possibility of a forest
Magic died the moment Art and Science split. Two hundred years ago, girls were encouraged to study science, while boys were pushed toward classical languages[1]. This division, it was believed, would harmonize the intellects and talents of both genders, fostering a society that thrived on specialized knowledge. Yet, in severing the mystical threads that once wove through both realms, something profound was lost. In the quiet shadows of this separation, whispers of a forgotten power linger, waiting to be rediscovered by those willing to seek the hidden unity of the cosmos.
The woods symbolize those key moments in life when you venture beyond the familiar, embrace uncertainty, and dare to explore and refine your existence. In this context, aurèce vettier's forêt, tentative, exhibition explores personal and collective evolution and connection. Much like the transformative forests in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and J.R.R. Tolkien's "Fangorn Forest," aurèce vettier's artworks beckon with a sense of magic and an attempt to delve into the depths of the woods. The exhibition, with its unconventional grammar reminiscent of a fragment from an unfinished sentence, seeks to traverse the forest. At times, this endeavor blossoms into a more profound experience, which the artist aptly calls “crossing the forest”. This evolving, process-driven act weaves a contemporary narrative richly entwined with historical and philosophical themes.
A lesser-known tradition constructed around the forest is the concept of chaos linked to ὕλη "hyle" 'forest' in works associated with the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle.[2] In Aristotelian philosophy, "hyle" refers to matter or the underlying substance of things. Neo-Platonic[3] writers later equated "hyle" with evil and "cosmos" 'order' with good, while medieval glosses by thinkers like Chalcidius and Servius highlight the philosophical roots of forests. In this sense the forest symbolizes a blend of primordial elements and embodies a sense of continual change and transformation, echoing the dynamic nature of chaos. These themes permeate aurèce vettier exploration, layering his contemporary work with a complex blend of chaos, order, and mystical transitions akin to ancient Greek literature.
If aurèce vettier were ever to inhabit a human form, he would wear a beard, his dark brown eyes shining with curiosity and vigor. He would be a classical man from another era called Paul Mouginot. It was an early summer night in 2024 when I encountered Paul in the forest of Château du Feÿ, deep in Burgundy. Paul stood waiting, bathed in a gentle light that illuminated an otherworldly branch of a tree. Heaving raindrops clung to the branch before falling to the dark, soft bed of bracken bushes below. The branch jutted from the solid trunk, glowing in the darkness, its color elusive as the water magically broke the light.
There was something sacred about this branch, its leaves, and fresh sprouts adorned in an amalgam of green and turquoise. Paul welcomed me, and in our brief but profound exchange, it was revealed that the mysterious branch was his art—a cultural intervention seamlessly integrated into the proud body of the tree, like a prosthesis yet barely visible or recognizable. We stood in the rain, contemplating that art need not be seen to affirm its existence; it could simply be created for the cosmos, and that was enough.
Until now, the common understanding of art, rooted in Walter Benjamin's human-centered, participatory tradition, was that the audience completes the work of art and its aura. But what if art could exist as the forest does, needing no human presence to complete its story?
At the storied Bastide du Roy in Antibes, aurèce vettier's forêt, tentative, proposition unfurls an intriguing tapestry that weaves together the threads of utopian nostalgia and innovation of the otherly. The exhibition delves into the interplay of nature, technology, and consciousness through intricate bronze sculptures, AI-inspired herbology paintings, and a bespoke sound installation in collaboration with Studio Ingmar.
