Atmospheric Forest
360 video documentation
An immersive VR installation revealing the complex relations between a forest ecosystem and the atmosphere. The virtual artwork is an outcome of a three-year research in Pfynwald, an ancient Alpine coniferous forest suffering from the drought due climate change, which Swiss scientists have turned into a unique living observatory.
Concept video
Overall, the trees are not only oxygen generators for us, humans, but they breathe as well. Pine trees emit large amounts of volatile organic compounds that we can sense as a habitual scent of the forest.
While some scientists believe that the stronger smell of a pine forest indicates that climate change can be limited, others suggest that the volatile emissions could make global warming worse. Predicting the effects of natural volatile emissions on climate change is much more complex than thought.
Atmospheric Forest visualizes the data of the weather changes, volatile emissions and resin pressure in Pfynwald pine trees during one growing season. Uncertainty regarding the effects of volatile emissions remains. However, the visualized data patterns show that with climate change we are set for a more fragrant and more 'atmospheric forest' in the future.