Understory

A forest is waiting

Every seed is a new forest: its own tuning, sounds, fungi, weather and room. You stand in the middle and hear everything around you.

Headphones give the full 3D image.

Ecosystem

How the forest lives. It runs on its own; these set its temperament.

Space

You are the listener in the centre. Drag on the forest floor to turn, drag your head to walk, or let it drift.

Layers

Mix the five voices of the forest.

How it lives

Trees hum in the seed's tuning, louder by day. They make sugar in the light; the hub tree is the one with the most fungal links.

Hyphae grow from their tips, branch, fuse with themselves into loops and bond to roots. You hear the growing tips ticking near you.

Sugar flows from fed trees to shaded ones by pressure. Cords that carry it thicken; unused ones wither. A warm tone travels along the cords when it moves.

Signals are spike trains that travel along hyphae at walking pace. Nodes ring when they fire and pass the signal on. A wounded tree sends a faster, harsher alarm; trees that hear it harden their sound.

Fruit appears after rain when a fungus has stored enough. Its spores ride the wind around you and may land and grow into a new, mutated individual.