Atmospheric Forest
A complex relationship exists between the forest, climate change and the atmosphere. Trees are living beings that breathe. In doing so, they emit not only oxygen, but also many volatile organic compounds that we recognise as ‘the smell of the forest’.
’Atmospheric Forest’ is a VR installation that visualizes and narrates the relationship between the forest and its climate. It reveals the patterns of interaction between weather conditions in this valley and pine emissions in Pfynwald, an ancient Swiss alpine forest suffering from drought and now the subject of scientific research.
Smite & Smits scanned the forest as a point cloud environment and visualized the scientists’ data in virtual reality. Data on their breath, on resin and the weather were animated into streams of particles that reveal the interaction between the trees and the atmosphere, showing how it affects resin production and volatile emissions (such as the scent of trees).
