
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) will mark National Science Week with the opening of a new audiovisual installation, inviting viewers to step inside the ‘digital memory’ of an endangered forest. Created by Australian artists James McGrath and Gary Sinclair, Ghost Trees brings together science, data and audiovisual art to offer a new way to connect to the natural world.
Opening on 10 August, Ghost Trees offers audiences a 360-degree perspective on the Rushworth Forest on the lands of the Ngurai-illam Wurrung people in Victoria. This unique audiovisual experience was developed entirely from environmental data captured for the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) by Ghent University’s Professor Kim Calders.
McGrath created the visuals from TERN’s three-dimensional LIDAR (light detection and ranging) scans, giving viewers kinetic and surprising perspectives on the forest. Sinclair’s surround-sound audio draws on eco-acoustic site recordings, with melody generated from the spatial data points of the trees. The result is an ephemeral, artistic and moving convergence of art and data that paints a compelling portrait of what we are losing from the natural world.
Ghost Trees at the NFSA includes the addition of a window into other Australian ecosystems hidden within the main installation. Using the 19th century ‘Pepper’s ghost’ illusion, the central pod creates a shadowy touchpoint with trees in the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, Tasmania’s Huon Valley and the TERN research SuperSite in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales: semi-transparent whispers from other forests. This beguiling addition to Ghost Trees invites deeper reflection on our relationship to the natural world and our attempts to contain it.
‘Ghost Trees invites people to engage with real-world scientific data at a visceral and imaginative level,’ said McGrath and Sinclair. ‘We’re thrilled to bring this installation to the NFSA with the addition of an intriguing new perspective to draw viewers further into the forest.’
‘This thought-provoking Australian work sits at the intersection of art, science and technology,’ said Chris Mercer, Chief Experience Officer at the NFSA. ‘Ghost Trees exemplifies how the arts can be used to create connections, share knowledge, inspire conversations and drive collaboration towards a more sustainable future.’
Ghost Trees follows Temple, the contemplative audiovisual artwork created by Leila Jeffreys and Melvin J. Montalban and dedicated to native Australian birdlife. These immersive experiences reflect the NFSA’s broader commitment to sustainability, which includes curating events and programming that bring people together to learn, reflect and be inspired to take action.
Guided by the First Nations principle of custodianship of Country, the NFSA’s newly launched Sustainability and Climate Action Strategy centres care, interconnectedness and shared communal responsibility. The Better Futures Forum will be held at the NFSA in Canberra on 10–11 September, bringing industry, community and government voices together for Australia’s largest multi-sectoral climate forum.
Meanwhile, the popular interdisciplinary Science. Art. Film. collaboration with the Australian National University continues with a free National Science Week screening of Blade on 15 August, followed by a lively discussion exploring the myth and science of vampires and bats with expert panellists Pidge Greenwood, Dr Brendan McMorran, Dr Joanna Haddock and Dr Alice Motion.
Images, audio and vision available here on Dropbox.
Media enquiries and interview requests:
Jacqui Douglas | Communications Specialist | 0417 738 434 | comms@nfsa.gov.au
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.