Tree Faces

My attention is grabbed by the way that this tree was altered by human actions. It is modelled in a specific way, for human entertainment. Its leaves are removed from their original place, removed from the way they usually grow, and placed in a way that aligns with the aesthetic intention of the person that altered them.  

 This evokes feelings of sadness, of conflict. The tree is smiling but did not choose to smile. It cannot even smile. It is wearing a wig of its own leaves, which humans might think is funny, but three loses its natural shape. It angers me in a way, that there is a need for a smiling tree, as if the tree itself is not interesting enough. 

 I related to this in a conceptual way. Seeing it as an example of something that happens on a larger scale. I view it as a symptom of anthropomorphism. 

What grabs my attention are the robotic movements of this tree. It is far removed from an actual tree. The deformed, exaggerated, carnivalesque, enlarged facial features that create an uncanniness. The tree has a voice, it advertises. Again, the tree is used as an instrument to narrate a human desire, a beg for money, an advertising object, a narrative.

 The video evokes humor. It is so far removed from its original that it leans into ridicule and absurdity. It also evokes confusion and discontent, about this being the way to commercialise everything that humans can make profit out of. It makes me think that we are a dumb and naive species that falls for anything. Looking for spectacle and it never being enough. 

 It tells me that I have a conflicted relation with the personified trees. In some way I find joy in them and laughter, not in a direct sense, but with a distanced relation to it. I view it in relation to a larger phenomenon, and it is not just ridiculous because it is also widespread. My relation is distanced, observed and analysed from afar.

What grabs my attention is how much my creation resembles what I am trying to critique. I was effectively able to recreate the aesthetics that interest me so much in my research. How accurate it is to a vision I could already project in my brain. 

I feel satisfied and fulfilled by making the visual that I had in my head a reality. I feel satisfied about getting into contact with production techniques that was not aware of or using before. Learning new skills.  

 I am becoming the producer of the object that I am critiquing. It puts me in a different and conflicted, more nuanced, position. Actually it is a quite intense production process, it is not as automated as I thought. A lot of work goes into enforcing and reproducing these aesthetics of anthropomorphism of trees. I become the creator as well as the critic, and I am surprised how satisfied the creating process makes me feel.