Grove

Grove is a new kind of gathering place that offers a vision for inclusive open building. Instead of rigid walls and territories that divide us, can we live in open,worlds? The installation invites visitors to gather among forest-like shadow plays and fields of voices surrounding a projection pool containing a vision of worlds in formation.  

The film that forms the centerpiece of the circular projection pool is a collaboration with Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. The film explores the polarities of life and death, using an astral, dreamlike vision to re-examine humankind’s relationship with nature. Within the environment, a child-like being emerges. A multichannel sound environment composed by LASG collaborators Salvador Breed with Amsterdam-based 4DSOUND includes multiple whispering voices that surround the child. 

The physical testbed of the Meander environment in Cambridge, ON forms the basis of the film environment. Advanced modeling and expanded-reality processing is used to offer a spectrum that ranges from delicate, distant fragments to deeply saturated and immersive fields of highly structured cellular tissues and skeletons. Surrounding Grove’s projection pool is a cluster of custom omnidirectional speakers mounted in totem-like cages. Hovering above these is an undulating canopy of lace-like skeletons with suspended liquid-filled jewel-like vessels.