Artist Statement

Theme: Immersion(s) Subtheme: Symbiotic Organizations

Keywords: Wildfire, ecosystem, plant neurobiology, augmented reality, collaboration, digital perception, speculation, mychorizae

This talk proposes the presentation of a research-creation project, granted by the program ”Cultures Connectées” from the région Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Pyrocumulus presents an interactive device integrating collaborative augmented reality and sculptures made with photogrammetry and Machine Learning. Pyrocumulus was born from the reflection of an ecological disaster that occurred on July 30, 2020 in the for- est of Pignada in Anglet (France). Inspired by the trees’ communication, this project questions the inspirations that we borrow from the living. Pyrocumulus, deals about the creation of an information network after a fire.

The art project is also a laboratory where arts and science are mixed to experiment scientific and artistic knowledge and techniques. By creating reconstructions of burned trees through 3D printing and by creating a collaborative augmented reality application, the project called upon tree specialists to understand the development of trees. It is by using the figure of the ‘pyrocumulus’ — cloud of fire — that we wish to draw what is the ”cloud”, the exchange of data, but also a worrying technological context that we name the ‘Pyrocene’: the Age of fire or ‘Human activity’. Creating from collaborative augmented reality is a direction that allows to put forward the relational stakes of the human and the non-human.

• Alizée Armet lives and works in Bilbao (Spain) and Bordeaux (France). She get a Ph.D in 2021 at the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Leioa (Upv-Ehu, Spain), on the subject of Art et Technologie au XXIeme siècle. De la machine de vision à l’intelligence artificielle (Art and Technology in 21st century. From the vision machine to the artificial intelligence). Her artistic works have been presented at various exhibitions. Pyrocumulus, Festival Accès Cultures Électronique, Billère, France (2022) ; Stadt.xml, Basis e.V, Frankfurt Am Main, Germany (2019); Festival MEM, Bilbao, Spain (2021); Futur Now, Setsetsetset Gallery, London, UK (2021). She has also had the opportunity to participate in several international residencies as with IEPA#3, (23 May, 2018 until 23 July 2018) residency exchange with Basis e.V Frankfurt-Am- Main, (Germany); Mahaia residency, (11th December 2019 until 11th January 2020) Centro Huarte, Huarte, (Spain). She participed to lectures: “Between ecological realities, scientific realities and technological realities”, (11th March, 2021), Renewable Futures, FeLT, University of Oslo, Norway; « la participation de l’art dans les deepfakes: entre instrumentalisation et réflexivité », Comment les images nous mentent, la sémiotique au défi du Deep Fake, (27th May, 2021 until 28th May,2021), SEMDI, Bordeaux 3, France; “Stadt.xml”, (15th December,2021 until 16th December, 2021), Jornada International Arte Sostenbile, Universidad Computense, Madrid, Spain. The “Région Nouvelle Aquitaine” awarded Alizée Armet, a grant from the “Cultures Connectées” Program in 2021 for an art installation named Pyrocumulus in collaboration with Estia, Engineering school in Bidart (France). She particpated in 2022 into the EMAP/EMARE residency with Kersnikova Institute pour the ongoing project “Ghostly plants of damaged worlds”.