Arbor.art

ARBOR.Ars is the latest iteration of the ARBOR series — bio-computational timber sculptures exploring the intelligence of organic wood structure. Reimagining sculpture as a synthetically living system that remembers the living processes of both timber and mycelium, these works inhabit a threshold where organic processes are transcribed into technological forms, blurring the distinctions between sculpture, machine, and organism. The project draws on a vast dataset of microscopic wood structures, gathered from nearly a thousand tree species, to reveal the organisational intelligence embedded in timber. Machine learning algorithms and custom bio-computational tools translate these principles into digital geometries. These forms are 3D-printed from recycled wood composites, creating a carbon-storing architecture informed by the growth logic of trees. Comprising four sculptural compositions, ARBOR.Ars continues the logic of ARBOR.Pilae, presented at the Venice Biennale, and inherits the morphological resolution of ARBOR.Silva. Each composition consists of a wood-based 3D-printed shell, connected to a microcomputer with miniature displays, and a piezo speaker. While ARBOR.Silva hosted living mycelium during the exhibition, ARBOR.Ars presents an alternate form of “synthetic vitality”. Over months of laboratory cultivation, the bioelectrical activity of mycelium was recorded alongside environmental data. These recordings inform a machine learning algorithm embedded in the microcomputer, enabling it to simulate mycelial behaviour. Subtle sonic impulses — delicate crackles and faint rustles — allow the sculptures to “breathe” and respond as if alive, their sensitivity entirely data-driven. During exhibition, all materials remain inert and electronically stable, their vitality carried only in memory and simulation. Mounted on slender metal bases that echo their contours, the sculptures can be displayed on plinths or individual tables.