Terrarium

Is it possible to know what is it like to be a tree? We can definitely try to imagine: feel your branches blowing in the breeze and the nourishing warmth of sun on your leaves, while you stand rooted in one spot watching time unfold as earth shifts and plants and animals come and go.

Our imaginations create personal relationships to possible perspectives, combining what we sense outside with what we feel inside. We create our own stories and questions, which spark our ability as humans to relate, empathize, and become curious about what is other and unknown to us. It is our curiosity which drives us to ask questions and to investigate the world through scientific inquiry and creative exploration. Measuring and understanding what can be known, and expressing new connections and perspectives to questions at the edges of human knowledge. It is our empathy which helps us connect to and respect other living things, guiding creative intuitions that point us towards our unique individual interests we bring to the world.

Terrarium is an interactive installation where viewers become immersed in a living virtual ecosystem. The ecosystem is a simulated environment consisting of shifting earth, growing trees, flowing wind fields, and swarming simple life forms. The ecosystem grows over time, where everything is connected through the exchange of key resources including water, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. As visitors enter the space, their bodies are reflected as figures in the virtual world. Viewers can interact using their bodies where they may effect part of the system and its biogeochemical cycles, shaping growing trees, directing the wind, or guiding swarming creatures. By being present with the world you change it, and by listening deeply to the world you become open to change in yourself. Breathe deeply and let each footstep be a gift to yourself and to the world around you.