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Trees

Tree - behind billboard
Projected on a building

Tree - walking through leaves
Walking through the leaves

Tree - animation
The tree animation

Tree - with graffiti
On another building

December 2004
by Simon Heijdens

Project Description

Ripples on a puddle of water, footsteps in the sand slowly gathering grime.  Natural processes are existent though becoming rare in our increasingly planned surrounding.  While the trees on the streets are no longer nature but carefully controlled and managed, the wind that is moving its branches still is.  An installation that traces and amplifies the leftovers of nature in the urban surrounding. 

White silhouettes of trees projected 8 meters high onto the facades of several buildings in a city.  Its branches and leaves are moving either slightly or intensely; directly to the measured wind that passes the facade of the building on which it is projected. 

Starting full leaves at dawn, the tree loses one of its leaves each time someone passes it.  When the leaf breaks off its branch, it drops down on the ground in an alley nearby.  Because the leaves are made of light, they slowly brighten up the alley as they grow in amount over the course of the evening, and form a developing image that reveals the use of a city.  The leaves roll out as somebody walks through them.

Simon used Teleo modules and Make Controller Kits to measure the wind and control his application and animation in Flash.  More info at www.simonheijdens.com