lindsey french // Phytovision at On-Site Gallery

Phytovision

video installation

2023

curated by Jane Tingley, Gallery Curator Lisa Smith

Phytovision is a long-term body of work which focuses on destabilizing the primacy of human vision. As both a practice of perception and a plant-oriented media, Phytovision brings attention to modes of plant sensing which intersect and surpass the capabilities of the human sensorium.

The videos for this installation were recorded in Cook Forest: an old growth forest on traditional Seneca territory in western Pennsylvania, on which hemlock and pine trees have been growing since before settler arrival. The videos were recorded at a high frame rate to present a slower experience of time, and filtered to include only the portion of light spectrum visible to plants. Many plants perceive light within the red and blue areas of the visible light spectrum, and a standard screen presents digital images designed specifically for human eyes with red, green, and blue cones. Displayed across multiple screens, the videos present light-based media from multiple vantage points. The installation extends to include additional multisensory elements of touch and scent. The seating platform and leaning wall play geophone recordings of the forest floor as tactile vibrations. Terpenes, a type of scent signal used by white pines and hemlock, are diffused into the air above.

Related Programming

more-than human Artists Panel Discussion Part 1, February 02, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Onsite Gallery and Live Streamed Online

“Ecology, Symbiosis, human/plant relations” discussion, Re-situating: more-than-human – dialogues on art and science, ArtSci Salon, The Fields Institute of Research in Mathematical Sciences, OCAD University, Toronto; April 14

Press

Aidan Clark, "Um-World: Our Static Questions Need Organic Answers,” centered.ca, March 29, 2023

Artist Interview, OCAD U Live, June 23, 2023.