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The forest reaches each of us in a deep and visceral way. It revives memories, evokes stories and reveals emotions. The tree is an undeniable link between the earth and the sky, a temple of cosmic sensations, a place of shelter and confidence for our aches, for our words.

At the crossroads between the themes of nature and new technologies, MotherTree is a participative and evolving work. Imagined by Selma Bourdon and Julie Machin, MotherTree is an interactive installation that tends to refocus the plants at the core of the living and the living at the core of the world. By reclaiming the imaginary of tales, orally transmitted stories, we use the voice as a way of mystical communication, of inter-species cooperation from human to outer-human.

Scientific studies have proven that the mycelium (underground fungus) contributes to fungal intelligence (plant sensitivity). This has led us to consider the forest as a whole, a living body, whose "organs" communicate thanks to this subterranean nervous structure. The oldest trees (mother trees) constitute the "nodes" of the global network in the forest, feeding the youngest trees through the mycelium.

Inspired by the lichens and oyster mushrooms that grow in symbiosis on the trunks of trees, MotherTree delimits a sensitive zone on the mother tree that induces the visitor to come and confide in the hollow of its trunk. This interactive device, like a vocal receptacle, takes the form of collars of oyster mushrooms and lichens that lights up and diffuses sound. Using digital technology, in particular sensors and programming, the stories collected are then spreaded and amplified in the forest, like an effervescent, luminous polyphony.

The mushroom collars are made from bio-resin and the lichen collars are made from "fused plastics" from recycled materials. These conscious, innovative techniques adds to a different way of thinking digital creation by taking into account the environmental issues of our time.