Forest Beings – Phase 01

Forest Beings – Ars Electronica 2025
Forest Beings – alles.immer.offen

Künstlerische Leitung und Projektentwicklung: Lisa Ehrenstrasser, Barbara von Rechbach; Forschung AI Entwicklung GANs: Pablo Ferrería Hijón, Cristina Rubio Escudero

Forest Beings ist ein techno-ökologisches ArtSci Projekt, das künstliche Intelligenzen mit Naturerfahrungen und der Bedeutung von Wald als Sinnesraum verbindet. Forest Beings gestaltet unterschiedliche “Sense Spaces” zum Thema Waldbaden und unserer Einbindung und Vernetzung in und mit ökologischen Systemen. Erinnerungen an Walderfahrungen werden über GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) erkundet und wieder sensuell ausgespielt.

Künstliche intelligente Systeme lernen über Besuchereingaben, Repräsentationen und Erinnerungen an das Leben die Bedeutung von Naturerfahrung zu erforschen, Erinnerungen an Erlebnisse im Wald zu archivieren und prioritisieren, neu zu kombinieren und in unterschiedlichen Medien audio-visuell auszuspielen.

Forest Beings ist angewandte Wissenschaftskommunikation, die in der Gestaltung von “Sense Spaces” abstrakte Konzept Begriffe- und erlebbar macht. Um zu erfahren, was ein GAN ist und was es kann erzeugen wir einen hybriden Natur-Raum, über Geräusche, Gerüche und visuelle Elemente, der ein immersives Eintauchen in ein „Waldbaden”, ermöglicht.

Audio-Narrative und akustische Reisen in die Natur werden von den GAN-Systemen aus Datenbanken neu zusammengestellt und mit Erinnerungsfragmenten der BesucherInnen, die durch das Sinnesraumerlebnis mit dem GAN ausgelöst wurden, verbunden. Die Erinnerungen fließen in die GAN-Archive ein, und sind so ein wichtiger Beitrage für die Bedeutung von Natur und unsere Interaktionen und Verflechtungen mit menschlichen und nicht-menschlichen, “more-than-human beings”.

Forest Beings – Phase 01; A GANs Sense Space

Art Direction and Project Development: Lisa Ehrenstrasser, Barbara von Rechbach, Pablo Ferrería Hijón; GANS research: Cristina Rubio Escudero

Forest Beings is a techno-ecological experience in a sensual enviroment. You enter an artificial forest triggered through human memories of being in nature, explored, filtered and provided by GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks).
We want GANs to explore representations and memories of being-in-a-forest, with a search of diverse archives of datasets. To learn what a GAN is and can do, we offer an in-situ experience of a forest bath experience: sounds, smells and visuals create an atmosphere of a “bath in a forest”.

Fotos above show visitors in our forest being sound cave at ars 25 (2.09.2025 Lisa Ehrenstrasser)

Audio narrations and acoustic journeys into nature are chosen from databases by the GAN systems and played out during your stay in the sense space.

Visitors can record personal memories of forest walkds triggered by the sense space experience with the GAN, which will be fed back into the system and translated into new audio experiences. These stories contribute to GAN archives for the systems to learn new ways of being in a relationship with a forest and our own entanglement with the natural world.

Forest Beings creates a sensual environment with generative adversarial networks (GANs), inspired by the neuroplasticity of the human brain. This sense space sees artificial intelligence as a productive interrelationship of humans, animals, plants and technology in a setting of a mindful forest walking experience, a forest bathing environment. Non-human beings inspire us to think and do intelligence in a different way, with mutual respect and recognition of agency of all its actors. We work with the concept of “more-than-human beings” which describes the earthly nature as an „animate world” and a “commonwealth of breath” (David Abrams). We advocate the techno-ecological perspective of a broader understanding of being in the world, that demonstrates the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life on the planet. Our main goal is to experiment with new ways of thinking with and through technology in relationship with our environments and more-than-human beings and to create an awareness for our own entanglement in the natural world.

Forest Beings tests different perceptions of reality, using GANs training sets to develop new data input for various experiences of being in a forest, interconnected with the world. We design a sense space in which multiple human and non-human entities come together to form a relationship: memories of forest beings.

In our fast-paced AI-driven world, a different mindset in the usage of GANs can help us to rediscover our innate ability of being human: being connected to the environment and all its inhabitants. A more sustainable future demands a thorough cooperation with the existing environment and all its agents.

„Technology is what we can learn to do.“ (Ursula K. Le Guin)

We see our roles as artists to intervene in the development of future systems in working with different forms of machine learning that seek to question common assumptions about intelligence and the application of standardized models in reductive corporate AI.

It is important to find more interesting and engaging ways in creative collaborations with nature and technology. There are different ways of “doing technology” (James Bridle), since technology is always about what we can learn to do.” (Ursula K. Le Guin). Artificial Intelligence is used as a techno-ecological guide for a better understanding of the nature intelligence that surrounds us and lets us explore our relational being-in-the-world.

Lisa Ehrenstrasser, Barbara von Rechbach, 2025