Artists Statement

Interactive Painting (2014)

The Value of Art (Cat) is from a series of interactive paintings dealing with value creation in the art world and the attention economy. Responding to the idea that attention is the new currency in our media based society, the artists buy paintings at auction houses and equip them with sensors that measure the time that viewers spend in front of the work. The value of the artwork is constantly updated in 1 Euro increments, making the process of value creation transparent.

• Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers. They studied with media art pioneers Peter Weibel and Roy Ascott. They worked 10 years in Japan at ATR Research Laboratories in Kyoto and as Associate Professors at the IAMAS in Gifu. Currently Sommerer and Mignonneau are professor and heads of the Interface Cultures Department at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria. Sommerer is also a Obel Guest Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. Mignonneau and Sommerer have created 30 pioneering interactive artworks which they have exhibited in around 250 exhibitions worldwide.

Text with images (PDF) p. 46-47