In a multi-sensory experience, the audience inhabits a textile and tactile forest. Humans, trees, moss, and mushrooms are interconnected via an audio- and light installation that lies beneath their feet like a mycelial network. The forest is full of sounds and the light dances on the moss through the break-up of the leaves. Similar to the world of fungi, this space offers itself as an in-between. By bringing opposing magical elements together (happiness and grief, playfulness and solemnity, rooting and rising), the potion starts to fizz.
Visitors are invited into a white space by the mushroom character. The mushroom instructs you to take off your shoes, and pop on a pair of mushroom shoes. This brings attention down to your feet, making you aware of your connection to the earth.
By putting on these shoes, you become a material in the installation, a part of the forest.
When you have finished putting on your shoes, the mushroom draws the curtain open, inviting you into the forest, and says: "I will be here for you, at the beginning, and at the end."
When you step through the curtain, the space behind is initially pitch black, and you are dependent on your sense of touch to find your way. Maybe you already notice the smell of a damp forest floor, or of a fallen tree decomposing, or instead that of a breath of fresh air. As you carefully continue moving forward, the space lights up, revealing a mossy tufted rug on the floor, and quilted trees on the walls that surround you. Low drones and chittering animals sound through the forest. As you wonder, tip-toe, dance or crawl through, the forest responds to you: hidden underneath the rug lie pressure sensors, which cause the sound and light to change.
Each homemade pressure sensor correlates to certain parameters of sound and light. As you move across the carpet and shift your weight between patches of moss, sound and light modulate and morph. Sometimes the forest has a straightforward reaction, sometimes it has more elusive ways. As you trigger the forest and its voice grows or lessens, you get a sense of agency. As its soundscape eludes you with subtle changes in timbres and rhythms, you tumble in deep listening. This leads you to question your influence, and to test its boundaries.
BASS
Orris butter 0,3gr
Hedione 6,3gr
Ethanol 62gr
BARITONE
Hay absolute 0,8gr
Coumarin 1gr
Ethanol 66gr
CONTRATOS
Oakmoss absolute 2gr
Civet synth 0,3gr
Blackcurrent bud absoute 1gr
Ethanol 72gr
THREE TENORS
Himalayan cedar 40gr
Cashmeran velvet 13gr
Clearwood 27gr
By bringing in scents, carriers of memory, I invite a trance of self. At the same time they mimic the ability of trees to communicate through scent. Within the space there are four different scents. Over time they amalgamate in the middle of the space and together form the smell of a forest, while still remaining distinct when walking along the individual trees. The scentscape allows the upper part of the body to indulge in the play of analysing these smells, while the interaction with the pressure sensors allows for grounding. They combine to create the mystery at the crossroads of your senses.
In collaboration with:
Skye Platts for sound, tech and light design, and the soundscape for Tussenwereld
Charlie Schine for sound and tech design
Jesse Kroon for cinematography, photography, and production
Sarah McCartney for creating the scentscape
Zephyr Brüggen for realising Tussenwereld with me
Pleuni Veen for the performance in Tussenwereld
Shashi Tej for sewing the shoes
Eva Kohnstamm for the design of the catalogue
Erin Alles for the performance in Puhpoowee
Laura Low for crafting the mushroom bowls and spoons
Machtelt Brüggen Israëls for making mushroom soup
Bo Floor for the musical composition for Puhpoowee
Gerke Israëls-Zandstra for letting me pick and choose from our family fabrics
