Note: a dedicated project website is under construction.

Summoning a Forest is a practice-based artistic research project exploring the intersection of ecological collapse and digital mediation. It addresses the emotional and existential dimensions of environmental crises and uses artistic methods to process and reflect on these challenges. Focusing on the transformation of a family-owned forest devastated by a spruce bark beetle outbreak, the project connects personal experience to broader systemic issues and probes how digital tools can mediate ecological distress.

The research is framed by the urgency of escalating environmental collapse, where scientific data highlights the severity of planetary degradation but often struggles to convey its lived impact or inspire action. Drawing on knowledge from fields such as cognitive science, media and cultural studies, and science fiction, the project examines the emotional dimensions of ecological collapse, the mediating role of digital tools, and the potential of speculative and mythological frameworks to reimagine human relationships with non-human entities and ecosystems.

Using methods such as 3D scanning, sonification and virtual environments, the project creates spaces that intersect ecological realities and fictions. Artistic works produced during the research explore themes of grief, irony and absurdity, using digital techniques and pop culture influences to provoke emotional responses and question human-environment dynamics. The research positions art as a medium for engagement and reflection, proposing an alternative lens through which to navigate the complexities of ecological crises.

Team

Promotor: Dr. Wendy Morris (KU Leuven/LUCA school of Arts, artist and artistic researcher). Co-promotors: Dr. Sepideh Karami (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art, writer, architect and researcher), Dr. Laurens Dhaenens (Senior Postdoctoral researcher (FWO). His research concerns exhibition studies/curatorship, global art histories, and digital humanities. Advisors: Dr. Jan Verpooten, evolutionary biologist and philosopher). Theun Karelse (Amsterdam, NL, artist and artistic researcher)

Process

The original research proposal Through that which is seen: the diorama & The Appeal of The Unreal was initially focused on an inquiry of the illusory dimensions of technological spaces. Using aspects of the 19th century diorama phenomena, the ‘space’ of my own digital studio is anchored in a wider history of illusory, immersive environments.

The research focused on two dioramas: the Diorama theatre – “a mammoth synthesis of the panorama, illusionistic painting, and stage design – a theatre without actors and stories, ‘partly optical, partly mechanical’.” (Huhtamo, 2013) – and the habitat diorama – natural history museum displays that use taxidermy, imitation trees and plants, and background paintings to present a realistic looking artificial copy of a natural ecosystem.

Both assemblies are on the intersection of science, entertainment, and art – with the habitat diorama adding an early form of ecological advocacy. Many of the dioramas’ properties are at odds with each other, causing tensions that return in the computer that is a ‘home’ to my art practice and in the subjects and methods my practice engages with.

However, soon after the start of the doctoral period, the European spruce bark beetle outbreak and the Covid-19 pandemic converged. Concerns about our planet’s health that had been lingering in my work for two decades turned into full blown panic.

The clear-cut terrain presented an opportunity to respond to global ecosystem collapses with a much more direct approach; my research shifted from artificial, still diorama scenes to a dynamic, living system.

To learn more about the first part of the trajectory, please watch Mistakes. The artist talk and visit my online multimedia article on the research catalogue platform.

Works that arose in the context of Summoning a Forest are: Mistakes. The artist talk (film), NGMI (film), ⓘ (physical site-specific intervention and digital sculptures), The Compositor/Composing (audio work and vinyl record), and a range of 3d scans that were used as augmented reality sculptures, in .gif animations, or as landscape elements in videoloops.