The bronze sculptures are paramount to his artistic program, a masterful fusion of the timeless and ephemeral. aurèce vettier’s pieces capture the organic essence of natural forms, anchoring the ethereal, dreamlike shapes born of AI in the enduring solidity of bronze. Some of these sculptures stand at an impressive height of 3 meters, establishing them as the largest AI-generated bronze sculptures created thus far. The making of these sculptures might seem like a natural process, but it's actually a masterful blend of art and technology. The journey begins with generating fantastical plant shapes using a GAN[4], which are then meticulously converted into 3D models. Real branches, foraged from the forest, are selected to match these digital forms, forming the framework for the sculpture. The next step involves 3D printing AI-generated leaves, which are seamlessly incorporated into the design. The pieces are then cast in bronze, assembled, and carefully patinated, resulting in one-of-a-kind sculptures. The artworks invite viewers to ponder how modern technology can capture and preserve the elaborate magnificence of the natural world. This process echoes the traditional role of art in honoring nature, reminiscent of Karl Blossfeldt's detailed plant photograph. It is worth highlighting the vivid botanical engravings by Albrecht Dürer, which also influenced an earlier work, AD.VM.AV.IA, created in collaboration with Vera Molnár.
Within the exhibition, the botanical paintings from Potential Herbaria offer a reinterpretation of traditional herbology through the lens of artificial intelligence, simultaneously honoring convention and venturing into realms of speculative naturalism. Drawing inspiration from the meticulous studies of Codex Seraphinianus and the vibrant naturalism of Pierre-Joseph Redouté, aurèce vettier's works present a modern twist, blending reality with a touch of science fiction. As aurèce vettier so aptly describes, “my work draws inspiration from Haruki Murakami's ability to craft worlds that are almost familiar yet tantalizingly different. Just as Murakami's two moons signify another dimension, my work reflects shapes that seem ordinary yet distinctly otherworldly, blending mathematical intricacies with dreamlike visions.” Laden with environmental undertones, they urge a reevaluation of humanity's relationship with the botanical world, akin to the environmental narratives of Rachel Carson or the eco-philosophies espoused by Vandana Shiva.[5]
aurèce vettier’s series has shattered the boundaries of sterile white-walled galleries, journeying into the organic splendeur of a French garden, where traces of human control yield to nature's wild embrace, leading into the untamed forest. This juxtaposition harbors a tension poised to unravel structured order, blending chaos with peace. At the heart of this transformative experience is an extraordinary collaboration with Studio Ingmar, the brainchild of Thérèse Boon Falleur and Alice Orpheus. forêt, tentative, is a sensory feast; their high-tech creation draws inspiration from avant-garde composers like Eliane Radigue, and echoes Franz Liszt's piano brilliance with its minimalist repetition. This soundscape also captures Debussy's compositions' transformative, repetitive beauty. The result is a spatial sound piece, blending the tangible artworks with the surrounding ecosystem, merging familiar and uncanny natural tones with futuristic echoes while stretching the limits of their hardware.
For centuries, forests have symbolized change and self-reflection in literary and philosophical traditions, from the enchanted realms of folklore to Henry David Thoreau's profound reflections in Walden. In science fiction, forests transform into portals to otherworldly dimensions, mirroring the visions of Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin.[6] While artist Sophie Kahn dissects the shortcomings of technology in capturing the human form through her fragmented, faux-historical, and virtual sculptures, aurèce vettier embraces artificial intelligence algorithms to conjure fantastical plants. The flora resembles natural forms but imbues an eerie sense of artificiality, hinting at the supernatural. This blurring of boundaries suggests a return to magic, merging art and science to create hybrid experiences. By positioning humans within nonhuman spaces, aurèce vettier's work challenges and dismantles centuries of separation between these realms. This reconnection fosters new ways of vibration, where magic emerges in unforeseen places.
