Simon Heijdens' work 'Lightweeds' - exhibited by Gallery Libby Sellers in 2008 - has won a silver award at the MUSE Awards of the American Alliance of Museums. The awards recognise outstanding achievement in museum media, and are presented to institutions or independent producers using digital media to enhance the museum experience and engage new audiences.
In 'Lightweeds', Heijdens charts both the passage of time and the evolution of the natural surroundings through what he 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.
June 13, 2013