Becoming a forest

Kuvaus

Becoming a forest is an artistic research project exploring new ways of presenting
forests through audiovisual narration. In addition to journal articles, the project includes an experimental short film (Definition of Forest, 2024), based on physicist and
philosopher Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism. As the screenwriter and director
of the film, I have applied Barad’s theoretical thinking to a Finnish forest ecosystem.

Drawing on quantum physics, Barad argues that things – objects or subjects – do not
have predefined boundaries or features, but they emerge in relations to others. Instead of a reality that precedes representations such as films, agential realism suggests a reality of perpetual becoming where coincidence and nonhuman agency play active roles.

The short film presents a forest by focusing on the material–discursive processes and
practices shaping it. Perpetual and sustained phenomena such as decay, growth, or
photosynthesis are imagined through the soundscape. Voiceovers explaining the forest attempt to persuade the viewer, but they are frequently disrupted by layered
implications and nonhuman sounds. Our corporeal entanglement with the forest is
performed through the organic movement of a dancer, but traditional storytelling
centered on a main character is eschewed by ecocentric framing and the deceleration
of human movement.

This approach emphasizes the plurality of agencies – both human and nonhuman –
involved in the becoming of a forest. It brings together diverse sounds and voices,
temporalities, and needs without imposing a hierarchy on the reality the film depicts. Indialogue with new materialist and documentary film theories this research project
generates knowledge about how we might witness, reimagine and discuss ideas of
nature through an experimental short film.

The conference presentation connects with the exhibition of the short film Definition of Forest at the University’s Puoti Gallery during the symposium.

Aikajakso	24 lokak. 2025
Tapahtuman otsikko	Sustainable Naturecultures and Multispecies Future Symposium
Tapahtuman tyyppi	Konferenssi
Sijainti	Rovaniemi, SuomiNäytä kartalla