Works/Line Rothmann

About

Line Rothmann is a Danish artist whose practice sits at the intersection of textile, history, and environmental inquiry. MothProofedForLife is a living artwork — a handwoven plaid made from second-hand wool yarn, now home to live moth larvae that will determine whether the yarn is safe, or still contaminated with decades-old pesticides. Creative Oak built the technical infrastructure to bring the experiment online: three webcam streams and a smart lighting system that responds to visitor presence — keeping the moths undisturbed, and the artwork accessible, throughout its year-long run.

The Challenge

The artwork needed to exist simultaneously in a physical room and online — and the two had to be genuinely connected, not just a camera pointed at a corner. Moths are sensitive to light; keeping them in natural conditions was essential to the experiment's integrity. That meant the room's lamp couldn't just run continuously. It had to respond to whether anyone was actually watching. On top of that, the installation needed to run largely unattended for up to a year, with remote access for maintenance, and streaming infrastructure stable enough to handle unpredictable visitor traffic without intervention.

The Solution

Creative Oak set up three webcams covering the weaving installation and wired up a smart lighting system with a single rule: the room's lamp only turns on when someone is visiting the website. Moths avoid light — so when no one's watching, the light goes off and the stream pauses. The installation runs undisturbed. Someone arrives, and it comes to life. The system requires no day-to-day management. It stays out of the way, and turns on when it matters.

The Result

MothProofedForLife launched and has been running online throughout its exhibition year — a slow, quiet experiment that visitors from anywhere can drop into at any moment. The technical setup has remained stable, low-maintenance, and true to the artwork's conditions. It's the kind of project we find genuinely interesting at Creative Oak — where the infrastructure has to serve the concept, not the other way around. Get in touch if you're working on something that requires the same thinking.