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Into trees invites visitors to look at trees and to recall – via advanced representation and fabrication technologies – their special status in ancient local traditions, and the complex relationship here between trees and people in the past. The exhibited works highlight the tension between the environmental threats facing trees today – the result of human activity – and the promise of technological restoration and preservation.
The works in the exhibition encourage the visitor to reflect on the special relationship with trees that characterized our region in the past. At the entrance to the gallery space, the Ein Zin (October 23, 2022) video is screened. The video is based on 3D scans of dying palm trees at oases along the Zin Stream. By navigating through a point cloud that represents the trees, we almost feel their tangible presence– until the camera focuses in on the palm trees, and they turn into the digital dust of points in space. The vast information collected in the scans freezes in time a snapshot of the palm trees, which are dying as a result of mineral mining in the Zin streambed.
Alongside the video stands a Tree Figure manufactured with architectural-scale 3D printing technology, using a mixture of local clay, cement and sand. The wood figure was printed with a robotic arm that enables a high level of control in applying the material. This control facilitates the creation of organic and sensual forms, suggesting the surface and structure of the palm tree. In this way, the work is a contemporary technological interpretation of ancient wood figurines that were common in our region.
Into Trees was showcased at the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center in June 2023, and was a collaboration between MTRL lab and Shenkar College of Engineering, Design, and Art.
Read more on the exhibition at Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center here.
