The Digital Trees of Jennifer Steinkamp

A friend, knowing my fascination with trees, drew my attention to an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London – Walking Among Giants – the Lifespan of Trees.  Of course, because of the restrictions in place because of Coronavirus, this exhibition is now sadly not open for the public to view although I was able to view a video about the exhibition featuring the Curatorial Assistant, Marie-Charlotte Carrier.

“Trees have a very special way of making us feel small.  They make us realise how short lived we are as a species, compared to these giants who have been on this earth for thousands and thousands of years.  They create a different sense of time.” 

One of the references in Carrier’s video is the digital trees of Jennifer Steinkamp.  I was interested in what digital trees might look like and my research led to finding these beautiful images of Steinkamp’s installation.  In particular, she has two entitled Blind Eye, one of which is at The Hayward Gallery:

The installation is a large format video of a moving forest of birch trees.  It looks captivating and gives a sense of the experience in the forest.  I am disappointed that lock down means that I will not be able to see this work at what must be a very exciting exhibition.

References

CARRIER, Marie-Charlotte.  March 2020.  Walking Among Giants – The Lifespan of Trees.  The Hayward Gallery.  London

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/walking-among-giants-lifespan-trees?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Culturefix25%2F04%2F20&utm_content=version_A [accessed 26 April 2020].

STEINKAMP, Jennifer.  March 2018.  Blind Eye.

https://www.jsteinkamp.com/quicktime/html/blind_eye.html  [accessed 26 April 2020].