At The Creators Project HQ in Brooklyn, it finally feels like spring. I mean, _finally_ finally. We had sleet yesterday, and the trees still don't have leaves, but today it's genuinely warm out, and we're beginning to feel less jealous of our LA friends. Thus, our bitterness has settled, and we can showcase awesome west coast projects like _Liminoid Garden_ without resentment.

The project by artist [Filipa Valente](http://cargocollective.com/limilab) was part of the art and architecture festival, [SKYLINE 2014](http://lerata.org/skyline-la-2014/), and her work included "mechanical blooms," or metal floral sculptures, equipped with electronic controllers that received light, temperature, and pollution readings from the surrounding neighborhood, subsequently causing them to move and change colors. Depending on the data the "leaves" received, the indoor jungle evoked a subtle breathing motion that changed when audience members approached.

To fully explore the interaction among machine, environment, and city, the Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre performed along with the artificial plants, creating complementary light art while they moved.

The _Liminoid Garden_'s name indicates the disorientation that occurs midway through performance rituals. Maybe this title nods to our currently unhinged relationship with pollution and climate change, or maybe it's highlighting that we're finally bursting through that seasonal transition period from mediocre March to flower-sprouting April. Let's go with the latter.

See some stills and a video clip of the art piece below:

Liminoid Garden* was part of the SKYLINE 2014 festival, a 10 day long free event featuring 10 interactive installations at different sites in Downtown Los Angeles.
The project featured a collaboration between Filipa Valente [limiLAB] and Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, who performed and interacted with the artificial blooms exploring the interaction between machine, environment and the city.

More info : http://cargocollective.com/limilab

The Liminoid Garden* - an interactive machine interface between the environment, the city and its users - responded to real-time environmental data from the city, giving awareness to the audience while simultaneously making him/her part of the behavior.

Set in the context of Downtown Los Angeles, a bouquet of artificial ecology mechanisms communicate between the penthouse of the Cooper Design building and the city at large. The mechanical blooms are equipped with electronic controllers that receive readings of light, temperature and pollution from the exterior and reinterpret these into physical movements and light fluctuations. The pieces then reflect a kind of breathing behavior that is altered by the actions of audience members - creating a play space between conditions of the outside and inside.


Video and edit : Elia Urquiza

Liminoid Garden* @ SKYLINE 2014 Festival DTLA

For more of Valente's awesome work, check out [her site here](http://cargocollective.com/limilab).

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