Rotating Tree

Simply a planted deciduous tree. Simple, unnoticed, and familiar, that is until one realizes that the tree is in fact moving, rotating at its trunk at a nearly unperceivable rate of one rotation every two to three minutes. What is planted is a robust and durable rotating mechanism, hidden underground, unseen and inaudible. The tree blends into its natural surroundings, into the everyday, the overlooked.

Fading into the familiarity of our daily surroundings, the daily walk, until that very glaze of familiarity, the seen but unnoticed, is shatter through the realization that there is nothing familiar about it. It appears normal and is yet extremely abnormal. Real and yet evidently fictive.

This contrasting of the preconceived (a tree) and the perceived (a tree rotating) creates an uncanny experience in which the viewer is left to rectify two contrasting realities. This juxtaposition of preconception and perception results in a rethinking of the everyday, of the environment that surrounds us, and creates a heightened awareness of the familiar surroundings, albeit momentary.

Like in much of my work, this project develops a tension between fact and fiction, exploring the fluctuating boundaries between the real and the simulated.