In response to Modern Art Oxford’s exhibition ‘Sign, Symbol, Sound’, I have imagined the non-verbal conversations set in a sound world of the ‘Wood Wide Web’ – the connections made by tree roots and networks of fungi under our feet. In a series of three ‘Exchanges’, envisaging the language of signals and sounds the compounds might make, as well as the growth movement of the structures themselves. I’ve applied certain rules to the pieces to structure pitch and pulse, inspired by the Fibonacci sequence which is how these intermingled networks grow.

Exchange 1

What would the communications of a tree in distress under attack from aphids and others reacting to help it be like?  

Exchange 2

What is the mutual language of foraging and communication of resources of such a large chaotic, but connected community along superhighways of water and compounds?

Exchange 3

What would the entanglement of hyphae and root sound like, an intimate mingling conversation at a cellular level?

Vintage telephone handsets allow the viewer to ‘tap in’ to the liquid flow of messages.

All sounds used have been recorded on site, using natural materials or made with found objects in the studio including junk instruments, trombones and my voice.