Ghost Trees excerpt

An excerpt from Ghost Trees, a creative representation of big data sets captured by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network and transformed into an immersive experience by Australian artists James McGrath and Gary Sinclair. 

TERN used LIDAR (light detection and ranging) scanning to capture digital ‘memories’ of the endangered Rushworth Forest on the lands of the Ngurai-illam Wurrung people in Victoria. 

Environmental sensors generated three-dimensional scans for conversion into ‘point clouds’: data that represents disappearing landscapes. Visual Director James McGrath transformed these point clouds into moving graphics, creating a visualisation entirely from real-world data without any artificially generated content. Audio Director Gary Sinclair studied eco-acoustic site recordings and generated melodic phrases from the spatial data points of the trees to give voice to the forest. 

The result is an ephemeral, artistic and deeply moving portrait of what we are losing from the world around us. 

Data set courtesy of The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). Data capture for TERN: Professor Kim Calders, Ghent University (Belgium).

Ghost Trees was on show at NFSA Acton in Canberra from 10 August to 8 September 2024.