Music for Trees – Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven

Music for Trees – Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven

1 February 2020

Presented as part of the exhibition Through a Forest Wilderness at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven.

THROUGH A FOREST WILDERNESS
Aktionen im Wald. Performance, Konzeptkunst, Events.
Actions in the Forest. Performance, Conceptual Art, Events.
1960 – ∞
Ausstellung im Wald | Exhibition in the forest

Music for Trees aims to inspire an exchange of energetic imagination between humans and trees. Participants are encouraged to move slowly and quietly among the trees. By performing to a tree, the human participant listens to the tree listening back to her. A connection is formed, opening the possibility of a transcendental experience.

Music for Trees was originally created in 2010 for an environmental art project by Suzanne Husky. At the time, my research focused on binaural brainwave entrainment, plant bioacoustics, and a range of military, medical, and alternative healing studies on the effects of infra- to very high-frequency sound on the human body.

During this research, I encountered the Cyma1000, a sound-therapy device capable of producing five-pitch frequency clusters (chords) used in resonance-based massage therapy. In Music for Trees, selected Cyma therapy drones—such as alpha state, ecstasy, love, and sonic tissue repair—are used as the initial musical material, restricted to frequency ranges to which plants show sensitivity.

These frequency clusters are divided into independent audio channels and played through multiple portable loudspeakers distributed throughout the forest. As participants move among the trees, the drones become spatialised. In this way, participants actively contribute to the spatial, energetic, and telepathic dimensions of the work.

Projected over several years, Through a Forest Wilderness is the first exhibition to focus explicitly on the existential dialogue between artists and forests or trees. It traces how artists, through direct engagement with nature, challenge themselves to “live deliberately” in the sense described by Henry David Thoreau.

The exhibition brings together historical works from performance, happening, Fluxus, body art, and conceptual art, alongside contemporary works by younger artists. Deliberately foregoing the traditional gallery setting, the exhibition took place directly in the forest, where trees functioned as carriers of materials and objects.

The presentation included reconstructions of historical works (conceptual art, minimal art, concrete poetry), photographic documentation of artistic forest actions since the 1960s (printed on weather-resistant aluminium and mounted on trees), contemporary commissions, participatory works, performances, film screenings, guided tours, discussions, and workshops.

The exhibition aimed to explore the potential of nature as a space for art, offering visitors the opportunity to wander off the well-trodden path and encounter ideas in quiet, unmediated ways—mirroring the experiences of the artists themselves.

More information:
https://www.kunsthalle-wilhelmshaven.de/de/ausstellungen/through-a-forest-wilderness