but owned, in effect, by the Other.
Flower Power 2017
Left
Flower Power 2017
Aarhus Festival, Bispetorv, Aarhus (Danemark)
Generative and interactive virtual-reality installation
Credit: Miguel Chevalier
Film by Claude Mossessian:
https://vimeo.com/232138085
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