Gerrit Rietveld Academy graduation 2009 July 1, 2009

On July 1st 2009 Sander Veenhof (1973) is graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld art academy in Amsterdam.
To color up that occasion and to attract attention to himself in an overly busy contemporary art world, Veenhof came up with a concept to serve both purposes in harmony. He started growing a 'graduation bouquet' in an interactively controlled greenhouse hosted in the hallway of his Amsterdam home.

A custom designed greenhouse control system converts all online publicity into plant growth by switching on the grow-lights above his 'publicity plant' whenever new a weblog-posting, Twitter message or Delicious bookmark refers to the project. Bouquet growth can be monitored live through a webcam shown at the project website, which lists and thanks the online community in turn.

On July 1st, the bouquet will be taken to the graduation show of the 'interaction design for unstable media' department, visualizing in a very natural way the success of the project by means of itself.

Veenhof's original background is in computer science. Knowing enough about the endless opportunities to control anything precisely, in his art academy career he explores the contrary: seeking challenges posed by hybrid projects involving plants in digital environments and experimenting with new, uncertain and indirect models for interactive installations.

Official Website: http://sndrv.nl/publicityplant