Sprouting (metasequoia)

AR

Sprouting (metasequoia) is an augmented reality (AR) artwork that presents a gigantic version of a Metasequoia tree’s sprouting leaf. The metasequoia tree thrived in the northern hemisphere millennia ago. It subsequently entered a period of decline, and was assumed extinct until it was ‘rediscovered’ in the 1940s in a remote area of China. The tree has since been propagated around the globe as a highly popular urban landscaping tree. As such, the metasequoia is a potent metaphor for the ways in which human preferences have complicated possible understandings of what ‘nature' might be. Sprouting seeks to challenge the common notion of human-nature dualities. By activating the work, the audience participates in further dispersing the flickering virtual plant amid a bustling city.

Micro-CT scan by Centre for High-Throughput Phenogenomics, University of British Columbia. Creative technology by Nicholas Liang 

AR documentation by the artist