ANTopolis - Museum Quartier Vienna

A large scale interactive media façade for public space
© 2021, Laurent Mignonneau and Christa Sommerer

Summary:
Twenty thousand digital ants move around in all directions on the facade of the Leopold museum.
They are programmed to swarm between the windows, crawl on the walls, create trails and patters.
A special section on the facade is also interactive and visitors to the Museums Quartier can create their own gigantic self portraits.
When they place themselves in front of a camera in the Museums Quartier courtyard, their outlines are being detected and large digital ants start to transform these outlines into gigantic portraits that appear and disappear on the museum´s wall.
Visitors symbolically communicate with the Leopold museum, they become part of a gigantic life-like projection mapping that recalls our responsibility towards insects, other life forms and the fragile eco-system.
Curated by Penesta Dika and Klaus Krobath

Background:
During the COVID-19 crisis many of us were reminded about the fragility of our ecosystem. A tiny virus was able to bring human activity almost to a hault. The global lock down caused the stand still of big parts of the industries and economies. While we humans were confined to our homes, nature outside however partly recover. The air in heavily industrialized regions became cleaner, the sky bluer, insects, birds and wild life returned to the cities. Human caused pollution was significantly reduced.

Many people also suddenly realized the importance of nature for our physical and mental health; short walks in parks or nearby urban forests became essential for keeping sane in times of lock down and quarantine.

The interactive media facade "ANTopolis" wants to remind us of the interconnection between humans and nature. The COVID-19 crisis has revealed that we are not the crown of creation, that we are not an immune and independent entity and that we cannot keep exploiting natural resources in this unlimited manner. The Anthropocene must come to an end and we humans need to reevaluate our position and responsibilities towards nature.