James Seawright is one of the pioneers of interactive digital art, and has been producing this type of work since the 1960s.
House Plants, from 1984, was originally installed in a public space as a kind of indoor garden. It consists of a number of electronic ‘plants’, connected to a computer, that are able to respond to various kinds of environmental stimuli, such as changes in light, temperature, or humidity.
In response petals move up and down and LED lights flash in preset patterns.
It is also possible to alter the plants’ behaviour by pushing buttons to change the programme installed in the custombuilt microprocessor
House Plants was one of a number of works by Seawright that featured robotic ‘plants’. These works suggest a connection between the capacity of both electronic / digital technology and natural organisms, such as plants, to respond autonomously to external stimuli.
Artist and theorist Eduardo Kac has referred to this connection as ‘cybernetic biology’. Seawright does not attempt to mimic the behaviour or appearance of plants, but rather produces a work that highlights the resonances between the electronic and biological realms.
James L. Seawright is Director of Visual Arts at Princeton University.
Considered one of the foremost technological artists since the late 1960s, he has received numerous commissions and awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974, 1976 and 1982.
He participated in two experimental television productions in 1968 and 1969 for WGBH in Boston, and in 1970 he designed visual effects for a segment of CBS’ Camera Three The Enigma of Scriabin.
His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum, all three in New York; the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University; the New Jersey State Museum at Trenton; and other museums throughout the world.
