The Tree of Light
Immersive artwork / Yann Garreau, Onyo / France / 2021
The Tree of Light is an original fiction which plunges you into the heart of an enchanted forest to experience a unique moment of regeneration of a thousand-year old tree. The work allows the experience of a new relationship with the living beings that inhabit our world. Sitting in a circle, eyes closed, with headphones on, the experience is a journey of sensory wonder through a unique spatialized sound, an interactive light sculpture made by a craftsman, and an immersive writing that puts you at the heart of the story.
With the support of the French Embassy in Germany,
Department of Science and Technology
Link: https://ifdigital.institutfrancais.com/en/creation/tree-light
By mixing art and science, the work mobilizes the powers of fiction to take a step aside and explore other imaginaries of life. The authors, Yann Garreau and Charlotte-Amélie Veaux, draw on contemporary works on ecology. Influenced by the work of the philosopher Baptiste Morizot, devoted to the relationship between humans and the living, they deliver a dreamlike narrative that gives a voice to animals and plants.
What if we lived in tune with the other living beings that inhabit the world alongside us? And if their voice was as strong as ours, what would they say? What new collective fact could bring us together? How can we coexist in symbiotic logics?
These questions have built a collective narrative that blurs the boundary between humans and other living things. We rediscover a rich, animated fauna and flora that never ceases to amaze us and to take care of each other. The work participates in the fall of stress and anxiety as a walk in the forest might, thanks to a breath exercise that is the main interaction of the narrative.
The Tree of Light is a call for the regeneration of living ecosystems.