Immerse yourself in the endangered Rushworth Forest on the lands of the Ngurai-illam Wurrung people in Victoria: soar through the canopy, tunnel underground and gaze up at ancient tree trunks recreated from real-world environmental data in this mesmerising, surround-sound audiovisual experience. Bringing together science, data and audiovisual art, Ghost Trees offers a new way to connect to nature and reflect on our place within it – and our impacts on it.

Ghost Trees is a creative representation of big data sets, captured by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) 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 Rushworth Forest. 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. 

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: semi-transparent whispers from other forests.

Showing from 10 August to 8 September in the Gallery at NFSA Acton in Canberra.