WITHER
A slice of rainforest disappearing at the Amazon deforestation rate.
This slice of digital rainforest disappears in front of your eyes on the rate of deforestation happening right now.
While we are in isolation deforestation is in full acceleration.
With no-one to watch the Amazon deforestation is picking up with a baffling 71% these days.
This slice of digital rainforest disappears in front of your eyes on the rate of deforestation happening right now.
While we are in isolation deforestation is in full acceleration. With no-one to watch the Amazon deforestation is picking up with a baffling 71% these days. Dutch artist Thijs Biersteker uses the current deforestation data to control one square meter of rainforest that can disappear right in front of your eyes. Helping us to imagine the sheer scale of loss happening at this moment, in places where no one is there to watch.
As the world is forced to slow down in lockdowns due to Covid-19, there is a 71% acceleration of deforestation happening in the Brazilian rainforests through the lack of enforcement as result of the pandemic. [1] Bringing us onto a hard to imagine 2.560 m2 of ancient rainforest that is lost each second. [2]
The digital art installation ‘Wither’ by dutch eco-artist Thijs Biersteker brings alive these abstract data that has a big impact on the recovery of our ecosystem.
Controlled by the latest deforestation data, the leaves of this digital slice of rainforest turn transparent in front of your eyes. Each second ten leaves disappear. Every flickering of a leaf marks the loss of 250m2 of rainforest. Making the work a living monument to the loss of precious rainforest happening at this very moment somewhere hidden far away in the Amazon.
‘Wither’ is build using an adaptive set of deforestation data. The digital leaves turn transparent when current is applied, turning every leaf visible or invisible. Controlled by the data every flickering of a leave marks the loss of 250m2 of rainforest. The artwork is adapted to the current data coming in by the different deforestation watch groups.
“It is interesting that while we dream, talk, videocall, and post about a new post-Covid-19 world, an old system is destroying our future more fiercefull than ever. This artwork turns deforestation facts into something you can feel. Hopefully it will provoke people to spend their time inside, to think about the world they want to go back to outside. I often wonder when we are allowed back into the world, what will we find, and what will we have lost? ”
The work was originally scheduled to launch post-Covid-19. However the recent acceleration of deforestation due to Covid-19 made the artist, his team from Woven Studio and the commissioner, fashion brand Daily Paper, decide to launch the work right now to create awareness around the topic.
A collaboration for a next generation
Bound together by their need for social impact and awareness, Daily Paper and artist Thijs Biersteker created ‘Wither’ for the Paris Fashion week and beyond. Showing a new world where we explore new ways to create the future where we all co-exist, nature, humanity and technology.
[1] Amazon Deforestation Accelerates as Coronavirus Pandemic Hinders Enforcement.
[2] Deforestation rate in 2017/2018 was 1500m2 a second, with the increase of 71% in 2020 the total of deforestation comes to 2565 m2 a second, a staggering 17 football fields a minute.
Commissioned by
Daily Paper
Presented by
Woven Studio
Production
Sophie de Krom
Electronics
Bas van Oerle
Soundscape
End of Time
With special thanks to
Switchfoil, Thomas voor ‘t Hekke, Kees Plattel
Research and
collaboration
Press
and
Awards