Less surprising to those seeking art in nature, one of the places that comes to mind is the Venet Foundation in the South of France. This majestic property serves as a residence for the artist Bernar Venet and houses his postwar art collection that has been influential in redefining artistic paradigms. Among the notable works displayed are pieces by Frank Stella, James Turrell, and Anish Kapoor. Venet and aurèce vettier bonded over poetry, their mind entwined through words and verse. Venet proposed a clandestine collaboration, a sculptural intervention near La Nartuby River. The idea sparked like a hidden ember in aurèce's heart, igniting their shared passion for creation. An impossible tree, suggestive of a misty presence, mirror the transient nature of living organisms. This artistic approach, akin to Freud's “dream-work”, explorations of the subconscious, encourages deep contemplation routed in earlier works like Circular Ruins (2022) and le travail des rêves (2024). By combining historical and contemporary techniques, aurèce vettier’s work highlights these inquiries, prompting us to recognize the surreal changes inherent in human experiences within the realms of poésis and art. I mention poetry because it is a cornerstone of aurèce vettier's artistry. In 2019, he commenced his journey by crafting a book of verses aided by a machine. The Markov chain algorithms generated the initial content, which he meticulously pieced together manually, maintaining the distinctive imprint of the artist.
His work, forêt, tentative, at Bastide du Roy, is a poetic meditation on nature's timeless allure and the transformative possibilities of technology. This harmonious fusion of sculpture, painting, and soundscape invites us to explore the complex interplay between forests as physical and symbolic realms, offering a space to lose and rediscover ourselves. Like the climbers in Daumal's Mount Analogue, who confront the ultimate frontier, visitors to forêt, tentative, are encouraged to delve beyond the immediate, perceiving the deeper intersections of the human and the natural, the present and the timeless. Daumal’s prose ends abruptly, in an unfinished and eternal comma, a reminder that the most profound explorations are never truly complete. They pause, deep in contemplation, awaiting our next steps in the boundless forest that both aurèce vettier and Daumal so evocatively conjure.
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[1]: Renée Bergland: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, 2024, Princeton University Press.
[2]: Hylomorphism: from Greek hyle, “matter”; morphe, “form.” According to this metaphysical view, central to Aristotle's philosophy of nature, every natural body consists of two inherent principles: one potential, i.e. primary matter, and an one actual, i.e. substantial form. The primordial elements, earth, water, fire, and air, according to this doctrine can be known directly by way of experiment. However, matter and form are not physical entities existing or acting independently: they exist and act only within and by the composite. Thus, they can be known only indirectly, by intellectual analysis, as the metaphysical principles of bodies. Aristotle based his argument chiefly on the analysis of “becoming” or substantial change. For something to change into something else a permanent element must exist that is common to both; otherwise there can be no transformation but merely a succession by the annihilation of the first term and the creation of the second. This permanent and common something cannot itself be strictly a being because a being already is and does not become, and because a being “in act” cannot be an intrinsic part of a being possessing a unity of its own; it must therefore be a being “in potency,” a potential principle, passive and indeterminate. At the same time, in the two terms of the change, there must also be an actual, active, determining principle. The potential principle is matter; the actual principle, form. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.
[3]: Neo-Platonists were a group of philosophers who followed and expanded upon the teachings of the ancient Greek thinker Plato. This philosophical movement emerged in the 3rd century AD and reached its peak in the 3rd to 6th centuries AD. Neo-Platonists aimed to reconcile Platonic philosophy with other philosophical traditions, particularly drawing from elements of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Eastern mysticism. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.
[4]: Generative Adversarial Network is a class of machine learning frameworks and a prominent framework for approaching generative AI, that emerged in 2014 and is used by aurèce vettier since 2019.
[5]: Rachel Carson, through her seminal work "Silent Spring," brought to light the detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, sparking a global environmental movement. Similarly, Vandana Shiva's eco-philosophies emphasize biodiversity and sustainable agriculture, advocating for the rights of communities against the backdrop of globalized industrial practices. Both figures inspire deeper ecological awareness and activism, themes that resonate deeply within aurèce vettier's art.
[6]: In Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey," the mysterious alien monoliths are linked to a primordial forest on Earth, suggesting a deep connection between nature and cosmic intelligence. Similarly, Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Word for World is Forest" portrays an extraterrestrial forest world where indigenous beings possess a profound spiritual connection to their ecosystem, reflecting her exploration of ecological themes and the interplay between humans and nature.