Artistic approach
The "Autres Natures" (Other Nature) exhibition by Miguel Chevalier explores, in a poetic and metaphorical way, the relationship between nature and artifice, which today coexist and enrich each other. Through a process which began at the end of the 1990s, Miguel Chevalier relies on observations of the plant kingdom and its imaginary transposition in the digital world.
Miguel Chevalier has created three different generations of virtual gardens and flowers.
The exposition displays three different generative virtual reality installations:
- “Sur-Natures 2014”, installation in the Gardeners Court Galleries
- “Fractal Flowers 2014”, installation in the Gardeners Court Galleries
- “Trans-Natures 2014”, installation in the Stables Indoor Ring
Sur-Natures 2014
Generative and interactive virtual reality installation
Software: Music2eye
Sur-Natures (Ultra-Nature) is a new lush virtual garden comprising some ten different flowers in an array of colours - filarial, luminescent and herbaceous plants, etc.These virtual flowers spring up at random, blossom and die according to their "morphogenetic code". They grow each day in real time, developing ad infinitum. By means of presence sensors, each of these flowers reacts to visitors passing by. The plants bend from right to left, as if being blown by the wind, rippling to intertwine in a "baroque" style and creating unusual plant choreographies. The feeling produced by Sur-Natures is that of a kind of digital impressionism. The work is somewhat reminiscent of the sensitive approach of a painter like Claude Monet, his appropriation of light, of the movement of the air, of the weather and his passion for the infinite variations produced by nature, particularly expressed through series such as Water Lilies.
Cleome Spinosa de Buñuel, 2013 - Peyotl Mandragora Officinarum, 2013 - Trifolia Sadica, 2014 (Virtual seeds from the Fractal Flowers series)
Three generative virtual reality installations
Software: Cyrille Henry
At the same time as the two digital projected installations, 3 different virtual seeds are being displayed on 3 LCD screens. These seeds come from the Fractal Flowers herbarium. Cleome Spinosa de Buñuel, Peyotl Mandragora Officinarum and Trifolia Sadica are real living pictures which are generated ad infinitum. The virtual flowers of different colours and shapes, spring up at random, blossom and die. They unveil shapes pushed to the limits of their geometrisation, developing at the frontiers of the mineral, animal and robotic world. The flowers open out to display their most stunning colours and their most incredible shapes. They draw us into an intriguing, reinvented nature. Three sculptures, made using the revolutionary technology of 3D printing, are displayed, based on these virtual seeds which appear on screens. These sculptures are physical representations of these imaginary flowers.
Trans-Natures 2014, Miguel Chevalier
Generative virtual reality installation
Software: Claude Micheli
Trans-Natures (Trans-Nature) is a new generation of unusual, pure white, virtual flowers, against a black background. The shapes and the development of this artificial nature draw inspiration from arborescences and data organisation systems, using the principle of roots and branches. Here, the flowers are viewed from above and projected onto a big pedestal, mirroring the architecture of the merry-go-round. The flowers spring up at random, blossom and die according to their "morphogenetic code". They develop ad infinitum. Everything is in a permanent state of metamorphosis in this space bathed in soft orange light.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Miguel CHEVALIER
MEXICO
Born in Mexico D.F., Mexico, in 1959, Miguel Chevalier graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (1980) and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (1983). He lives and works in Paris. He has become world-renowned as one of the forerunners of virtual art and digital technology.
