Tree Rings

Immersive Dome Performance | 2025

Labos Immersifs Residency
Premiered – Montréal, Canada, 21 March 2025, Satosphère of SAT

Program Note

Tree Rings is an immersive dome performance that explores the metaphor of tree growth rings as a structure for interweaving memory and archival material through a layered dialogue between sound and visuals. The piece traces a sensory journey from the microscopic world of cells and microorganisms to the macroscopic scale of tree textures, forests, and ecosystems—mirroring how memories form, accumulate, and connect over time.

In the first section, Yu-Chia Kuo’s sound design employs granular synthesis to transform natural recordings into shimmering textures that evoke cellular growth and microbial life. These sounds are visually mirrored by Time Wei’s real-time audio-reactive 3D imagery, using sound as a generative force. The visuals incorporate AI-generated forms based on Taiwanese text inputs, evolving into constellation-like structures—an imagined celestial archive of language and memory.

The second section, created by Florence-Delphine Roux (sound) and Pia Vidal (visuals), expands the perspective into forests and ecosystems. Through field recordings, archival audio, and live performances, the soundscape evolves into an immersive spatial environment. Visually, abstract traces and gestural forms express memory as something fluid, embodied, and ever-changing.

These two movements offer a meditative, multisensory reflection on ecological time, personal and collective memory, and the deep interconnection between sound, image, and the environment.

Credits

Sound Design: Yu-Chia Kuo, Florence-Delphine Roux
Visual Design: Time Wei, Pia Vidal
Photography: Ash KG, courtesy of SAT Montréal
Supported by: Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), Arts hybrides et cultures numériques (AADN)