this living garden changes color to reveal how flowers may appear to moths

a living garden under shifting light

At the 2026 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Brussels-based artist Adrien Lucca and a team of scientists presented Parallel World, a living garden illuminated to suggest how flowers might appear to a moth. The installation brings real plants beneath a computer-controlled LED system to create a small indoor meadow that changes appearance at regular intervals. Delicate stems rise above dense foliage, with pink blossoms scattered throughout. As the lighting shifts, the garden takes on an entirely different color composition, even as every flower stays exactly where it is.

Under the bluish light, green leaves turn brown or nearly black, while the flowers become unusually bright against their surroundings. The transformation comes from the wavelengths of light reaching the plants and reflecting back toward the viewer. It is a simple visual experiment with an intriguing premise: the colors we associate with a garden are only one interpretation of what exists there. The same arrangement of plants can appear very different to another living creature.

seeing flowers through the eyes of a moth

The installation by Studio Adrien Lucca draws on the visual system of the elephant hawkmoth (Deilephila elpenor), a nocturnal pollinator capable of distinguishing colors under exceptionally dim light. While humans gradually lose their ability to perceive color after sunset, these insects can continue identifying flowers beneath the faint illumination of the night sky.

Their eyes respond to ultraviolet wavelengths alongside the blue-to-green regions of the spectrum, giving them access to visual information beyond human perception (see here). Research published in Nature in 2002 established that the species can distinguish colors under conditions comparable to dim starlight.

translating moth vision through programmable light

Lucca developed the 2026 installation with color scientist Ali Aiman Raza and researcher Colas Schretter, alongside biologist Marko Ilić, whose work focuses on insect vision. Together, they use programmable lighting to translate aspects of the moth’s visual environment into colors human visitors can experience.

The approximation has its limits, as human eyes cannot directly perceive ultraviolet light and the moth’s compound eyes process visual information differently from ours. Even so, the changing garden lends a tangible way to approach a sensory experience that would be inaccessible otherwise.

exploring the parallel worlds of plants and pollinators

The project grew out of Lucca’s earlier experiments with plant pigmentation and artificial light. In 2022, he collaborated with Brussels-based LMNO Gallery and Belgian seed producer Ecosem to create Mondes parallèles, an installation featuring wildflowers illuminated by programmable lamps.

By adjusting the spectrum, he could change the relationships between colors within the planting, bringing certain flowers forward while others appeared to recede into the vegetation. The experiment explored how flowering plants have developed visual characteristics through their long evolutionary relationships with pollinating insects.

tracing the colors of twilight

During a 2024 residency with Gluon in Brussels, Lucca turned his attention more specifically to the elephant hawkmoth and the colors of the night. His 2025 exhibition À l’aube du crépuscule at LMNO brought together paintings and luminous sculptures tracing the changing light of twilight.

Other works investigated the insect’s unusually wide field of vision and its sensitivity to colors humans cannot see. A drawing titled Rosetta compared the visual sensitivities of humans and hawkmoths, using visible red as a substitute for ultraviolet. The living garden extends this research into an environment where visitors can observe these differences for themselves.

how artificial lighting changes the nocturnal landscape

Beyond the gallery, the research raises questions about the artificial lighting that shapes contemporary landscapes. Flowers have evolved colors and patterns that help communicate with pollinators, including markings visible in ultraviolet light (see here).

Their appearance depends partly on the light illuminating them, which means streetlights can alter the visual signals available to insects after dark. A 2017 study published in Nature found that nocturnal flower visits decreased by 62 percent in artificially illuminated plant communities compared with dark areas, with consequences for plant reproduction.

how different light spectra affect pollinators

The effects also depend on the type of illumination. A 2021 study in Nature, using the elephant hawkmoth’s visual system as a model, examined how different artificial light sources influence the visibility of flowers against foliage.

Some lighting spectra preserved or enhanced color contrasts, while narrow-band orange lighting made floral colors more difficult for the moth to distinguish. The findings suggest that the wavelength and intensity of artificial light can change how insects navigate their surroundings, even when the environment appears perfectly legible to human eyes.

designing light for more than human vision

Presented in Gdańsk and later at Ars Electronica in 2026, Parallel World brings these questions into an immediate physical setting. Lucca’s work has long explored the relationship between light and perception, often through custom-built lighting systems that alter the appearance of painted surfaces or architectural spaces. Here, the same methods are applied to living plants and the animals that encounter them.

The garden becomes a way to consider how lighting design might respond to different forms of vision, especially in public landscapes where human activity overlaps with nocturnal wildlife.

imagining landscapes for other species

The installation leaves open the possibility of environments designed with other species’ sensory needs in mind. Streetlights and illuminated gardens are generally developed around what people need to see, even though their light extends into habitats occupied by countless other organisms.

In Parallel World, a change in illumination is enough to reveal how much of a familiar landscape depends on the observer. The flowers remain the same, but the garden briefly offers a glimpse of another visual world existing alongside our own.

project info:

name: Parallel World: Moth Colour Vision
artists, researchers: Adrien Lucca | @studioadrienlucca, Ali Aiman Raza, Colas Schretter, Marko Ilić
year: 2026, building on experiments begun in 2022
locations: Łaźnia, Gdańsk, Poland; Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria
festival: Negotiating Beyond Humanity, Ars Electronica 2026
development: Studio Adrien Lucca, Gluon, STUDIOTOPIA 2.0, S+T+ARTS, LMNO, with additional institutional support

This article is part of designboom’s POSTHUMAN UTOPIAS chapter, exploring what happens when humans are no longer the measure of all things. These stories rethink our relationship with the planet through interspecies architecture, living materials, regenerative landscapes and emerging technologies – learn more here! The chapter is presented in partnership with INDX|GLOBAL – a global cultural platform placing Indian architecture, design, and creative intelligence in conversation with the world.

Each designboom editorial series explores one theme in depth through projects, interviews, features and news across architecture, design, art and technology. Discover more chapters here, and get in touch if you’d like to submit a story through our submissions portal or contact form.