'Lightweeds', the groundbreaking digital installation by Dutch-born, London-based designer Simon Heijdens, has recently been showcased internationally. The interactive piece was shown as part of the exhibition 'The Garden of Contemplation' at the newly-launched Katara Art Studios in Qatar, and it can also be seen at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem as a permanent installation.
The project - shown by Gallery Libby Sellers in 2008 - charts both the passage of time and the evolution of the natural surroundings through what Heijdens describes as "a living digital organism". The computer-generated and digitally-projected plants respond to sunshine, precipitation and wind as measured from the environment outside by accompanying weather sensors. With passing human traffic the willowy weeds bend, loose their seeds and pollinate to other walls throughout the space to create a constantly changing wallpaper, ultimately revealing the character of the space and its use. As the plant's behavioral patterns are derived purely from the collated data fed to the computer from the sensors, a theoretically infinite universe of possible forms is provided and the randomness of nature is brought into the unnatural world.
September 6, 2012