The Tree of Duration
Interactive media Art
Oct - Dec 2025
An Abstraction of time
A collaboration work with Yelena Ye.
Concept
After reading Henri Bergson’s book Matter and Memory, I wanted to explore the philosophy that explores how of a viewer perceiving recreates, rather than receives, the world through an tree installation.
The philosophy is perception is not passive, but an act of selection, a freezing act of the continuous flow of time on an stable image.
“An image may be without being perceived—it may be present without being represented… the distance between these two terms, presence and representation, seems just to measure the interval between matter itself and our conscious perception of matter.”
“To perceive consists in condensing enormous periods of an infinitely diluted existence into a few more differentiated moments of an intenser life, and in thus summing up a very long history. To perceive means to immobilize.”
Inspiration
This is giving, creating a space that warmly encompasses and gently hugs audiences.
https://www.galerieforsblom.com/ch/yi-zhu-jia/tuo-ni-ao-si-le-tony-oursler?view=slider#2
A tree; pixelated screens display different scenes — screens show trees being cut down and turned into materials. Time determines its state; in each state people perceive and remember it differently (Bergson — perception).
Fabrication Design
After exploring our inspirations, we concluded we need: a trunk that holds four screens. When the audience draws near, the four screens show the same stage (selected at random—or played sequentially if preferred); as the viewers approach they hear only the sound while the screens display randomized images of five different stages of a tree.
We experimented with both solid and transparent textured outer shells for our tree trunk, testing how each option interacted with light and the overall aesthetic. In the end we chose the solid finish because it better concealed the messy layout of our Arduino and created a cleaner, more cohesive appearance.
Technicals
Final Outcome
Indeed, our project is inspired by Bergson’s theorization of perceiving and perception. In his theory, reality endures as a continuous, “infinitely diluted” flow, and perception is a condensation of this flow. Every physical object carries with itself a history of movements and past states that perception compresses into a single present slice. This dynamic action of perceiving inspired us, as the artists, to ponder upon how we encounter objects in real life. Both of us are intrigued by our presence as human beings in the natural world and we thus landed on “tree” as our visual expression: the life cycle of the tree endures time, and bears in itself the memory of becoming. 🍃✨
Dear audience, we invite you to step close, to perceive the tree’s memory, and to reflect on the fragments of time your presence brings into view. Bergson in his time critiqued photographic technology as failing to capture the true essence of reality, and this sparked our reflection on the usage of digital media. Even though our project serves to immobilize the tree images and thus invites users to experience Bergson’s theories vividly, we would like to inform the audience that digital media cannot present the dynamic of reality. When you walk away, we’d like to invite you to think about our relationship with nature mediated by digital media.
