#arborescence

It's difficult to imagine the Earth without its forests, but it wasn't until the Devonian just 400 million years ago that the first awkward tree sprouted like fuzz from Earth's pubescent chin. What little we know of critical periods of ancient arborescence, or tree development, is mostly based on stumps and roots preserved in rock, with a scattering of leaves and branches squished flat between layers of mud and stone.

Être, ici/là-bas, 2024 (détail)

Pierres de verre, structure en cuivre, microphone, leds vertes, papier incrustation bleu.

Jean Dubuffet, Arborescenes I, 1971,

Screenprinted vacuum-formed relief, 

Initialed and dated '72' in pencil, numbered 13/75,

Overall: 12 1/8 x 9 ½ in. (308 x 241 mm.)

Arborescence 

Arborescence II, 2023

Cuivre, aquarelle

[Arborescence II, 2023

What does it mean to be human… if standing still can make you something else entirely?

Pre-Reading Thoughts: I knew this would be strange, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the odd, fragmentary way the story unfolds - sections sometimes just a few lines, each a quiet nudge toward disquiet. The premise alone, people standing still until they become trees, is enough to make you pause and wonder what exactly “human” even means.

Post-Reading: As I thought... The writing is curious and provocative, pulling you into a slow, meditative drift. Each short section feels like a leaf falling - light, precise, and oddly weighty. The idea of transformation, of nature reclaiming human form, is compelling and uncanny.

It surprised me by... Balancing subtle unease with a strange, creeping beauty. Cities decay, the world grows greener, people disappear - and yet the imagery is vivid and almost mesmerising. The tension isn’t about action or chase, it’s in that quiet, almost casual strangeness that keeps lingering in your mind.

🎧 MUSIC PAIRING 🎵 “The Wolves (Act I & II)” – Bon Iver 🎶 Selected Ambient Works, Volume II – Aphex Twin 🎧 Grouper — ethereal, slightly unsettling, meditative

🌌 VIBE CHECK 🎨 Colour Palette: muted greens, greys, deep browns. 🎬 Soundtrack: wind through forests, rustling leaves, faint creaks of urban decay. 🍂 Season: late autumn turning into winter - a quiet, suspended time. 😶‍🌫️ Mood: eerie, meditative, subtly unsettling. 🌾 Scent: damp soil, fallen leaves, sap, and smoke from abandoned fires.

🃏 TAROT PULL – The Empress (Horror Tarot) A figure with a plant literally bursting from her stomach, surreal and uncanny. Growth and transformation here are beautiful, grotesque, and inevitable - just like the story’s arborescence phenomenon. Humans and nature entwine in ways that are mesmerising, bizarre, and quietly alarming.

For fans of: 📚 The Overstory – Richard Powers 🎬 Annihilation